Dictating the nature of the questions the press is allowed to ask.
Meet Tricky Dick II
One Question Napolitano
April 16, 2009
http://www.politico.com/blogs/anneschro ... itano.html
Today the Secretary [Napolitano] went on Morning Joe but they were only allowed to ask one question.
"Apparently, when the Democrats promise an open administration, they really only mean open as long as you ask the questions they want asked and no follow-ups on controversial topics that everyone is reporting on," staffer Joe Pounder wrote in an email.
Anyway check out the transcript:
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: “I want to have a discussion afterwards about that interview.”
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski: “Now, we should be clear, they only wanted one question.”
Scarborough: “Yeah. So this morning, I got a call that she [Janet Napolitano] was going to be on the show and they said we could only ask one question …”
Brzezinski: “That was the agreement.”
Scarborough: “…about this story yesterday. And I initially said, well, we're not going to do it then, because we don't allow people to tell us what they're going to talk about.”
Brzezinski: “Right.”
Scarborough: “I said, we'll ask one question, see how she responds and since this Mexico issue is so huge, we want our viewers to watch. If she was coming on to, you know, name a new post office that would have been something or a book that would have been – but I want – let's talk about that afterwards.”
Brzezinski: “Okay.”
Scarborough: “We'll ask our audience whether we should have had her on the show or not under those conditions.”
Brzezinski: “Okay, because I actually – I have so many follow-ups.”
Scarborough: “I had a lot of follow-ups.”
