A Slow, Fat Softball

Last night saw two competing A-List media parties in Washington–Roll Call’s 50th anniversary soiree and the Atlantic’s Mike Kelly Awards dinner–and veteran reporters at both scenes were complaining about Neil Cavuto’s “shameful” interview of President Bush on Wednesday. For a press corps that often gets attacked for being “too soft” on the President, Cavuto’s softball interview struck a nerve with many other White House correspondents who saw it as a wasted opportunity to actually contribute something to the national discourse–especially in a week that saw so much news of import.

An obviously frustrated Dan Froomkin tore into Cavuto in his White House Briefing yesterday:

“Thanks to Fox News’s exclusive interview with President Bush yesterday, the leader of the free world is now on the record when it comes to John Kerry’s Yale grades, Laura Bush’s presidential aspirations and — yes — the Michael Jackson trial’s effect on public policy discourse. Who wants to talk about that messy war in Iraq, or the Downing Street Memo? Not Neil Cavuto, Fox News executive, anchor, commentator and Bush campaign contributor,” Froomkin writes.

Cavuto didn’t even mention Iraq in his report or the interview, and his only question about the economy was phrased as “Do you think you get a bum rap in the media on the economy?”

“Is it any wonder that the President will sit down for an interview with Fox News?” one reporter asked at the Atlantic event last night. “[The White House] couldn’t come up easier questions themselves.”

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