NBC News was granted extensive access to the White House for a special series airing this Tuesday and Wednesday, but some interesting scenes did not make the Nightly News cut.
NBC just posted several "web exclusives," however, like this 11-minute video of Obama chatting during a ride in the presidential motorcade. In response to anchor Brian Williams, The President knocks cable news culture, name-checking Pat Buchanan, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. "I don't find most of the cable chatter very persuasive," says Obama, adding "I don't feel as if I'm learning anything from the debate." He prefers print media, he explained.
Then at the end of ride -- 8 minutes in -- Obama rebuffs his aides' attempt to delay his exit so that pool reporters can cover the scene. Told that White House staffer Marvin Nicholson was trying to arrange press coverage of the arrival, Obama replies flatly, "he's being overruled."
Ari Melber
NBC News was granted extensive access to the White House for a special series airing this Tuesday and Wednesday, but some interesting scenes did not make the Nightly News cut.
NBC just posted several "web exclusives," however, like this 11-minute video of Obama chatting during a ride in the presidential motorcade. In response to anchor Brian Williams, The President knocks cable news culture, name-checking Pat Buchanan, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. "I don’t find most of the cable chatter very persuasive," says Obama, adding "I don’t feel as if I’m learning anything from the debate." He prefers print media, he explained.
Then at the end of ride — 8 minutes in — Obama rebuffs his aides’ attempt to delay his exit so that pool reporters can cover the scene. Told that White House staffer Marvin Nicholson was trying to arrange press coverage of the arrival, Obama replies flatly, "he’s being overruled."
(More from Rahm Emanuel below.)
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The President’s media criticism is pretty tame, however, compared to Rahm Emanuel.
It looks like the White House Chief of Staff really got into character booting the cameras out of meetings. In one exchange from the short video below, Emanuel swears at White House correspondent Chuck Todd and adds, "I hate all of you."
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Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.