Q. Congressman McDermott has announced in Seattle that the President “is trying to bring himself all the power to become an emperor.” Louis Farrakhan has announced in Detroit “our President is a threat to world peace.” And singer Harry Belafonte has announced in San Diego that Secretary Colin Powell is “a racial sellout.” And my question is, does the President believe that these announcements were as much a mistake as ABC, CBS and NBC refusing to telecast his address to the nation — (laughter) — like Fox and CNN did? And shouldn’t Fox and CNN now be given front-row seats in this room and at presidential news conferences, since they’re obviously more interested in the presidency, those networks. (Laughter.) I don’t blame these correspondents. It wasn’t their fault, but those networks are less interested than Fox and CNN; isn’t that true, Ari?
ARI FLEISCHER: How did you get your second-row seat, Les?
Q. It was vacant.
MR. FLEISCHER: Okay, let’s see. So you’ve gone from, let’s see, this is the second question now, into a bank shot, into a speech. Let me — I’m not sure where you ended, so I don’t know where to began.
Q. Well, you can give a little of both, on McDermott and the rest, and then on these networks that don’t cover the President. But CNN and Fox did. Don’t they deserve –
Q. Congress Daily also covered this. (Laughter.)
MR. FLEISCHER: These are judgments that news organizations make. They exercise their own discretion as they see fit. And I think it’s entirely appropriate that the final decision about what is news is made by the people who write the news for a living.
Q. More people listen to Fox and CNN than to these other networks, didn’t they, Ari?
