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CNBC News Transcripts
SHOW: TIM RUSSERT (6:00 PM ET)
April 1, 2000, Saturday
LENGTH: 7136 words

RUSSERT: Al Gore has embarked upon a strategy of very limited press access.

Mr. BRODER: Yes.

RUSSERT: No interviews, no press conferences, and he--for example, on Elian Gonzalez, it was an e-mailed press release. He did not come before the cameras or before the American people and explain why he had taken this position or subject himself to questions from the press. Is that a winning strategy?

Mr. BRODER: I don't know, Tim ... But I have to remind you, that neither President Clinton nor Senator Dole held a single formal press conference between the date of their convention and Election Day in 1996. So there's an unfortunate precedent for this kind of behavior.

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On the one hand the Democrats sent a formal letter of complaint that your were giving TOO MUCH coverage to President Bush; on the other hand you are complaining that he is hiding from the press.

You can't have it both ways.

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Mr. Gore, we should remember, went months last year without allowing the press corps to question him, hiding behind a phalanx of Secret Service agents and political body blockers. A Mullings flashback by Kit Seelye of the NY Times:

Romulus, Mich., April 21 -- After two months of keeping his distance from the journalists who travel with him, Vice President Al Gore held his first news conference in this auto city 30 miles from Detroit.

"The fact that he held a news conference at all, speaking for 23 minutes, seemed more noteworthy than what he said."

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RANCH:

Elisabeth Bumiller: August 12, 2002 (White House Notebook) (from STONEWALL Texas) which meant she had to drive 16 miles in the wrong direction on state route 190, just to get that dateline.

Johnson himself said that his trips to the ranch (which took up more than four months of the year) allowed him "to recharge myself for the difficult days ahead."

Mr. Bush said much the same thing to The Associated Press. "I'm able to clear my mind and it helps me put it all in perspective," he said as his pickup bumped across a field. "Problems don't go away when we're here, but you can see them in a different light."