Editor’s Note – Finger pointing is not new, but its only bad when a Republican speaks to President Obama after he dressed her down. If George W. Bush did the same thing impeachment hearings would already be scheduled for conduct unbecoming a President of the United States.

How about these priceless other events (view below):

  • Joe Biden excoriating Clarence Thomas at the Senate confirmation hearings,
  • or Obama dressing down Louisiana Governor Bobbi Jindal,
  • and Canadian PM Harper,
  • or Bill Clinton at a news conference about Monica Lewinsky,
  • or Obama and Hillary Clinton wagging fingers at a 2008 primary debate,
  • or multiple times when Obama addressed Bibi Netanyahu,
  • or when Obama addressed a crowd in Wisconsin?
  • and, how can we forget what happened to Rick Lazio when he merely got too close to Hillary Clinton in their 2000 NY Senatorial debates?

Absolute hypocrisy! Its cognitive dissonance at every turn. Why bother having a memory? It only matters if it happened in the last ten minutes. Then there is Dan Rather, the career imploding fraud! Truth does not count!

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Flashback 2006: NBC’s Brian Williams Points Finger At President Bush

By Noel Sheppard

Newsbusters

As NewsBusters previously reported, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Thursday, reacting with predictably similar disgust as the rest of the media to the picture of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer pointing her finger at Barack Obama, asked viewers, “Who have you ever seen talking to the president like this?”

Maybe he should have looked in the archives of interviews he did with George W. Bush wherein he was guilty of making the exact same supposedly offensive hand gesture at the President of the United States (videos follow with loads of commentary):

The video above was posted by a YouTube user named Stulz on January 21, 2007, and linked at Free Republic by Nachum about an hour ago. Compare this still taken from that video

to this one that has been generating mountains of disgust from media outlets all over the country:

From that Williams still, it looks like he and Bush were in quite a heated argument as opposed to the tremendously cordial exchange they were having, doesn’t it? Remember press members expressing disgust for Williams pointing his finger at the President that way? Apparently Williams doesn’t either, for here’s part of his highly outraged report from Thursday:

7:00PM ET TEASE:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Also, finger pointing. That photo everybody was talking about today. Who have you ever seen talking to the president like this and what was this all about?

7:06PM ET SEGMENT:

WILLIAMS: All of this takes us to the photo everybody’s been talking about today. The governor of Arizona with her finger in the face of the President of the United States. You don’t see that often or maybe ever

You were saying, Mr. Williams? Maybe folks like him should have considered the full context of this discussion rather than jumping to absurd conclusions from one still shot.

That would have been especially reasonable given the raw video of Brewer’s warm greeting of the President as well as the contents of the letter she handed to him. But doing so would have been too much like actual journalism, wouldn’t it?

*****Update: The original article claimed in the headline this Williams interview took place in 2007. Real Clear Politics reported it as August 2006. Upon review, RCP is correct. Actual air date was August 29, 2006. NewsBuster Brent Baker wrote about the interview at the time. Full transcript of interview is available here, video here.

Something else to consider is that this interview took place in New Orleans on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. As such, it likely was quite well-viewed.

Yet nobody minded Williams pointing his finger at the President of the United States.

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Then there are these:

Joe Biden berating Clarence Thomas during Senate hearing for the Supreme Court appointee

Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky days.

 

Hillary Clinton and Obama wag fingers in 2008 debate.

Obama actually touches Netanyahu's Chest with a pointed finger.

Obama points angrily at Canadian PM Harper

Barack Obama Pointing dressing down Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana with a mean finger!

President Barack Obama speaks on the economy at the Milwaukee Laborfest in Milwaukee, Monday, Sept. 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

 

Remember how much guff Rick Lazio got for getting too close to Hillary Clinton in a 2000 debate for NY Senator?