Audio: CBS News Correspondent calls McCain “disgraceful”

posted at 9:15 am on April 6, 2007 by Ian
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In an interview with CBS’ Public Eye blog, News Correspondent Allen Pizzey said McCain calling some neighborhoods in Iraq “safe” is “utter rubbish” and called him “disgraceful.”

Here’s a transcript of the exchange:

Brian Montopoli: It seems that some reporters, including yourself and CNN’s Michael Ware, have really taken umbrage at John McCain’s recent comments, essentially saying that there are a lot of neighborhoods where you can walk around relatively safely. Is it fair to say that that really sort of bothered reporters?

Allen Pizzey: Yes. It’s disgraceful for a man seeking highest office, I think, to talk utter rubbish. And that is utter rubbish. It’s electoral propaganda. It is simply not true. No one in his right mind who has been to Baghdad believes that story.

Now, McCain and some other senators were there on Sunday, and they claimed, “Oh, we walked around for a whole hour…and we drove in from the airport. Gosh, aren’t we great, we drove in from the airport.” Excuse me, Mr. McCain, you drove in in a large convoy of heavily armed vehicles. The last one had a sign on it saying “Keep back 100 yards. Deadly force authorized.” Every single car that they approached or passed pulled over and stopped, because that’s the way it is. When one of those security details goes by, every ordinary person gets the hell out of the way, in case they get shot.

If he did walk around that market, and I didn’t see him do it, and he didn’t announce he was going to do it, you can bet your life there were an awful lot of soldiers deployed to make sure that nobody came near that place. He’s talking rubbish. And he should not get away with it.

Well, someone’s tossing around utter rubbish. But it’s not McCain. Baghdad isn’t heaven, but it isn’t one gigantic, roiling cauldron of violence either.

(bp)

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