Stretch's gotcha
by digby
Greg Mitchell does the honors:
Transcript of predictably weak "Meet the Press" David Gregory interview with Netanyahu today. The Israeli leader lies flat out about maybe Hamas rockets wrecking that UN school (see below). He claims Israel not targeted "a single civilian" and anyway there are "plenty of places" they can flee to.
This is standard stuff. But Gregory then commits one of the worst journalistic ethical lapses of recent weeks. After letting Netanyahu claim, again, that Israel may be blameless in the school massacre, he brings on UNWRA spokesman Chris Gunness--and blindsides him by showing a tape just released within the hour by Israel allegedly showing a Hamas rocket being fired from the grounds of a UN school. Yet Gregory says NBC has not "verified" that it's accurate--and admits that Gunness cannot view and has never seen seen it. Yet asks Gunness to respond! Gunness naturally protests the unfairness--and then the segment quickly ends.
And the video he's showing is completely vague and unverifiable to anyone just looking at it anyway --- some black and white blurred images of something that looks like a projectile coming out of what what appears to be some kind of checkerboard pattern. (And yet I'm pretty sure I saw some aluminum tubes and some yellow cake stashed down in the lefthand corner...)
The UN guy was justifiably upset. He had just gone through a lengthy explanation of how the UN is operating in Gaza and what they are trying to accomplish and Gregory basically says "whatever ... that's nice ... now EXPLAIN THIS!!!"
I tweeted this after he said it: