Maddow says Bush never did one interview with the New York Times during his entire presidency

"President Bush never did one interview with the New York Times during his entire presidency."
Rachel Maddow on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 in "The Rachel Maddow" show

Condensed story from 2009 Pulitzer prize winner, Politifact.com Click here for Full Story.

Maddow hosts MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," as well as a radio show of the same name on Air America.

Conservative critics and some independent pundits have said that President Obama is guilty of freezing out a legitimate news network because he doesn't like its coverage.

If that's the case, then President George W. Bush did it, too, said liberal talk show host Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. She said the Bush administration frequently excluded liberal columnists and talk show hosts from meetings Bush held with conservative media.

"Would it surprise you to learn that President Bush never did one interview with the New York Times during his entire presidency? Not one in eight years?" she said.

There were at least three interviews that Bush gave the New York Times .

• On June 5, 2001, New York Times reporter Frank Bruni had what he described as Bush's first "one-on-one interview" since Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched parties and threw control of the Senate to the Democrats. "We're looking at a different landscape, but still on the same continent," Bush said. "The same votes. The members haven't changed."

• On Aug 26, 2004, Bush gave a half-hour interview to the New York Times as he campaigned through New Mexico. Bush told the newspaper that he did not believe Sen. John Kerry lied about his war record, as some groups alleged during the campaign.

• On Jan. 27, 2005, a week after he started his second term, Bush spoke with New York Times reporters for 40 minutes, discussing troop levels in Iraq and domestic issues such as gay adoption, abortion and Social Security.

Checking Maddow's statement that President Bush "never did one interview with the New York Times during his entire presidency." That's not the case.

The Rachel Maddow Show was going off a Los Angeles Times blog post that was based on Stolberg's comments. The blog post was incorrectly headlined, "Nine years later the N.Y. Times still awaits its Bush interview."


So Rachel Maddow --- Are you Kidding?