ABC’s Terry Moran Calls Fox News “A Friendly Channel” To The White House

In this afternoon’s White House press briefing, ABC News correspondent Terry Moran called Fox News “a friendly channel” to the Bush administration, and asked if “Fox News and other Republican surrogates” are getting information from Karl Rove. According to FishBowlDC’s Garrett Graff, Moran posed these questions to WH press secretary Scott McClellan:

“…And then other Republican surrogates are getting information such as, Cooper — the Time reporter — called Rove on the pretense of discussing welfare reform. Bill Kristol on Fox News, a friendly news channel to you, said that the conversation lasted for two minutes and it was just at the end that Rove discussed this. So someone is providing this information. Are you, behind the scenes, directing a response to this story?”

McClellan brushed it off, of course. So Moran tried again:

“Well, Fox News and other Republican surrogates are essentially saying that the conversation lasted for two minutes and that the subject was ostensibly welfare reform. They’re getting that information from here, from Karl Rove.”

And McClellan ignored it again: “And again, you’re asking questions that are related to news reports about an ongoing, continuing investigation. And you’ve had my response on that.” Here’s the transcript…

> Update: 4:04pm: It’s worth noting that in yesterday’s press briefing, FNC’s Carl Cameron “hit [McClellan] with a tough one” after the press secretary had tried to change the subject. (Per Dana Milbank, who said the “32-minute pummeling was perhaps the worst McClellan received since he got the job two years ago.”)