Appearing on Tony Kornheiser’s ESPN radio show Wednesday, Howard Fineman took issue with White House spokesman Jay Carney’s attacks this week on Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Ron Suskind.
As the AP reported, Carney portrayed Suskind’s new book Confidence Men “as riddled with factual errors.”
“I thought it was pathetic,” said Fineman, a senior political editor at The Huffington Post, “to watch Jay Carney — a guy that I like and have known for years … stand in front of the press corps in the press room and try to denounce Suskind’s book and allege, you know, that it was lifted from — one line was lifted from Wikipedia.”
Suskind’s new book “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President,” makes several controversial allegations, including the notion that the Obama White House is a “boys’ club.”
The Obama administration has aggressively attempted to discredit the book, but Suskind’s reputation as a journalist has made that a tough sell.
“I mean, Jay must have been embarrassed to have to have done that,” said Fineman. “Whoever sent him out there to do it should be fired.”