That floppy-haired correspondent Richard Engel along with the editors of NBC were taken to the woodshed by the White house for deceitful editing and irresponsibility in their news reporting, and rightfully so.

A scathing letter was sent to NBC News accusing the news network of ‘deceptively’ editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement by the Dems and Iran.

NBC was caught with their pants down.

White House counselor Ed Gillespie said that the network edited the interview in a way that “is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that (Bush) agreed with (correspondent Richard Engel’s) characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it.

That most often is the news game but this example was gross. It aired on the Today Show something that goes on and on with anything but news, you know like cooking, rap music, cosmetic make overs and yes weddings, and they didn’t have time to tell the whole story truthfully about a major issue the President raised and then edited it because of time constraints, or perhaps their own storyline?

The White House said, “This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured story line is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I (counsel) hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President’s responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts,” said Ed Gillespie White House Counselor.

The White House also challenged, rightfully so, the distinction between the ‘news’ as reported on NBC and the ‘opinion’ as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines.

He specifically noted the blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Kieth Olbermann at MSNBC, noting that he hoped they were not holding an editorial sway over the NBC network news division.

It was a pretty strong shot over the NBC news network’s bow.

As a watchdog of the mainstream news media, the White House called a spade a shovel on this one and NBC should reevaluate its news reporting, the floppy haired reporter, Richard Engel, and the way in which it edits the news.