Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
email topstorylive % at # gmail + dot = com

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

"Give me a break! I don't have my Cheney IFB on today." [Updated]

Here's a delicious tasty treat for Shrub-haters. Taken from Opinion: John Nichols: Pampered Bush meets a real reporter (captimes.com).

Anybody at the Capital Times who wants me to remove the following direct wholesale excerpt need only email me at topstorylive@yahoo.com and it shall be done. I just think that John Nichols' piece is so incredible that more people need to read it in short order.

On the eve of his recent sojourn in Europe, President Bush had an unpleasant run-in with a species of creature he had not previously encountered often: a journalist.

He did not react well to the experience.
....
...Bush's aides scheduled a sit-down interview with Carole Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public television network.

Coleman is a mainstream European journalist who has conducted interviews with top officials from a number of countries - her January interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently solid enough to merit posting on the State Department's Web site.

Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader.

She asked tough questions about the mounting death toll in Iraq, the failure of U.S. planning, and European opposition to the invasion and occupation. And when the president offered the sort of empty and listless "answers" that satisfy the White House press corps - at one point, he mumbled, "My job is to do my job" - she tried to get him focused by asking precise follow-up questions.

The president complained five times during the course of the interview about the pointed nature of Coleman's questions and follow-ups - "Please, please, please, for a minute, OK?" the hapless Bush pleaded at one point, as he demanded his questioner go easy on him.

After the interview was done, a Bush aide told the Irish Independent newspaper that the White House was concerned that Coleman had "overstepped the bounds of politeness."
....
The trouble is that accountability is not a concept that resonates with our president. The chief executive who gleefully declares that he does not read newspapers cannot begin to grasp the notion that journalists might have an important role to play in a democracy. And, if anything, the hands-off approach of the White House press corps has reinforced Bush's conceits.

-- John Nichols, madison.com

[Update]
Read more on RTE's interview with Bush at this link.
Or, actually view the video at this link (Real One Player required).

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 7/07/2004 06:00:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
...
..........