Freedumb of The Press
Ether St. Vying
these roles on the TV show The West Wing ... and how that fictional
presidency conducts itself. The reality of the American political
situation makes the TV show seem like fantasy fiction. It's the
idealization of a former ideal. By that I mean that the integrity that
is so central to the TV show was probably never quite as prevelent in
reality, even in the good old days. The West Wing is playing on a
cherry that nobody with a brain has anymore. But the show still has
it's moments ...
And the reality is something else ...
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Bush-league script enraging press
The West Wing is in a flap.
Or at least the White House press corps is.
Judging by its rumblings and grumblings since that Valium-drip
presidential news conference last Thursday, feathers are ruffled and
may
start flying.
Yes, the gang that has spent the past few years pecking at the meal
that
dribbles from the mouth of chief spokesperson Ari Fleischer is mad as
hell over how that mind-numbing newser, only the second primetime
Q&A President George W. Bush has ever held, was conducted.
Like a well-choreographed ballet of sleepwalkers.
Bush, who seemed, in the words of The Washington Post's Tom Shales,
"ever so slightly medicated," came across so rehearsed he was almost
robotic.
As presidential hagiographer Bob Woodward (Bush At War) would tell
CNN's Larry King after the performance, Bush "was slow talking" and
the news conference was "almost like a wake."
"And this process of calling on people and then having long speeches
somewhat from the reporters and multiple questions," continued
Woodward, "I think didn't kind of get to some of the key points."
"This," added Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, "is not a spontaneous
press conference, the kind we're normally used to from presidents over
the years."
No kidding.
Not only is flying solo at news conferences a rare event for Bush — at
this point in his presidency, his dad had held 58 to Junior's eight —
but
he would have none of the usual Mr. President! yelling or hand-waving
pick me! pick me! action from reporters.
That was exactly what the White House wanted: The whole thing was
"scripted," as Bush allowed in one of the few slips he made that night.
Looking down yet again at what was a list of reporters whose questions
he planned to take, he said, "This is a scripted..." catching himself
as the
press gang burst into laughter.
In the end, neither Bush nor the journalists whose questions he deigned
to answer — or non-answer — ever got anywhere.
And never mind the tough questions that never got asked.
Indeed, the whole show, aside from being staged to capture Survivor
addicts and capitalize on one of the biggest TV audiences of the week,
was truly stage-managed in advance.
As White House communications chief Dan Bartlett told The
Washington Post, this administration holds news conferences more
sparingly than other types of presidential communication opportunities,
because "if you have a message you're trying to deliver, a news
conference can go in a different direction."
Especially given Bush's Bushisms.
"In this case, we know what the questions are going to be, and those
are
the ones we want to answer," Bartlett admitted. "We think the public
will see the thought and care and attention he's given to a lot of the
different questions that are being asked about the diplomatic side and
the
military side and the potential post-Iraq issue. These are all
legitimate
questions that he has answers for and wants to talk about."
Now let me hasten to add one thing: This is much the same attitude
displayed by the very regime Bush wants to topple. For example, last
month Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz refused to take a
question from an Israeli journalist, even though he answered the same
question when it was posed by another reporter.
"It was not in my agenda to answer questions by the Israeli media," he
told a news conference in Rome. "Sorry."
Bush pulled a similar stunt when he ignored a long-running White House
tradition of taking questions from syndicated columnist Helen Thomas
who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy.
But then, she's the journalist who had the temerity to say that Bush
was
"the worst president ever." Yet snubbing her was so shocking that even
the conservative Washington Times, said to be Bush's paper of choice,
noted it.
"What's the message? If you cross the president or Ari, you too will
get
banned?" White House journalist Russell Mokhiber, who edits
Corporate Crime Reporter, asked me Friday.
That day, at yet another Fleischer skating party, the journalistic pack
got
all snarly and snappish. When asked by right-wing radio talk show host
Lester Kinsolving how and why Bush cherry-picked his questioners,
Fleischer 'fessed that he was the one who made up the list, and that
columnists such as Thomas were not included.
Pressed again by another reporter, Fleischer replied: "The President
just
thinks it is actually a more orderly news conference, rather than to
have
the usual cacophony of everybody screaming, where the person who
gets called on is the person who has the loudest voice."
Well, if what Mokhiber told me turns out to be true, the yelling has
barely begun.
"I sense that they're starting to fight back," he told me, calling the
news
conference "unprecedented and "revolting."
Let's hope revulsion turns into rebellion.
The world depends on it.
-----------------------
jaZZmanian Devil
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As we watched that horrific travesty of a "press conference", that was
the exact sequence of questions that came to my lips. First was, "Where
are the reporters asking all the obviously needed questions?" The
second was, "Did he just write a script for this whole thing like some
sort of dog and pony show?"
It was truly revolting.
--
"Would you care for a sammich?"
rande...@rogers.com
<nocti...@mediapause.eh> wrote:
>As I read this article, it made me think of the characters who play
>these roles on the TV show The West Wing ... and how that fictional
>presidency conducts itself. The reality of the American political
>situation makes the TV show seem like fantasy fiction. It's the
>idealization of a former ideal. By that I mean that the integrity that
>is so central to the TV show was probably never quite as prevelent in
>reality, even in the good old days. The West Wing is playing on a
>cherry that nobody with a brain has anymore. But the show still has
>it's moments ...
>
>And the reality is something else ...
>
>-----------------------------------
>http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778904023&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630
>
> Bush-league script enraging press
>
> The West Wing is in a flap.
>
> Or at least the White House press corps is.
>
> Judging by its rumblings and grumblings since that Valium-drip
> presidential news conference last Thursday, feathers are ruffled and
>may
> start flying.
>
The press need not worry; The television ratings on the conference
were high, so they can keep their jobs for another week or so.
-Rich