Reading this transcript/press-kebob made me grin, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Call it simplistic, call it arrogant, heck, call it insane if you like – I won’t agree with you, but people have a right to their opinions. And I’ll say it again – people underestimate the political skills of this President at their peril.
Which will no doubt happen now. Such is the nature of the universe…
Moe
UPDATE: Federal disclosure laws require me to indicate that my girlfriend categorized the Rib Affair as Bush being ‘pissy’. Just so you don’t think that it’s all universal agreement here on the Dark Side of the Spectrum.
Federal disclosure laws require me to indicate that my girlfriend categorized the Rib Affair as Bush being ‘pissy’
Moe, I read it as Bush ripping on a reporter who was annoying him while he tried to eat and gladhand at a restaurant. Pissy, perhaps, but I’ve done worse to people I disliked at parties 😉
Did I not say that the episode made me grin?
Oh, I was just engaging in an imaginary debate with your girlfriend 😉
You can read anything into it, which is what makes the whole thing genuinely post-modern. Suffice it to say that Bush’s nicknames are not universally used as terms of endearment.
It’s especially funny because the pestering reporter he was calling “Stretch” was NBC’s Dave Gregory, the same guy who was on the wrong side of Bush’s humor about speaking French at a press conference a couple of years ago.
I thought it was pretty funny. “He thinks my job is to answer all the questions he asks.” Priceless.
On it’s own terms it’s harmless & kinda funny. Given what I know of the administration’s general attitude towards the press, he comes off as contemptuous and kind of a bully.
I’m probably more objectively anti-journalistic incompetence than I am anti-Bush, so I’m on his side on this one. Stick a rib in the guy’s mouth and shut him the hell up. And the Supply-Side Jesus bit was kind of funny, except I think Bush is forgetting that the ultrawealthy class doesn’t eat its share of ribs.
I can’t wait until the new breed of competent and interesting journalists, led by Katherine, take over the infrastructure.
If Bush just wanted to get some ribs, he could have kept the press people outside. But he (or his people, I guess) wanted pictures of him gladhanding around the restaurant to be on the news. If there are TV cameras, there are reporters, and they are going to ask questions. You answer two of them and then go about your business. That is the deal, and it has been that way for decades.
Clinton (or his people, I guess) tried to play this game — for different reasons, obviously — back when all hell broke loose in ’98. He went to a shelter in DC round Christmas for a photo op, and they put him way back in the back of the kitchen where they were making up meals. It didn’t work: Bill Plante bellowed something at the top of his lungs, it was hugely embarrassing, and they just stopped doing photo ops altogether. Not everybody agrees that’s better, but there it was; you don’t get to unilaterally change the rules of the game.
Bush may not like dealing with the press, but if that’s the case, then he should find another line of work. Answering questions in this situation is part of the job description; there’s nothing funny about a guy who thinks he’s better than the job he’s doing.