Thursday, September 20, 2007
Mr. Softball
Do you know when you are listening to live music and you hear a flat note? When they are played right, you cannot tell one note from the other, but when a note goes flat, you pick it up immediately.
Now apply that scenario to the President's press conference this morning, where the reporters are the orchestra, and they all ask him questions about process--"will we leave the war, will you sign the S-CHIP program, etc." Then there is that one question that is so blatantly a set up question that you automatically know it came from a plant.
Listening this morning to the press conference, I came to the conclusion that this was by far President Bush's worst performance in front of a press that tries hard to make him look good (they laugh at his moronic jokes and they don't howl when he says things such as: "I got an A, however, in...being fiscally responsible with the people's money." Or, they don't remind him when he says:""I'm worried about protectionism" that in his first term he raised steel tariffs in a cheap political ploy to peel off Union Steelworkers from supporting the Democrats, and only backed down when Europe promised to retaliate by targeting industry in the states that Bush would need to win the 2004 election.
Watching the press conference only confirms my belief that the President was simply awful. Many of his answers he read off script written there on the podium--he didn't even try to conceal how ill prepared he actually was. Thus his handlers needed a softball from a friendly in the audience, and pitching for the President was Bill Sammon (lovingly known as "Super Stretch" or "Big Stretch" to the President) of the Washington Examiner and Fox News, and author of the love poem as non-fiction "Strategery." It was left to Sammons to bring up the MoveOn.org ad calling General Petraeus, "General Betray-us":
Q What is your reaction to the MoveOn.org ad that mocked General Petraeus as General "Betrayus," and said that he cooked the books on Iraq? And secondly, would you like to see Democrats, including presidential candidates, repudiate that ad?
And Bush's answer (which clearly showed a lack of memory to the SwiftBoat ads he refused to repudiate):
THE PRESIDENT: I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. military. And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad. And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org -- or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal. It's one thing to attack me; it's another thing to attack somebody like General Petraeus.
The thing is that the Democrats, unlike the Republicans, caved and admonished the ad as below the belt. I certainly do not remember seeing the Senate Republicans, back in 2002, apologizing to Vietnam War hero Max Cleland for ads questioning his patriotism despite the fact that he left both legs and an arm in Vietnam.
So it goes. This was planned by the administration, working with allies on the outside, to echo how the Democrats hate our troops. If you watched or listened to conservative pundit today and this evening, then you will see what I mean. Shame that the spotlight doesn't shine on Sammon for being a political hack.
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Now apply that scenario to the President's press conference this morning, where the reporters are the orchestra, and they all ask him questions about process--"will we leave the war, will you sign the S-CHIP program, etc." Then there is that one question that is so blatantly a set up question that you automatically know it came from a plant.
Listening this morning to the press conference, I came to the conclusion that this was by far President Bush's worst performance in front of a press that tries hard to make him look good (they laugh at his moronic jokes and they don't howl when he says things such as: "I got an A, however, in...being fiscally responsible with the people's money." Or, they don't remind him when he says:""I'm worried about protectionism" that in his first term he raised steel tariffs in a cheap political ploy to peel off Union Steelworkers from supporting the Democrats, and only backed down when Europe promised to retaliate by targeting industry in the states that Bush would need to win the 2004 election.
Watching the press conference only confirms my belief that the President was simply awful. Many of his answers he read off script written there on the podium--he didn't even try to conceal how ill prepared he actually was. Thus his handlers needed a softball from a friendly in the audience, and pitching for the President was Bill Sammon (lovingly known as "Super Stretch" or "Big Stretch" to the President) of the Washington Examiner and Fox News, and author of the love poem as non-fiction "Strategery." It was left to Sammons to bring up the MoveOn.org ad calling General Petraeus, "General Betray-us":
Q What is your reaction to the MoveOn.org ad that mocked General Petraeus as General "Betrayus," and said that he cooked the books on Iraq? And secondly, would you like to see Democrats, including presidential candidates, repudiate that ad?
And Bush's answer (which clearly showed a lack of memory to the SwiftBoat ads he refused to repudiate):
THE PRESIDENT: I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. military. And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad. And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org -- or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal. It's one thing to attack me; it's another thing to attack somebody like General Petraeus.
The thing is that the Democrats, unlike the Republicans, caved and admonished the ad as below the belt. I certainly do not remember seeing the Senate Republicans, back in 2002, apologizing to Vietnam War hero Max Cleland for ads questioning his patriotism despite the fact that he left both legs and an arm in Vietnam.
So it goes. This was planned by the administration, working with allies on the outside, to echo how the Democrats hate our troops. If you watched or listened to conservative pundit today and this evening, then you will see what I mean. Shame that the spotlight doesn't shine on Sammon for being a political hack.
