Monday, January 12, 2009
The Top 25
I am sure that Weisberg has gotten tons of email from fans who quibble with his picks. I don't intend to do that here. Instead, I just sat back and soaked it all in while listening to President Bush's final press conference (more below). Some of my favorite Bushisms from Weisberg's list:
#2. "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."—Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000.
#4. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."—Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004.
#5. "Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican."—declining to answer reporters' questions at the Summit of the Americas, Quebec City, Canada, April 21, 2001.
#17. "People say, 'How can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil?' You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you."—Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2002.
#21. "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."—LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000.
As Weisberg accurately notes:
Being able to laugh at yourself is a rare quality in a leader. It's one thing George W. Bush can do that Bill Clinton couldn't. Unfortunately, as we bid farewell to Bushisms, we must conclude that the joke was mainly on us.
No lie there.
The "joke on us" line comes into clear view if you listened to the final press conference this morning. Keep in mind that this is an administration that made no bones about the way it felt about the national media. They used every technique--including inventing a few new ones--to muzzle and control the press that covered them. Who can forget Ari Fleischer's threat to a reporter who had written a story that he didn't like, that the reporter had been "noted" in the White House? Or who could forget demanding that the press corps provide their questions in advance back in March 2003 in Bush's press conference before our march to war in Iraq? And who could forget the way Helen Thomas had been treated or the way in which conservative hacks were given a prominent place during the rare press conference that Bush actually gave?
With all this in consideration, Bush gave a "no holds barred" press conference, and opened up with this whammy:
Through it all, it's been -- I have respected you. Sometimes didn't like the stories that you wrote or reported on. Sometimes you misunderestimated me. But always the relationship I have felt has been professional. And I appreciate it.I appreciate -- I do appreciate working with you. My friends say, what is it like to deal with the press corps? I said, these are just people trying to do the best they possibly can.
And did the reporters finally give it to the President? Here are some of the questions, so you be the judge:
Q. Well, a couple years ago, Charles Krauthammer, columnist and Harvard-trained psychiatrist, coined a term, "Bush derangement syndrome," to talk about your critics who disagreed with you most passionately -- not just your policies, but seemed to take an animosity towards you. I'm just wondering, as you look back, why you think you engendered such passionate criticism, animosity, and do you have any message specifically to those -- to that particular part of the spectrum of your critics?
Q. Mr. President, thank you very much. Since your philosophy is so different from President-Elect Obama's, what concerns you the most about what he may attempt to do?
Q. Mr. President, you spoke of the moment that the responsibility of the office would hit Barack Obama. The world is a far different place than it was when it hit you. When do you think he's going to feel the full impact? And what, if anything, have you and the other Presidents shared with him about the effects of the sometimes isolation, the so-called bubble of the office?
It boggles the mind. Which brings me back to Weisberg's list. Number 25 on the list says it all:
#25. "I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."—Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008.
