Bush on Meet the Press

What got me angry was how damn quick Tim Russet was to interrupt the
president and move on to the next question, very rude. You have to wait
and allow Bush to hear the guy talking to him on his radio hearing device
and then let Bush relay the answer. Just because he stops speaking for
a few seconds doesn't mean he's finished.
When asked if President Bush had done, had made the right decision,
he said yes.
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This is where they screwed up. It's natural for the guy talking into
the radio mike to speak in third person, but Bush should've caught
that and said, "When asked if I had done, had made the right decision,
he said yes."
 
Synchronicity said:
What got me angry was how damn quick Tim Russet was to interrupt the
president and move on to the next question, very rude.
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I think Russert usually does an excellent job of allowing his interviewees to respond, especially when he is compared to someone like O'Reilly. Russert is probably one of the best interviewers out there, he asks very tough questions, is not biased, and he allows the other person to respond. Shows such as the "O'Reilly Factor" are nothing but psuedo-debates for the weak minded who need to be told what their beliefs are. If you really want to learn something, then you should watch Meet the Press. It's only boring if you're a dumbass.

(This post wasn't directed specifically towards you, Synch, it was just a general rant.)
 
Re: The WMD intelligence commission

Russert: Shouldn't the American people have the benefit of the commission before the election?

President Bush: Well, the reason why we gave it time is because we didn't want it to be hurried.

.................

Hmmmm, different approach than with the 911 Commission.
 
Unanswered question:

Russert: You (and John Kerry) were both in Skull and Bones, the secret society.


President Bush: It's so secret we can't talk about it.


Russert: What does that mean for America? The conspiracy theorists are going to go wild.


President Bush: I'm sure they are. I don’t know. I haven't seen the (unintel) yet. (Laughs)
 
I saw the replay of the interview. I am not a dan of Bush, but he was obviously prepared and more articulate than what I have come to expect of him. Russert did his usual great research and was very polite, yet dogged. Very interesting interview. One thing that bothered me is that Bush is once again shifting the goalposts. At one point Saddam had WMDs...then WMD programs. In this interview, the justification seemed to be that

(from transcript linked to in the opening post)

...There was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a danger to America. [CROSSTALK]

Russert: In what way?

President Bush: Well, because he had the capacity to have a weapon, make a weapon. We thought he had weapons. The international community thought he had weapons. But he had the capacity to make a weapon and then let that weapon fall into the hands of a shadowy terrorist network....
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This theme that Saddam could make weapons was touched on several times- as justification enough.

Of course, our buddies in Pakistan actually are distributing nuclear technologies to Libya , North Korea, Iran (2/3 of Axis of evil) and pardoning the guy who is at the head of the distribution, but that is OK.....

Article on Pakistan and US response to its prolifiration of nuclear techology
 
Rouser2 said:
Unanswered question:

Russert: You (and John Kerry) were both in Skull and Bones, the secret society.


President Bush: It's so secret we can't talk about it.


Russert: What does that mean for America? The conspiracy theorists are going to go wild.


President Bush: I'm sure they are. I don’t know. I haven't seen the (unintel) yet. (Laughs)
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How ironic that our own conspiracy idiot should post that quote.
 
Rouser2 said:
Unanswered question:

Russert: You (and John Kerry) were both in Skull and Bones, the secret society.


President Bush: It's so secret we can't talk about it.


Russert: What does that mean for America? The conspiracy theorists are going to go wild.


President Bush: I'm sure they are. I don’t know. I haven't seen the (unintel) yet. (Laughs)
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I wouldn't ask any more questions about this topic. The black helicopters will be buzzing your shack again.
 
I was I served in the National Guard. I flew F 102 aircraft. I got an honorable discharge. I've heard this I've heard this ever since I started running for office. I I put in my time, proudly so.
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If I were Russert I might have asked the question: "Was it true the other pilots called you Auto?"
 
Frank Newgent said:

If I were Russert I might have asked the question: "Was it true the other pilots called you Auto?"
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I don't get it :confused:
 
I haven't read the whole thing yet, but right off the bat, this is the kind of thing that amazes (read: disgusts) me about politics and journalism:
Russert: On Friday, you announced a committee, commission to look into intelligence failures regarding the Iraq war and our entire intelligence community. You have been reluctant to do that for some time. Why?

President Bush: Well, first let me kind of step back and talk about intelligence in general, if I might. Intelligence is a vital part of fighting and winning the war against the terrorists. It is because the war against terrorists is a war against individuals who hide in caves in remote parts of the world, individuals who have these kind of shadowy networks, individuals who deal with rogue nations. So, we need a good intelligence system. We need really good intelligence.

So, the commission I set up is to obviously analyze what went right or what went wrong with the Iraqi intelligence. It was kind of lessons learned. But it's really set up to make sure the intelligence services provide as good a product as possible for future presidents as well. This is just a part of analyzing where we are on the war against terror.

There is a lot of investigations going on about the intelligence service, particularly in the Congress, and that's good as well. The Congress has got the capacity to look at the intelligence gathering without giving away state secrets, and I look forward to all the investigations and looks.

Again, I repeat to you, the capacity to have good intelligence means that a president can make good calls about fighting this war on terror.

Russert: Prime Minister Blair has set up a similar commission in Great Britain.

President Bush: Yeah.
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In other words, the politician's job is to avoid the question, or at least obfuscate his answer, while throwing in some particular buzz-word/-phrase (in this case "war on terror" 4 or 5 times) as much as possible. Then the journalist's job is to act like he actually answered the question, and move on.

If they had the decency to at least look ashamed, maybe I wouldn't mind so much.
 
Bush had the audacity to claim that Kay's report actually confirmed that Saddam was a threat.

Kay: Looks like it's black. It's also down.

Bush: Kay's report shows that it's not only white, but up as well.

Russert let him slide on a great many things. Bush said that the intelligence at the time was the best available. THAT'S THE WHOLE F**KING PROBLEM!

Bush's completely appointed panel is sure to find that coffee is good, Iraq is in the middle east, terrorism is bad, and other obvious things. In March 2005. After the election.

All I can say is Bush is lucky he didn't get involved in shady investment deals. There might have been a substantial investigation in that case........
/sarcasm off
 
His lying was not very impressive (but I only read the transcript).

Russert should've mentioned that in 2002 Bush said that by 2004 we'd only have a 14 billion dollar deficit. Instead it's over 521 billion, and now we're supposed to trust him when he says that will be cut by half in five years?

He obviously was concerned, but he I said, you know, I'm a Methodist, what are my chances of success in your country and your vision? And he said, it's going to be a free society where you can worship freely.
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He said so! That's good enough for Dubya!
 
What I thought was so strange, was that he spoke almost entirely in the first person.

"I thought ...", "I felt ..", "I believed ...", "I decided ...", "I remember ...", and so on.

I do not think that I have ever seen a presidential interview where so many first person pronouns were used.
 
Crossbow said:
What I thought was so strange, was that he spoke almost entirely in the first person.

"I thought ...", "I felt ..", "I believed ...", "I decided ...", "I remember ...", and so on.

I do not think that I have ever seen a presidential interview where so many first person pronouns were used.
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A comparison with this interview:

President Clinton on Lehrer:

3977 words
163 instances of " I "
20 instances of " we "


President Bush on Russert:

6155 words
198 instances of " I "
99 instances of " we "


Since I used find/replace in Word to search for the words bracketed by spaces, this result doesn't include contractions like "I've" or "we've", but I don't think that matters much. If anyone is wondering, I did remove the interviewers' questions before I did my counts.
 
aerocontrols said:



A comparison with this interview:

President Clinton on Lehrer:

3977 words
163 instances of " I "
20 instances of " we "


President Bush on Russert:

6155 words
198 instances of " I "
99 instances of " we "


Since I used find/replace in Word to search for the words bracketed by spaces, this result doesn't include contractions like "I've" or "we've", but I don't think that matters much. If anyone is wondering, I did remove the interviewers' questions before I did my counts.
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Sure, but in that interview Clinton was talking about his performance in the hustings, so it's not unreasonable that he'd be talking about things that he did himself. Bush's interview is about how the country is being run. Perhaps it's commendable that he's shouldering so much of the responsibility personally.
 
aerocontrols said:



A comparison with this interview:

President Clinton on Lehrer:

3977 words
163 instances of " I "
20 instances of " we "


President Bush on Russert:

6155 words
198 instances of " I "
99 instances of " we "


Since I used find/replace in Word to search for the words bracketed by spaces, this result doesn't include contractions like "I've" or "we've", but I don't think that matters much. If anyone is wondering, I did remove the interviewers' questions before I did my counts.
Click to expand...

Er, I really do not think that is a valid comparison, since Clinton was being asked about how he felt about his first presidential campaign, his second presidential campaign, and previous presidential campaigns. As such, one should expect a good bit of first person reflection.

However, since Bush was being asked about national policy, I did not expect to see the issue so personalized; and it was a personalization of a national policy that I saw.
 
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