When the president traveled to Wisconsin last week to tout Social Security privatization, reporters decided it wasn’t worth their time to even make the trip. In March, when Bush visited New Mexico for the same reason, Kiva Auditorium was sparsely attended, with hundreds of empty seats. In February, Bush went to New Hampshire for a Social Security event in an airport hangar, only about half of the 2,000 free tickets were taken and the White House advance team had to scurry to collect empty chairs before Bush spoke so as to minimize the humiliation.
Yesterday, however, we saw the depths of Bush’s problem at a “press availability” in the East Room with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The media decided it simply didn’t care.
So few reporters were on hand, in fact, that the White House hurried to have White House interns fill the empty seats. “That way it wouldn’t look bad for the cameras,” says one White House insider. What gives?
A member of the press corps we spoke to yesterday equated reporters at such staged White House functions with “props.” He explained that because the president only takes four questions at each press availability — two from U.S. wire service reporters and two from foreign scribes — many in the press corps don’t bother to show up.
“Since we can’t ask questions, why schlep over there?” he reasons. “The White House this morning actually called reporters beforehand, saying: ‘Are you going to be here?’ Later, after they eyeballed the room and found it to be empty, they brought in White House interns.
“So you had all these fresh young faces — pretty blonde girls, and guys who haven’t shaved — nodding their approval as the president speaks.”
It’s one thing to blow off a scripted privatization pep rally, but you know reporters are officially sick of Bush’s vapid events when they fail to show up for a press conference with the leader of a country we recently invaded.
I expect, any day now, for the president to remind us he’s “still relevant.”