The Chicago Tribune’s Frank James noted today, “We American reporters aren’t sure why our British cousins don’t stand when they ask questions of our president or their prime minister like we do. But they sure have a suave way of asking the impertinent questions we reporters are duty bound to ask the powerful.”
Indeed, they do. At nearly any press conference with the president and a foreign head of state, four reporters get to ask questions — two from the U.S., and two from the other leader’s home country. Yesterday, at the joint Bush-Blair event, that meant two questions from British reporters.
And as Dan Froomkin explained, they showed up their American counterparts.
Long live the British press! In contrast to the small-bore questions that American reporters posed to President Bush yesterday about his Iraq policy, two British journalists cut right to the central issue of the president’s credibility.
In his joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush spoke of embarking on a “new course” in Iraq — even as he effectively rejected all the major recommendations of the scathing bipartisan Iraq Study Group report.
American reporters dutifully but fruitlessly tried to get Bush to explain what he meant. Their colleagues from across the pond took a different tack.
Why, the two Brits asked Bush in slightly different ways, given your track record on Iraq, should be believe you now?
Not surprisingly, Bush failed to provide a persuasive answer.
Nevertheless, the Brits deserve ample credit for trying.
For example, it was the BBC’s Nick Robinson, for example, who suggested that Bush is “in denial” about the awful conditions in Iraq. It led to the noteworthy exchange we talked about yesterday.
Later, reflecting on Bush’s long, rambling answer, Robinson noted, “The detail of his response was fascinating. In his answer, he mentioned 9/11, the danger that Iraq would become a safe haven for terrorists (as Afghanistan was), the nuclear threat (presumably he meant Iran), and oil. So it seems that while the president is on the back foot at home on Iraq, he tried to raise all the things that would encourage the American people to support him.”
In other words, Bush didn’t answer the question, but he desperately leaned on talking points to help score a few cheap points with supporters who might have caught the press conference on TV.
Later, it was ITV News’ Bill Neely who also tried the direct approach with the president.
Q: Mr. President, the Iraq Study Group said that leaders must be candid and forthright with people. So let me test that. Are you capable of admitting your failures in the past, and perhaps much more importantly, are you capable of changing course, perhaps in the next few weeks?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think you’re probably going to have to pay attention to my speech coming up here when I get all the recommendations in, and you can answer that question, yourself.
Can we invite the British press to all of Bush’s press conference?