Laura Bush — First Lady, media critic

December 14, 2006

I generally don’t pay too much attention to Laura Bush’s policy opinions; she’s not an elected official, she has no obvious power to speak of, and her comments are rarely of any consequence.

They are, however, frequently annoying.

On MSNBC this morning, Norah O’Donnell asked Laura Bush about a new poll that found “only 2 in 10 Americans approve of the job that the president is doing on Iraq.”

Mrs. Bush placed the blame squarely on the media. She said, “I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren’t covered. And I think that the drum beat in the country from the media, from the only way people know what is happening…is discouraging.”

Mrs. Bush added that she hopes there is “more balanced coverage by the media” in the future.

Now, I had more or less assumed the “what about the good news?” tack had been dropped from the GOP talking points, because the question was just too transparently dumb to keep repeating. Maybe the First Lady’s office hasn’t received updated instructions on how to spin the fiasco.

For that matter, the Iraq Study Group seemed to settle this “debate” once and for all last week when the panel noted that violence in Iraq has, if anything, been underreported.

But in the bigger picture, I think it’s worth noting that Laura Bush keeps inserting herself in political debates in awkward ways.

For example, shortly before the November elections, the First Lady was asked about the Michael J. Fox campaign ads on stem-cell research. Bush sided with critics of the actor, telling a C-SPAN audience, “It’s always easy to manipulate people’s feelings, especially when you are talking about diseases that are so difficult.”

In May, she dismissed public opinion and said, “As I travel around the United States…A lot of people come up to me and say, ‘Stay the course‘.” Around the same time, Laura Bush jumped into the immigration debate, saying that the National Anthem “should be sung in English, of course.”

A few months before that, during a visit to Liberia, the First Lady said that she does not believe Republicans are mired in a “culture of corruption,” and added that she would be “glad to campaign for Republicans who ask me to campaign for them or do fundraisers for them.”

Indeed, she’s even played media critic before, complaining to Bill O’Reilly in 2004 that the “there’s a big move away from actual reporting” and there’s too much “opinion” in the media. (Yes, she apparently missed the irony.)

Laura Bush has also weighed in on the anti-gay constitutional amendment, Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as Defense Secretary, and gun control policy.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the First Lady sharing her opinions on matters of politics and public policy, but I think it’s a little odd that a) the right used to complain bitterly when Hillary Clinton did the same thing; and b) if Laura Bush wants to remain above the fray, why does she keep making controversial political statements?

The woman is dumb enough to have stayed married to a worthless failure, drunk and moron for 30 years – what more needs be said about her intelligence and intellectual capability?

  • Her programmers tell her what to say, and she says what they tell her. She feels a natural responsibility to support what’s left of her idiot husband which would lead to uncritical thinking on her part. In other words, the perfect parrot.

  • “It’s always easy to manipulate people’s feelings, especially when you are talking about diseases that are so difficult.” – Laura Bush

    You know boy-friend killer, one of the things that First Ladies often do is use emotional manipulation to get people’s attention to issues they think are important. There some reason like Michael can’t do that too?

    Laura has become increasingly annoying. I really have no further use for her, so it’s time to impeach Cyborg Cheney (I’ve certainly never had any use for Lynn) and Boy George II.

  • I ignore Stepford Wives – they know nothing and contribute even less. And a Stepford Wife married to the Emperor who didn’t know he wasn’t wearing clothes means that she knows even less than the average Stepford Wife and can contribute less. The fact that she is First Lady is not only an accident of birth but a pathetic joke.

  • Yeah, I hear Barney never learned to lift his leg when he pees. I care about what Laura Bush has to say just a little bit less than that.

  • I think the fact she killed her high school boyfriend in a car accident has a lot to do with her psyche and persona. I mean, she killed someone directly. I don’t think George has even done that.

  • Nora O’Dumbass did not even bother to defend the media, of which she is a part of as well as her colleagues who are actually in Iraq. Sad. And if things are just so nice in Iraq, why don’t Laura and her two little children take a ‘fact-relaying’ trip over there for a week or two and videotape all the good things going on in and around Baghdad.

  • Compared to the actual members of the Bush administration, Laura doesn’t make the needle on my annoyometer so much as quiver. I figure she gives her opinion on stuff because people ask her. She goes on a news show, perhaps to promote kiddie books, and she’s asked her opinion on Iraq. What should anyone expect? After all, this is the woman who lets George W Bush schtup her.

  • Ah, the irony of being lectured about reality by the person in the thickest bubble there ever was. Laurabot’s bubble is even thicker than George’s, at least he has to attend meetings with some people who occasionally let slip the truth (gasp). No one ever asks her hard questions, because she’s this sweet, sweet person with the creepy Joker-on-quaaludes smile.

    But this story isn’t about Laura so much as it is about our crappy media. Hello, press people… Laura says you’re underreporting the good news in Iraq. Can we get a fact-check on her claims please? And anyone else who makes this all-too-common claim?

    Please?

    Like all the other reality-deniers, the Laurabot needs to be quizzed about all the things she thinks are going so great. Make a list, bitch. I would really like to know if she can name more than three things, and I’ll bet even the few things that she can think of will turn out to be either trivial crap or just plain false. Just a hunch.

    And I wonder… Did Saddam ever do anything good? I’ll bet he did. But did any of the Bushistas ever tell us about that in 2002? Hmm.

  • But in the bigger picture, I think it’s worth noting that Laura Bush keeps inserting herself in political debates in awkward ways.

    Not to mention that George probably inserts himself into Laura in awkward and annoying ways.

    There’s a reason that Laura and Barney are usually mentioned in the same breath.

    Actually Jim#11 is probably right about her just answering questions and Bubba #12 is probably right about Condi

  • The sad thing is she probably truly believes that because it’s likely what she hears ad nauseum being around the president. We all know that her husbands bear no responsibility for anything bad that has happened in the past 6 years and that we’re at the point where the only strawman culprit that the Bushies can blame is the media.

  • First, “more balanced coverage by the media” is a canard. The media should not engage in balance, it must engage in objectivity. Just because the media cannot avoid overlooking the disaster that is Iraq, it doesn’t mean that they must then search for “balancing” stories that portray his wreck of an administration more positively.

    Second, Laura Bush is an enabler. While she and Barbara will not dip their “beautiful minds” into the unseemliness of the world her husband created, it’s within her ability to make an unrealistic fool recognize reality. But no, she’d rather act as America’s version of Marie Antoinette instead.

  • It’s too late now, but Laura should have talked with Colin Powell about the dangers of carrying water for Dubya. The country still doesn’t have a banking system, for god’s sake, and its primary source of revenue is in a shambles. By most measures, infrastructure and unemployment are worse now than when Sadaam was in power. As for those good-news schools, how many families feel secure enough to send their kids, and how many teachers have what they need to teach?

  • Laura Bush is a dimwit, just like her husband. She plays the good housewife, but she is nothing but an elite that has zero sympathy for anyone not in her class/family.

    But to be fair, how exactly is she suppose to a question that basically asked “why do you think you husband is a complete failure”. I don’t believe there is any answer she could have given that would have be acceptable to the left, except maybe, “He’s been a coke binge for the past 5 years, so back off.”

  • What can I say? The lady’s obviously a Pavlovian Pod-Woman….

  • Mrs. Bush placed the blame squarely on the media. She said, “I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren’t covered.”

    O’Donnell flubbed that one. If the first Lady actually *knows* that there are such good stories to be had, and *a lot* of them to boot, she should have been asked to tell us about them. Obviously, it’s not common knowledge and we could use some cheering, given the season, an’all…

  • Maybe Laura can take her travel hungry daughters Jenna and Not Jenna over there and expose us to some of the wonderful stories come out of Iraq right now…….

    Everytime a bad poll comes out they trot Laura out to try and quell the bleeding…

  • Bush and his pestiferous wife are members of what the former mayor of Providence called “the lucky sperm club”.

    Two more pathetic exemplars could not be found.

  • Bubba – Thanks for the tip on Glenn’s blog. The post is a great read. Hadn’t been over there in a while.

  • She didn’t complain when The NYT and WaPo, along with my Dem Liberal Congressman and about half of his colleages were actively spreading the Admin lies so they could abandon bin Laden and Afghanistan to go kill Iraqis and.
    Even Josh Marshall was with them.

  • Nice to hear from the vehicular manslaughterer, as if anyone casres what the stupid bitch has to say.

  • I would cut her some slack. What would you do in her position? She is being loyal to her dope of a husband. She sees her George being humiliated daily in the press. That it is justified makes no difference to her–she is naturally hurt and resentful towards the media.

    Millions of American women are married to jerks. It isn’t easy for them, or likely, for her. Try to have a little empathy.

  • “Millions of American women are married to jerks. It isn’t easy for them, or likely, for her. Try to have a little empathy.”

    Divorce ain’t a newfangled thang, missy!

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