‘No, it did not answer my question’

January 31, 2007

When the president sat down with NPR’s Juan Williams this week, the host passed along a question he received from Spec. Ryan Schmidt, who is currently serving in Iraq. It’s a question a lot of us have been wondering about.

WILLIAMS: You know, you mentioned timetables. NPR has a reporter embedded with the Minnesota National Guard in Iraq, and one of the soldiers there asked the question — says, “My name is Specialist Ryan Schmidt (sp) from Forest Lake, Minnesota, and my question for you, Mr. President, is what if your plan for a troop surge to Baghdad does not work?” What do you think?

BUSH: Well, I would say to Ryan, I put it in place on the advice of a lot of smart people, particularly the military people who think it will work, and let us go into this aspect of the Iraqi strategy feeling it will work.

Like most of the president’s responses to substantive questions, the answer was pretty weak. Ryan Schmidt is putting his life on the line and he wants to know if the president has any ideas about what he’ll do next. Bush, once again, believes force of will seems to matter — we should “feel” it will work. (It’s reminiscent of Stephen Colbert, suggesting it doesn’t matter if we know escalation won’t work; what matters is what we “feel” might work.)

While Williams didn’t follow up on the point with Bush, NPR’s John McChesney did follow up with Schmidt to gauge his reaction to the president’s response to his question.

Needless to say, Schmidt wasn’t impressed.

JOHN McCHESNEY: Yesterday, one of the extended Minnesotans got to ask a question when NPR’s Juan Williams interviewed President Bush. Spec. Ryan Schmidt asked if the president had a plan if his troop surge didn’t work…. We asked Spec. Schmidt if he was satisfied with the president’s answer.

SCHMIDT: No, it did not answer my question. I would have liked to know more so that there will be a plan if this does not work. For some of us that are over here, particularly me, my unit, we all feel, what’s the point of us being extended if your initial plan to send more troops over here does not work? What are you going to do, Mr. President?

If Bush wants to dodge questions from Juan Williams, that’s par for the course. But Ryan Schmidt deserves an answer.

It’s a shame he won’t get one.

ryan schmidt should think of a career in journalism. he’d obviously be a lot better at it than some of those currently in the field.

  • While Williams didn’t follow up on the point with Bush,

    Williams didn’t follow up on ANY questions. I listened to the interview and it sounded like he was in a different studio. Was this another one of those interviews where Bush demanded the questions in advance and forbid followups? I didn’t hear NPR say so. Is Williams just to lame to follow-up? It was a complete waste of time as an interview.

  • It seems almost absurd to even ask if Schmidt was satisfied with the answer. Of course Bush didn’t answer the question — just look at his answer! “What if it doesn’t work?” “It will work.”

  • When God picks you to be president, you don’t need no stinkin’ backup plan.

    Tell that soldier he’s emboldening the enemy.

    Speaking of faith-based military preparedness…

    …The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn’t been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to “effectively complete their missions” and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General’s office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found…

    http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jan2007/db20070130_624241.htm

  • Bush would have been irresponsible is he had answered the question. A commander never reveals his strategy to the enemy.

  • “Bush would have been irresponsible is he had answered the question. A commander never reveals his strategy to the enemy.”

    Specialist Schmidt is the enemy?

  • Bush would have been irresponsible is he had answered the question. A commander never reveals his strategy to the enemy.

    You’re right, and since there are enemies EVERYWHERE, it’s best not to tell the strategy to anyone.

  • Actually, I’m pretty sure former Senator Conrad Burns knows the plan. Too bad he’s canny enough to not tell anyone else either.

  • Research and follow-up. Journalism 101. Everybody in journalism should know exactly what answers Bush and Cheney always give and ask for proof of any assertions. How hard is that?

  • Answer ? There isn’t one, anyone that thinks these clowns actually thought about that needs a 10 min refresher course in Iraqi invasions/occupation, circa 2003/4/5/6/7.

    He should have been honest and said, “Spec. Ryan Schmidt, my administration is physically incapable of think that far ahead, much less planning, if we were, we would have stayed home in the first place.”

  • FallenWoman,

    A commander never reveals his strategy to the enemy.

    then why did he reveal the surge?

  • I agree with Martin (#2) 100%. It was weird the way Williams would ask a question, Bush would give a weak dodge, and Williams wouldn’t follow up. Made me wonder if he had been forbidden to ask followups too… he doesn’t usually come across as such a dunce.

  • Of course, Fallenwoman is alluding to the fact that more than Spc. Schmidt are listening, and she’s right. Why is another question altogether, since Bush consistently seems to couch his responses in terms that will later allow him to say “I didn’t say that” with a straight face.

    It’s true that a Commander would be unwise to reveal his strategy in detail to the enemy, but it is also true that, barring a mysterious death ray that nobody knows anything about, Bush’s options are limited and the probabilities easy to guess. Assuming the Arabs and Persians are too dumb to figure it out would be a mistake. That said, Bush owes Spc. Schmidt something more than, “you can fly if you just BELIEVE”.

    Finally, a Commander who felt he had the upper hand and was winning would not be afraid to apear moe confident. Even a “leader” as incurious and stunned as Bush is must know he’s losing.

  • god hasn’t let him in on that one yet. But he will once this thing goes down in flames, I’m guessing he will need more time and/or troops.

    god – voices hear in ones head when they can not think for themselves. Not to be confused the with real God.

  • “It’ll work because I told them it has to.”

    Remember, our drunken little toddler-in-chief just knows these things, like any permanent 3-year old.

  • ***A commander never reveals his strategy to the enemy.***
    ————————Fallen-and-can’t-get-up-woman

    Strategy—or the complete lack thereof? Specialist Schmidt wants to know, as do all of us—and Bush is not a commander. He is a commode. Actually, he is a “cowardly commode-in-reverse.” This nasty, smelly stuff keeps flushing out and getting on the floor to hide the fact that the commode is broken, and is in immediate need of replacement. You may commence mopping up your mess now….

  • Mark (re# 16) You let the secret out!
    Commander Codpiece is relying on technology to win the war in Iraq, and you may have tipped off “the enemy.”
    The double-super-secret death ray will also solve global warming, if the giant Hallibuton sunglasses don’t work.

  • Lexicon of right wing terms:
    -“smart people” – Any person with rank or position that bows to a Republican president’s bidding, lest they lose their job, so the president can then point to such “smart people” as justification for the president’s actions.

    I agree with short fuse. Bubble boy likes to limit the risks of embarrassing himself so I’m sure follow-ups are verboten. But Bush still sounded like a foolish idiot who isn’t qualified to take out my garbage.

  • Thanks, Buzz (#20) – you almost caused me to have an involuntary bowel movement. The giant Halliburton sunglasses brought me to the threshold. You should take your act on the road!

  • “We are not a “nation of immigrants”. The whole thing was a Zionist-Communist plot.”

    So you’re saying Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, et al were Communists? I really don’t think you’d find a lot of people who agreed with you there.

    And holy crap, were they ahead of their time. Communists 70-odd years before Marx and Engels even wrote the Manifesto? Color me even more impressed.

  • You’re missing the point, again. goddamit.

    How many times can this maniac bald faced LIE to people, to their face, unapologetically.

    If a child, or an adult, or a professional or a misfit or anyone lied pathologically and routinely like this imoster does, they’d get institutionalized, get therapy, get fired or arrested or ridiculed and ostracized. When someone, my child, my spouse, my colleagues — ANYONE — lies to my face out loud and we both know it — i get righteously pissed for having my intelligence insulted.

    does anyone on the journo beat have any intelligence or self respect ? His generals and miltiary men DID NOT tell him the surge was a good idea, remember. They said, before congress, under oath, repeatedly and to a man: it WAS NOT a good idea.

    Out of all the crimes against humanity, the felonies, the atrocities and damage he’s done and inflicted .. his complete dismantling of honesty and integrity is the worst.

    If you people have an ounce of brains, if you care a shred about what’s left of your republic, you’ll impeach that lunatic now before he starts world war III with Iran .. which, i guarantee you, is coming.

  • Dude, you need to lay off the Kool-aid and Red Bull.

    “not because there is anything wrong with them, but because the agencies which had bestowed “citizenship” upon them were themselves illegitimate.”

    When should we draw the line of “legitimate” immigration? Should the Irish vote or are they illigetimate? The Italians? The Poles? The Chineese? African Americans who are decendants fo former slaves? Let me guess, any of the above who are white Christians? You need to try reading some books, and re-reading the Turner Diaries for the 50th time does not count.

  • “There is no way to prevent aliens from registering and voting in our elections”

    Well, that explains the line of Klingons I saw at the DMV the other day.

    And I’ve heard that Wookies are pretty hard workers.

  • BUSH: Well, I would say to Ryan, I put it in place on the advice of a lot of smart people, particularly the military people who think it will work, and let us go into this aspect of the Iraqi strategy feeling it will work.

    What a condescending sack of shit. Smart people came up with this plan so just do what you’re told you dumb grunt.

    Hang on Spec. Schmidt, we’re trying to rein in the arsehole who put you in harm’s way.

  • Same old Juan…I wish NPR would choose their reporters based on competence, not race, no matter how politically incorrect they may view that concept. Juan Williams is clearly an example of what you get when you’re trying to follow internal quotas.

    He’s been lame since Day One.

  • And I’ve heard that Wookies are pretty hard workers

    Pretty much small “l” libertarians, though…

  • Juan is just another inside the beltway numb nuts. There was a time when our journalist came up from the working class. We could identify with them and them with us. That’s no longer the case. I saw a recent interview with Juan. He was talking about planning his daughter’s wedding. He’d been shut out of the planning, but said he’d tried to put a $50,000 cap on the spending. 50 grand. That’s more than 2/3 of the families in this country live on for a year. How the hell does some like that relate to me and my problems?

    Schmidt and the rest of our Minnesota guardsmen have been caught in the “surge.” They were due to come home next month, but were “extended” to accomidate Bush’s plan. With pre-deployment training these guys will have been away from home, family and jobs for 21 months. Damn near two years! Bush is an asshole.

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