Gibson knows how to follow-up

September 8, 2006

Since I was fairly critical of CBS’s Katie Couric for her softball interview with the president from Wednesday night, I think it’s only fair that I offer ABC’s Charlie Gibson some praise for a much better interview yesterday.

Gibson began by asking Bush how it is we went from a united country after 9/11 to a divided country now. The president rambled a bit. “[M]y job is to hopefully raise the debate above politics and continue to rally the nation to protect ourselves,” Bush said, “and at the same time to lay the foundation of peace … but overseas … sometimes people agree with the decisions I make and sometimes they don’t.” Gibson asked if maybe, just maybe, the war in Iraq divided the nation and the world. Bush responded by talking about 9/11.

Gibson: I heard you say just yesterday, “The hardest thing I have to do is to get people to understand how Iraq is a critical part of the war on terror.”

President Bush: Right.

Gibson: And that’s the one thing that I question, whether people do have any sense of that. For loathsome as he may have been, Saddam Hussein was not connected to al Qaeda, and he was not behind 9/11.

Bush: No, I understand that people ask, “How can this be a connection, between the war on terror and,” you know, “How can Iraq be a connection when Saddam Hussein didn’t order the attacks?” And you know, I understand that concern, because he didn’t order the attacks. The enemy, however, believes that Iraq is a part of the war on terror…. And so the stakes are incredibly high here, Charlie, and yes, this is a part of the war on terror. It is a central part of the war on terror.

So Gibson did what any thinking person would do: he pointed out that Iraq “wasn’t a part of the war on terror until we went in there.”

Gibson also did a nice job of asking exactly what a “victory” in the war on terror would look like. “Short-term victory will be achieved by defeating people on the battlefield,” Bush said. “Using our intelligence, and to find people before they hurt us. Long-term victories will be achieved, uh, when, the ideology of hate is overcome by the ideology of hope.”

Silly me, I’ve been afraid of an open-ended war with vague and undetermined goals. All we have to do is watch hope conquer hate and then the war can end. What a relief.

Post Script: OK, more tidbit. Gibson brought up reports this week about Pakistan offering Osama bin Laden safe haven. Bush began by saying “the intelligence community came in and gave me a little more, uh, granularity on what he had done.” It led to this exchange:

Gibson: Does that agreement worry you, though?

Bush: Well, I don’t know all the details … (overlap)

Gibson: Did you call him?

Bush: Yeah.

Gibson: Did you call him?

Bush: Well, I’m going. I’m going to see him pretty soon.

He got “granularity,” but he doesn’t “know the details.” He called Musharaf, but then he sort of didn’t because he’s going to see Musharraf sometime soon anyway.

It was a bit like a teacher asking a kid of he’d finished his homework — and the kid was struggling to figure out what to say.

The whole interview was pretty good. There was some fluff in there, but on the whole, Gibson was pretty impressive. Take a look.

I’ve got to say, it’s good to see people like Gibson and Olbermann who realize their responsibility to actually seek out truth beyond the catch phrases and words of misdirection that have become the substance of nearly every Bush press conference and interview. There’s something oddly comforting about watching the Shrub squirm around and struggle to piece together fragments of the buzz words he’s been given by his staff.
We just have to hope that these glimpses into the lies of his presidency will do enough damage to him and the GOP in general and allow a bit of balance to come back into this government.

  • Excellent. He basically put Bush in a corner and Bush, so used to adulatory questions or comments, had no idea. This is the moron in the White House. He really will not be held with any respect or regard in the history books. Now if we can only clone Gibson and several other good journalists …

  • ”Since I was fairly critical of CBS’s Katie Couric for his softball interview with the president” – Hey Steve, was a sex changepart of her deal with CBS? Otherwise spot on.

  • Looking at the contrast between Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, I wonder if this may start a race to the top of the journalistic pile as opposed to the scramble to hit bottom that began with the whole Whitewater fiasco. Maybe being a tough, honest and intelligent journalist is a goal to strive for once again?

  • Too bad Gibson is on ABC, and I won’t be watching him ever again if they go ahead with GOP commercial “Path to 9-1-9” this week.

  • “I think we have some campaigns to come between now and then. You know, we’re a democracy … we got two political parties competing, uh, and unfortunately politics oftentimes enters into the equation” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    So, when you decided that you’d lie about a three amputee Max Clelland in the 2002 campaign, was that when you decided to end the bipartisan comity existing after 9/11/01?

    “…what the American people have got to understand is, is that failure in Iraq will exacerbate this war on terror, will come home to hurt us.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    Though the possibility of having our Military here rather than there, where the Terrorists stand out rather than blend in, might be a good idea, no? Not to mention that we could be spending hundreds of billions on American security rather than Iraqi corruption, no?

    “Osama bin Laden has called Iraq central to the war on terror.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    Should we be letting Osama be determining the goals and objectives of this war? Isn’t that just a bit stupid?

    “…one of their targets is to topple modern governments.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    What autocracy or monarchy in the Arab world qualifies as a “modern state”?

    “Some say, ‘Well, it’s impossible for democracy to take hold in the Middle East.'” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    If you are tired of hearing that stop inviting your Republican friends to the White House.

    “Saddam Hussein was clearly a threat. He was a sponsor of terror, he was shooting at American airplanes, he had invaded a neighbor, he had killed thousands of his own citizens, he had used weapons of mass destruction.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    Terror – he gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide (homicide) bombers, just like the Saudis do.
    Firing at airplanes – most sovereign countries do that when foreigners violate their airspace.
    Killed Iraqis – yep, after your dad gave him the green light to slaughter the Shites in 1991.
    WMD – didn’t stop us from sending Don Rumsfeld from shaking his hand, did it?

    “He was given a last chance, and it was his choice to make.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    Saddam choose to let the inspectors into Iraq. They were in Iraq. You choose to pull them out because, after all, they weren’t going to find WMD that wasn’t there, were they?

    “…they’re violent in Iraq for a reason, because they cannot stand the thought of a young democracy emerging in the Middle East.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    Or maybe they are violent because they are not getting a cut of the Oil revenue action?

    “The longer term victories come when democracy, Iraqi style democracy, Lebanese style democracy, a Palestinian democracy, exist, take root and are capable of helping kind of … defeat the … systems of government that created resentment and hopelessness which enables people to create suiciders, and that is the long term struggle.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    In short you are relying on unfriendly governments to help overthrow the friendly governments in the Middle East?

    “Now we can play some gin rummy.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States

    Don’t you have some reading to do?

  • Gibson Girl: Did you call him?
    Bush: Yeah.
    Gibson Girl: Did you call him?
    Bush: Well, I’m going. I’m going to see him pretty soon.

    Why did Gibson ask this twice?
    Bush must have shown a liar’s telltale…

    But then again… the guy is a pure unadulterated liar.
    Maybe the Gibson Girl didn’t quite hear him the first time through.

    Nevertheless:

    Suggestion to all future “B” interviewers:
    Ask a question twice.
    Any question.
    You will probably get two different answers.
    And that’s because this moron can’t even lie well….

  • ***The enemy, however, believes that Iraq is a part of the war on terror….***
    ———————————–Herr Bush.

    Wow. That’s just…well, fascinating. If “the enemy” believes that a place is a part of the war on terror, then the United States should invade that place.

    Okay, then—let’s start with the safe-houses in Europe. We’ll invade Europe. Then there’s those blasted mountains in Pakistan. Let’s get medieval on Pakistan now, right? Oh, and then there’s Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Chad, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia—what the heck—let’s just invade everything that’s even remotely Islamic in nature.

    Just one question for Herr Bush, though.

    “Where’s the freaking troops that you’re going to do this with, Georgie?”

    Couldn’t we just invade the District of Columbia instead—and get rid of “the Dummy in the White House?” It would be cheaper, quicker, safer, cleaner, less bloody….

  • Bush: But yes, I did. I felt, you know, I just … I felt, this, I guess kind of bonded to onded to the people there that were … were still agonizing. And I frankly was, when I said that we will bring these people to justice, and there was this kind of energy released in the room it caught me by surprise, because this … this had been a speech for people that are paying attention to every word, and yet there was an emotional outburst, which, you know, it affected me.

    Gibson: Mr. President, thank you. For your time.

    Bush: Now we can play some gin rummy.

    Was I the only one thinking “Now watch this drive”?

  • Alex…

    Bush: But yes, I did. I felt, you know, I just … I felt, this, I guess kind of bonded to onded to the people there that were … were still agonizing. And I frankly was, when I said that we will bring these people to justice, and there was this kind of energy released in the room it caught me by surprise, because this … this had been a speech for people that are paying attention to every word, and yet there was an emotional outburst, which, you know, it affected me.

    LOL….

    It is what’s known in the business as a “nest of gibberish.”

  • Who’s going to ask:
    “Who feeds you this stuff?”
    “Did you prove to your father that you’re human?”
    “Is that Dick Cheney’s arm up your back?”

  • I thought the “gin rummy” part was a joke, until I read the interview.

    Here’s another part that struck me as weird:

    Gibson: … at inappropriate times. I was talking to, when I was over in Jerusalem, at the beginning of the war, to the new foreign minister of Israel. I said you know, we got to talking about 9/11 and I suddenly realized I was crying …

    Bush: Yeah, I thank you for that.

    “I thank you for that”???

  • The BBC manages to ask follow-ups in interviews of pols every day, not just once in a blue moon. Every day.

    We pay way too much deference to pols. As a result, they have gottten used to saying whatever they want. I blame Bush on the press. He is a product of their laziness.

  • I have one quibble with Gibson’s question and Bush’s response.

    Gibson: …Saddam Hussein … was not behind 9/11.
    .
    .
    .
    Bush: …Saddam Hussein .. didn’t order the attacks.

    The issue isn’t whether Saddam was behind the attacks or whether he ordered the attacks. The issue is whether he had any substantive involvement whatsoever. There’s a widespread myth that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and Gibson’s line of question did not completely contradict this myth.

  • “Long-term victories will be achieved, uh, when, the ideology of hate is overcome by the ideology of hope.”

    I’m sorry, but doesn’t that sound a lot like hippie bullshit from 1969? I thought these guys hated the hippies?

    Now, coming to Broadway: Hair II starring President George Bush as Charles Bukowski!

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