It’s easy to swing at softballs

March 22, 2006

On Monday, Bush spoke in Cleveland and tried something a little different — he opened the floor to questions from an audience that hadn’t been pre-screened or prepped to stay on message. The results were encouraging, at least in terms of faith in the electorate. As Dan Froomkin noted, Bush “faced a handful of really interesting, evocative, even combative questions.” Quite right.

Would the president stay outside the bubble very long? Would candid exchanges between the president and his constituents invigorate Bush and inspire him to have similar discussions again? Apparently not. Consider some of the questions Bush received at an event today in West Virginia.

* “President, I have a son that’s special forces in Iraq. And I have another son that’s in the Army…. I thank God you’re our Commander-in-Chief. You’re a man for our times. And I’m supporter of yours. And I think it’s good that you come out and tell your story. And I think you need to keep doing more of it, and tell the story and the history of all this. And God bless you. And I thank you for your service.”

* “President Bush, I’m a professional firefighter here in Wheeling, West Virginia. And back during 9/11, I lost over 300 of my brothers in New York. And I was glad that you were our President at that time and took the fight to the terrorists. But as I see you, I said earlier about the guy in Afghanistan that is going to convert to Christianity, he may get killed over there for doing that. Do you have an army of sociologists to go over there and change that country, or are you hoping that in a couple decades that we can change the mind-set over there?”

* “I have a comment, first of all, and then just a real quick question. I want to let you know that every service at our church you are, by name, lifted up in prayer, and you and your staff and all of our leaders. And we believe in you. We are behind you. And we cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done to shape our country.

“This is my husband, who has returned from a 13-month tour in Tikrit. His job while serving was as a broadcast journalist. And he has brought back several DVDs full of wonderful footage of reconstruction, of medical things going on. And I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, for a solution to this, because it seems that our major media networks don’t want to portray the good. They just want to focus on another car bomb, or they just want to focus on some more bloodshed, or they just want to focus on how they don’t agree with you and what you’re doing, when they don’t even probably know how you’re doing what you’re doing anyway.”

I don’t know whether the questions were planted, or whether the advance team ensured that everyone who asked a question was a loyal Bush backer (or both). But as presidential exchanges go, this was more in line with the sycophantic conversations the president seems to prefer.

I think Rove knew that after the unscreened audience in Cleveland on Monday and Helen Thomas on Tuesday, Bush would need to have his ego stroked. Hence he scheduled the West Virginia massage at the same time he scheduled the Cleveland appearance and the press conference. Sometimes an optimistic rug is just not enough.

  • Planted.

    Considering his approval ratings, the odds would be against so many (if not all) questions being so……… obvious.

  • rege raises an interesting point. I’ve wondered for years who exactly in this adminisration is allergic to public criticism, and why. Watching Bush smirk and sneer his way through the debates with Kerry indicated that Bush himself has little tolerance for dissent, and he does a really bad job of hiding it.

    But is that why he doesn’t get any dissent anyway? Is Rove keeping him in a bubble because Bush demands it, because Bush has a horrific petulant temper and rips people’s balls off when they dare to challenge him, because Rove is worried about negative questions appearing in the press and wants to control the debate completely, or, some combination thereof: maybe Rove is worried about Bush losing his temper in public if he’s challenged too much? From what I’ve heard of Bush’s temper, I can see why his handlers would be loathe to put him in front of a challenging audience.

    It’s a very curious thing. I wish some insider would write an expose on this and explain what exactly is up with this bubble, and why.

  • I heard Erica Jong interview on a local NPR show today, and she refer to Bush as a “dry drunk.” More people are noticing his petulance. The Iraq debacle aside, are Bush’s poll numbers “tanking” because of his irritable personality?

  • You call those “questions”? That’s a stroke-job, and it demonstrates why Dubya doesn’t need an intern under his desk.

  • Perhaps Rove is worried about his job security right now. After all, how hard could it be to find a yes-man with a knack for setting up “positive-esteem” events in, say, Indonesia? Maybe Bush can outsource the position….

    Hey—I’m allowed an occasional non-nightmarish dream, aren’t I?

  • I live very close to where the President visited today,and believe me there are some real cool-aid drinking supporters in Wheeling,WV. That was a staged deal from the word go. Clear Channel radio runs a studio in the same building the speech was given in. The local right wing news papers were major sponsers of the event. Little wonder that WV went red in the last election.

  • That’s just twisted. There’s no other words for it. And I agree with Jim, there are people who will support Bush no matter what. My mother-in-law is the same way. She’s one of those types who thinks Saddam sent his WMDs to Syria and Iran, and was directly connected to al Qaeda. No matter how much I shot down her arguments, she refused to accept the truth. My wife finally told me never to argue with her about it again, as it was futile.
    Cherry Koolaid, the official drink of Red America

  • I’d love to see Bush’s reaction if he ever gets an unexpected tough, mind game question duing one of his softball exhibitions.

    Mr. President, how do you feel when some people say you are full of Shiite, and that Sunni you will be impeached because of what has a Kurd under your watch?

  • She’s one of those types who thinks Saddam sent his WMDs to Syria and Iran2Manchu

    I was eating dinner in a local restaurant tonight and watching Blitzer interview Bob Dole with one eye. I was reading closed captions. Blitzer asked him about the Saddam 9/11 connection. Dole went off on a tangent about WMD. He thinks Saddam hid the his WMD or destroyed it and we still may find something. Blitzer had to repeatedly ask about the Saddam 9/11 connection, until Dole conceded none existed. Dole, what a twit.

  • Now’s the time for Bush to call the country to prayer. His response to 9-11 was “go to your churches, temples, synagogues and mosques and pray.” When the two tallest buildings in the world are falling down praying seems to me to be the last thing to do. With the foot caught in the bear trap and the hands tied behind the back, praying is about all that’s left. The rule is simple, bears are easy to catch and nearly impossible to turn loose. Maybe his relying on God, in his own words, “the Almighty” should have told us he was not the man for the job.

    Bush’s problem is that he can’t tell the difference between God and God’s representatives, Pat Robertson et al. He like me thinks it’s a miracle that he’s president at all since he actually lost the 2000 election. It was God’s representatives and not God that did that awsome miracle. A lot of people have that problem, can’t tell the difference, think Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, the lot of God’s representatives are God. After all is said and done how bright are those who buy the notion that these morality mongers have the formula for salvation? The get both their license and their formula for salvation from a proved hoax, the Bible which explains the problem Bush and in turn the whole country now has. Nothing good ever came from a hoax. Well, maybe a little humor. This is no laughing matter except that when it hurts too much to cry the best advice is laugh.

    He can’t explain why we are in Iraq in the first place. Must be that he is doing what the religion peddlers want, opening up new territory for them so they can increase the size of their flocks of people who can’t tell the differecne between them and God. That’s how hoaxes work. People are fooled into “faith” in the con man. When the con men are “officially” allowed to use an abstraction, God as the actual con man thus relieving their legal liability for the scam, it’s small wonder the troubles it brings the conned.

    If you have a problem with the fact that the Bible is a proved hoax then perhaps it’s time you saw the proof for yourself. Your government operates on the principle of “the wisdom of the people” and not that of the dictates of a “social elite.” The troubles of today are the outcropping of the people abdicating their wisdom to the ministry, “a better class of people” who picked Bush. One can only wonder how many if any of those who voted for Bush because Pat Robertson or their pastors said to now realize what they did and that it was a horrible mistake.

    See for yourself and exercise the wisdom of the people at http://www.hoax-buster.org It’s free and there so we can all stay free. Free elections do not a democracy make. It takes an informed electorate.

  • Hear, hear, Bill:

    “History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Baron von Humboldt, 1813; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 370.)

    Our so called national religious leaders seem preoccupied with earthly powers and privleges.

  • A old physician friend had a favorite description for people like George W. who are just generally screwed up. Poor protplasm.

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