The WaPo’s Dan Froomkin noted earlier this week that the highly respected Council on Foreign Relations agreed to host the president’s speech on Iraq yesterday, but the august organization had to break with its traditions in order to accommodate the White House’s demands — Bush would give his speech, but he would not respond to questions from Council members. (CFR speakers are expected to engage members in discussion after a speech, a custom that several top administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Donald Rumsfeld, have honored.)
“Obviously, we strongly suggested — certainly made the case — that it would be in the interest of the president and in the interest of our membership that the president take questions,” council vice president for communications Lisa Shields told me this morning. “But true to his format, they declined.”
Fortunately, the “arrangement” was not without consequences.
Only a few hundred members showed up for the hastily organized event at a Washington hotel and empty chairs were removed from the back of the ballroom before Bush arrived. The audience interrupted Bush for applause only once during the speech and even then, many, if not most, did not clap. There was polite applause when he finished.
In fact, Think Progress has obtained an email sent by the Council to members, searching (with a touch of desperation) for those who would come — and bring a friend to make the audience look bigger.
It appears that CFR members saw little value in just sitting there and being used as a prop by the White House. If the president wanted to engage its members in a substantive discussion on international affairs — as other presidents have done — Bush would have probably generated quite a crowd.
But the “bubble boy” thing really has gotten old.
