{"id":7273,"date":"2006-04-28T14:55:43","date_gmt":"2006-04-28T18:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7273"},"modified":"2006-04-28T14:55:43","modified_gmt":"2006-04-28T18:55:43","slug":"when-bad-photo-ops-happen-to-bad-people-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-bad-photo-ops-happen-to-bad-people-part-iv\/","title":{"rendered":"When bad photo-ops happen to bad people — Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"

In part four in my ongoing look at media events gone horribly awry, I give you Speaker Dennis Hastert. (here are parts I<\/a>, II<\/a>, and III<\/a>)<\/p>\n

With gas prices soaring, this<\/a> probably seemed like a terrific photo-op. If only [tag]Hastert[\/tag] could have stayed away from his [tag]SUV[\/tag] for a little longer.<\/p>\n

The Republican House leadership, hopping aboard the new anti-oil-addiction campaign, staged a fine media event yesterday at a BP gas station at Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE that featured a [tag]hydrogen[\/tag]-powered [tag]car[\/tag].<\/p>\n

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), along with other top House Republicans, was photographed in and around the snappy blue General Motors HydroGen 3 van.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reporters ate it up and the media stunt was a huge success. Hastert rode off in the very fuel-efficient vehicle, with photographers snapping away. It was a little shallow — the Speaker was just in the car, he didn’t buy it — but no matter. A good media stunt is a good media stunt.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, those same photographers kept snapping when Hastert got out of the hydrogen-powered car — and into his SUV.<\/p>\n

Hastert, who appeared to have walked to the station, left in the very fuel-efficient vehicle, apparently headed for his office. But he went only a block or so before he got out and stepped into his pre-positioned gas-guzzling armored SUV to take him back to his office. Alert photographers, suspecting a ploy, had followed the speaker and captured the bait-and-switch.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He was only going a few blocks back to the Hill, but Hastert’s spokesperson said that “security officials demanded that he ride in the much more secure armored SUV.” It’s not a great argument — as Al Kamen put it<\/a>, “Perhaps the security folks thought the vehicle was related to the ill-fated Hindenburg?” — but when you’re busted, your standards for political defenses drop.<\/p>\n

My question is, Hastert couldn’t wait until he got around the corner?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In part four in my ongoing look at media events gone horribly awry, I give you Speaker Dennis Hastert. (here are parts I, II, and III) With gas prices soaring, this probably seemed like a terrific photo-op. If only [tag]Hastert[\/tag] could have stayed away from his [tag]SUV[\/tag] for a little longer. The Republican House leadership, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}