{"id":7686,"date":"2006-06-14T14:42:15","date_gmt":"2006-06-14T18:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7686"},"modified":"2006-06-14T14:42:15","modified_gmt":"2006-06-14T18:42:15","slug":"and-the-award-for-the-most-awkward-bush-moment-goes-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/and-the-award-for-the-most-awkward-bush-moment-goes-to\/","title":{"rendered":"And the award for the most awkward Bush moment goes to…"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, [tag]Bush[\/tag] was in Florida and met with a group of senior citizens to talk about his Medicare plan. He greeted those who rose for his entrance, but greeted a man who remained sitting in a wheelchair with, “You look mighty comfortable<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

It struck me as one of the more embarrassing moments of Bush’s presidency. Today, he topped himself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At a press conference this morning, President Bush needled Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten after he stood up to ask a question wearing [tag]sunglasses[\/tag]. “Are you going to ask that question with [tag]shades[\/tag] on?” Bush said, telling [tag]Wallsten[\/tag], “I’m interested in the shade look, seriously.”<\/p>\n

But as Wonkette first noted, and which ThinkProgress subsequently confirmed, Wallsten is legally [tag]blind[\/tag]. Wallsten tells us he has a rare genetic disorder called Stargardt’s Disease. The disease is a form of macular degeneration that can be slowed “by wearing UV-protective sunglasses and avoiding exposure to bright light.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In fact, looking at the transcript<\/a>, after Wallsten offered to take off his sunglasses, Bush noted, “For the viewers, there’s no [tag]sun[\/tag].” (It was cloudy in DC at the time.) Wallsten responded, “I guess it depends on your perspective.”<\/p>\n

Just to be clear, Bush didn’t know about Wallsten’s condition. Chances are, because of his own insecurities, Bush saw a reporter standing to ask a question and he thought, out of respect, Wallsten should have taken the sunglasses off. When he didn’t, Bush probably decided he could tease him a bit to try and embarrass him. It’s the fratboy charm that makes the president such a “character.”<\/p>\n

Regardless, the president’s social graces can make for some painful moments, can’t they? The phrase “all noblesse and no oblige” comes to mind….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, [tag]Bush[\/tag] was in Florida and met with a group of senior citizens to talk about his Medicare plan. He greeted those who rose for his entrance, but greeted a man who remained sitting in a wheelchair with, “You look mighty comfortable.” It struck me as one of the more embarrassing moments […]<\/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-7686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686","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=7686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}