{"id":7872,"date":"2006-07-07T10:10:55","date_gmt":"2006-07-07T14:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/7872.html"},"modified":"2006-07-07T10:10:55","modified_gmt":"2006-07-07T14:10:55","slug":"bush-sits-down-with-the-least-contentious-journalist-in-the-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-sits-down-with-the-least-contentious-journalist-in-the-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush sits down with ‘the least contentious journalist in the land’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s hard to imagine a [tag]CNN[\/tag] on-air journalist sitting down with the [tag]president[\/tag] for an hour-long interview without making any<\/i> real news, but yesterday, [tag]Larry King[\/tag] managed<\/a> to pull it off.<\/p>\n

The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley noted<\/a> that everyone, regardless of their profession, seems anxious to talk to King because they know the interview will be “a chance to explain oneself to the least contentious journalist in the land.” King didn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n

Indeed, watching the interview, I noticed why Bush must love talking to King: the interview questions already include the answer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* “Mr. President, you’re into taking the lead on things. Iraq was an example. You took the lead on Iraq. The United Nations went along.”<\/p>\n

* “You’ve always had a lot of compassion for the Mexican people.”<\/p>\n

* “[We’re] going to get bin Laden.”<\/p>\n

* “[Ann Richards] liked [Ken Lay] a lot.”<\/p>\n

With questions like these, who needs answers? All Bush needs to do is nod his head, and maybe thank King for the [tag]softball[\/tag]s during the commercial break.
\n
\nThis isn’t to say Bush said nothing<\/i> of interest. The president, for example, oddly referred to [tag]Ken Lay[\/tag]<\/a> as a “[tag]good guy[\/tag]” and a “generous person,” which seemed like a strange description for an obvious criminal who defrauded thousands. For that matter, Bush said he thinks “every day” about bringing Osama [tag]bin Laden[\/tag] to justice, which is at odds with previous statements, including Bush’s infamous line, “I truly am not that concerned about him<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

But in the end, the real fascination was with King, not Bush, who seemed anxious to solidify his reputation as the least hard-hitting interviewer on television. As the NYT’s Alessandra Stanley put it<\/a>, “[I]t was classic Larry King: a warm bath, not a hot seat.”<\/p>\n

Bush probably would have it had it tougher on Fox News. It was that bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s hard to imagine a [tag]CNN[\/tag] on-air journalist sitting down with the [tag]president[\/tag] for an hour-long interview without making any real news, but yesterday, [tag]Larry King[\/tag] managed to pull it off. The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley noted that everyone, regardless of their profession, seems anxious to talk to King because they know the interview […]<\/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-7872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872","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=7872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}