{"id":7879,"date":"2006-07-07T15:15:42","date_gmt":"2006-07-07T19:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/7879.html"},"modified":"2006-07-07T15:15:42","modified_gmt":"2006-07-07T19:15:42","slug":"maybe-i-dont-know-and-dont-want-to-tell-you-i-dont-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/maybe-i-dont-know-and-dont-want-to-tell-you-i-dont-know\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Maybe I don’t know and don’t want to tell you I don’t know’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of his not-so-exciting new public relations strategy<\/a>, the [tag]president[\/tag] hosted an hour-long press conference<\/a> from Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry this morning. It was more or less like any White House [tag]press conference[\/tag], except there were some local reporters on hand.<\/p>\n

Most of the exchanges were pretty predictable — Bush filibustered to keep the number of questions down, and he awkwardly tried to joke around with reporters (telling one that he is “trendy” because he wore a gray shirt) — but one exchange about North Korea was noteworthy.<\/p>\n

Q: Mr. President, if I could follow up, you say diplomacy takes time…but it was four years ago that you labeled [tag]North Korea[\/tag] a member of the “axis of evil.” And since then it’s increased its nuclear arsenal, it’s abandoned six-party talks and now these missile launches —<\/p>\n

[tag]Bush[\/tag]: Let me ask you a question. It’s increased it’s — that’s an interesting statement: “North Korea has increased its [tag]nuclear[\/tag] arsenal.” Can you verify that?<\/p>\n

Q: Well, intelligence sources say — if you can — if you’d like to dispute that, that’s fine.<\/p>\n

Bush: No, I’m not going to dispute, I’m just curious.<\/p>\n

Q Our intelligence sources say that it’s increased the number — its nuclear capability —<\/p>\n

Bush: — dangerous — it has potential danger.<\/p>\n

Q: It’s increased is nuclear capabilities. It’s abandoned six-party talks, and it’s launched these missiles.<\/p>\n

Bush: Yes.<\/p>\n

Q: Why shouldn’t Americans see the U.S. policy regarding North Korea as a failed one?<\/p>\n

Bush: Because it takes time to get things done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was more than a little odd.
\n
\nA reporter noted the obvious shortcomings of Bush’s “policy,” at least as far as results go, and the president responded by casting doubt on existing intelligence and suggesting that four years of deteriorating conditions isn’t enough to qualify for failure. For that matter, for a guy who spoke with unnerving certainty about Iraq intelligence to ask a reporter, “Can you verify that?” was somewhat jarring.<\/p>\n

Bush moved on, but then went back to the same reporter to say that it’s unclear if North Korea has “definitely” increased its nuclear weapons. When the reporter noted that maybe Bush does know but is unwilling to say, the president concluded, “Maybe I don’t know and don’t want to tell you I don’t know.”<\/p>\n

When it comes to responding to policy questions, it seems like a comment Bush could use quite a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of his not-so-exciting new public relations strategy, the [tag]president[\/tag] hosted an hour-long press conference from Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry this morning. It was more or less like any White House [tag]press conference[\/tag], except there were some local reporters on hand. Most of the exchanges were pretty predictable — Bush filibustered to […]<\/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-7879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7879","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=7879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}