{"id":8403,"date":"2006-09-07T15:05:15","date_gmt":"2006-09-07T19:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8403.html"},"modified":"2006-09-07T15:05:15","modified_gmt":"2006-09-07T19:05:15","slug":"true-words-were-never-spoken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/true-words-were-never-spoken\/","title":{"rendered":"True words were never spoken"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president spoke with new CBS News anchor Katie [tag]Couric[\/tag] yesterday and acknowledged a point<\/a> a lot of us have been talking about for years.<\/p>\n

“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So true, so true.<\/p>\n

And speaking of the Couric Q&A, it’s generally difficult for the president to conduct a lengthy [tag]interview[\/tag] with a major TV network and not produce some<\/em> noteworthy remarks, but this CBS interview was soundbite-city. Couric would ask a predictable question, [tag]Bush[\/tag] responded with the same phrases we’ve heard countless times before. Dan Froomkin described the interview as “newsless<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

I’d go a step further and label it a missed opportunity. Salon’s Tim Grieve noted<\/a> that Couric just seemed thrilled to get the interview.
\n<\/p>\n

[S]he started her interview by thanking the president for doing it — “We really, really appreciate it,” she gushed — and things went downhill from there.<\/p>\n

Instead of pursuing lines of questions, Couric simply mentioned broad subject areas or random criticisms and then sat back while Bush offered a “response.” “You have said we can’t cut and run on more than one occasion. We have to stay until we win. Otherwise, we’ll be fighting the terrorists here at home on our own streets. So what do you mean exactly by that, Mr. President?” “Is this a civil war, Mr. President?” “What is the significance, Mr. President, of — of your announcement regarding — the masterminds [behind] 9\/11? Can you explain that?”<\/p>\n

At one point, Couric asked Bush why, if the war against terrorism is so important, he won’t “mobilize the country” by calling for sacrifices, raise taxes to finance the war, reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil or send more troops to Iraq. It was a good question, but Couric didn’t follow up when Bush gave a rambling nonanswer. Indeed, it was Bush who said, “The question is: Why aren’t we winning?” Couric didn’t push for an answer to that one, either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Couric went on to tell the president that “people admire so much your ability to adhere to your principles” and mentioned, “I know you care so much about the soldiers in Iraq.”<\/p>\n

To borrow a line from Prof. DeLong<\/a>, “Why oh why can’t we have a better press corps?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president spoke with new CBS News anchor Katie [tag]Couric[\/tag] yesterday and acknowledged a point a lot of us have been talking about for years. “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” So true, so true. And speaking of the Couric Q&A, it’s generally difficult […]<\/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-8403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8403","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=8403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}