NY Observer March 12, 2003|9:37 AM
Bush Eats the Press by Michael Crowley
Sam Donaldson is long gone from the White House beat, but as he watched President George W. Bush’s prime-time press conference on Thursday, March 6, the wild-browed shouter they nicknamed "Leather Lungs" itched. Mr. Donaldson—who, for all his booming caricature, didn’t hesitate to ask Ronald Reagan about Iran-contra or Bill Clinton about Juanita Broaddrick—winced as he saw deferential reporters trying to question a scripted President in a rare, potentially historic media availability that sailed into autopilot as one of the all-time stage-managed White House electronic events.
"People ask me, ‘Do you wish you were back at the White House?’" Mr. Donaldson said. "And I say, ‘No, not really.’" But, said Mr. Donaldson, inflating his supersized larynx up to indignant, mega-bass proportions, "there are moments like Thursday night when—yeah—I want to be there!"
It wasn’t just Sam. Somewhere Mike Deaver, Ronald Reagan’s media-fixing P.R. king, was smiling. But reporters on-site were alternately flabbergasted, flailing and embarrassed by the experience. None seemed to have the legs to get into the game. Mr. Bush ran out the clock on his hour of prime time, using it with the focus of Jimmy Dean selling sausage, snubbing tough reporters while calling on buddies, issuing one-size-fits-all talking points to all comers, giving the answers he wanted to the questions he didn’t. He even openly taunted one correspondent, CNN’s John King, for daring to ask a multi-part question.
"I don’t think he was sufficiently challenged," said ABC News White House correspondent Terry Moran. He said Mr. Bush’s hyper-management left the press corps "looking like zombies."
Mr. Bush worked from a podium-pasted pre-determined list of acceptable reporters to call upon. USA Today’s Larry McQuillan, on the White House beat since Jimmy Carter, said Mr. Bush’s homeroom-proctor sheet of preferred questioners managed to insult those didn’t appear on it—and make those who did seem like Karl Rove’s brown-nosers, the camp kids who got the best desserts. "The process in some ways demeaned the reporters who were called on as much as those who weren’t," Mr. McQuillan said.
"They completely played us," added a correspondent for a major daily newspaper. "What’s the point of having a press conference if you’re not going to answer questions? It was calculated on so many different levels."
But to what extent where the reporters themselves to blame? Although some asked reasonably pointed questions, most did with a tone of extreme deference—"Mr. President, sir …. Thank you, sir …. Mr. President, good evening"—that suggested a skittishness, to which they will admit, about being seen as unpatriotic or disrespectful of a commander in chief on the eve of war. Few made any effort to follow up their questions after Mr. Bush’s recitation of arguments that were more speech-like than extemporaneous: Saddam Hussein is a threat to America, Iraq has not disarmed, Sept. 11 must never happen again.
It was a missed opportunity. From the media’s perspective, the purpose of a press conference is to hold a President accountable, to see him work on his feet, to understand his priorities, to give viewers insight into his character, to make a little news, or to allow the President to speak to the people in a responsive and human voice that a formal address doesn’t allow.
That didn’t happen. On Thursday night, Mr. Bush reinforced an image of a scripted man on a tightrope who followed his handlers’ cue cards:
Here’s a synopsis of the event:
Question: Why not give Iraq more time to disarm?
Bush: "This issue has been before the Security Council … for 12 long years."
Question: Why don’t our allies want war?
Bush: "Saddam Hussein has had 12 years to disarm … Saddam Hussein is a threat … Sept. 11 changed the strategic thinking … Sept. 11 should say to the American people that we’re now a battlefield …. "
Question: Why has world opinion turned on you?
Bush: "Saddam Hussein is a threat … 12 years of denial and defiance …. "
Question: How is your faith guiding you?
Bush: " … the tragedy of September the 11th … the lesson of September the 11th …. "
Question: How much will war cost?
Bush: "Three thousand people died."
And so on. One suspects the reporters could have informed the President that his daughters had appeared on Girls Gone Wild! and still gotten some answer interchanging the lessons of 9/11 and Saddam’s years of defiance. Former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart later called the event "a perfectly acceptable performance for a re-election press conference."
full: http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage5.asp
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