After eight years and at his final news conference as President, NPR concludes that Chimperor Boooooosh is capable of reflection.
Meh. Better late than never.
As I watched President Bush’s final tango with reporters this morning, I was reminded of how Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin described President-elect Obama’s press conferences thus far:
“As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to keep a careful distance.
The Obama news conferences tell that story, making one yearn for the return of the always-irritating Sam Donaldson to awaken the slumbering press to the notion that decorum isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The press corps, most of us, don’t even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who’ve been advised they will be called upon that day.”
How long will the Obama-friendly press corps, no matter how “deferential” and “eager to please,” tolerate such tight management?
Aw, it’s like a petting zoo.
Final news conference as President? Not so fast my friends, they’re just trying to lull the opposition to sleep so that they can pull off that coup that the DU and Kossacks have been SURE OF for the last 7 years. I mean, who blows up their own skyscrapers just to hold pace in a few measly mid-term elections?
What they want is for Bush to drop to his knees, rip his shirt off, and beg for forgiveness from everyone on the left.
At that point, if given the chance, they would burn him for everyone’s collective sins like the Wicker Man.
In related news, thor has just announced his desire to join the press corps.
Final press conference, or final scheduled press conference? Events may conspire against that word ‘final’.
Sam Donaldson was irritating just to be irritating. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a tough interviewer, but it did mean that he thought very highly of himself. Or was just a natural jerk. Or both. On that note, I wonder how long until the press gets tired of just sitting there. Mr. Obama is going to facing some pretty desperate egos soon if they don’t get the meat that they believe that they deserve, i.e., recognition.
“Mr. Obama is going to facing some pretty desperate egos soon if they don’t get the meat that they believe that they deserve, i.e., recognition.”
He’ll just make sure they get invited to the right parties.
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!!!
Reminded me of the final press conference held by Detroit Lions’ head coach Rod Marinelli.
Criminy, it’s like getting an audience with the Pope.
The White House press corps have become docile supplicants.
Whenever I hear Bush looking back aloud the same line goes through my head as the one stated by the TV announcer just after a QB throws an interception: “bet he wishes he could have that one back.”
Aw, it’s like a petting zoo.
That ain’t a baby bottle those J-schoolers are eager to suck.
Eight more days and every newshound in America will have only Democrats to report on. Eight more days and no more excuses.
So, by almost self-admission, currently the vaulted Fourth Estate is not a check on the powers of the Obama Administration or the Democrat Congress?
What happened to afflicting the comfortable?
Fuck ’em all. Note to the Press: We already have religious zealots, some of them not so docile. Make yourselves useful to the Republic and Question Authority.
And why should that be?
Bush is a liberal Republican, very much in the Rockefeller tradition. He was elected to two terms, and in that time got literally everything he wanted except SS reform and an immigration act, and those could be put down to opposition to his own Party. He got NCLB and the prescription drugs extension, kept the war in Iraq and Afghanistan funded the whole time, got the surveillance program extended and telecom immunity, blocked the FMA with one of the neatest bits of political jiu-jitsu ever seen in American politics, and ran rings around Nancy, Harry, and their entire crowd of doom-yellers. He let Fitzgerald run amok with no restrictions, and ended up with nobody even accused of fundamental wrongdoing. At the close of his term, he graciously invited his inexperienced successor to sit in for show&tell to see how it’s done.
He done good, even exceptionally, and he knows it, and will go to retirement with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, and the fact that it makes you grind your teeth is just a bonus. Every team has plays they’d like to do over, but the ring sort of speaks for itself, y’know?
Regards,
Ric
“How long will the Obama-friendly press corps, no matter how “deferential†and “eager to please,†tolerate such tight management?”
As long as it takes, comrades, as long as it takes. Thou shalt not question the love interest/dear leader of idiot leftards!
Bush is a liberal Republican
You can try to push that spin, Ric, but everything Bush did gets tallied in the conservatives column.
Only by idiots, tuberhead. Only by idiots.
I think it galls the progs that Bush freed about times as many people as Lincoln, and with about 300,000 less military casualties.
“about 10 times as many people”
Only by idiots, tuberhead. Only by idiots.
To most America, the only two kinds of Republicans are biblehumpers and war profiteers, B Moe.
Whatever y’all call each other inside the cocoon are meaningless distinctions.
I love how Bush is a liberal Republican if the troll swarm is trying to ruin his “conservative” street cred, but he’s a CONSERVATIVE! if we acknowledge he’s a big-government sort of fellow.
I lol’d.
#14 Ric:
Bush is very much a liberal Republican. The one thing that keeps him from receiving that designation is that he is personally an evangelical Christian. That one thing keeps him out of the liberal Republican ranks, no matter what he actually did or promoted as domestic policy. If he had been a dutiful Episcopalian (I think he is a Methodist – one of those wild and crazy guys) it wouldn’t have mattered, but the evangelical label? Total conservative there (eye roll), and by extension everything else.
ahahahahahah oh parsnip
Bush is a Methodist.
The only way to escape Bush’s taint is start a third party, Pellegri.
I think Bob Barr is available.
[To most America, the only two kinds of Republicans are biblehumpers and war profiteers, B Moe.]
Does that include all the McCain voters? Cause 52% is a pretty weak definition of “most”.
Since my nose isn’t buried in his ass, I think I’m safe enough from Bush’s taint.
David Duke could probably use some swank new duds.
Oh wait, going to heaven is like being Evangelically set free. Now I get it.
Your suggestion is politely declined. I’m just here to giggle at your collective antics with thor, ‘snip.
I mean, that’s the only reason you guys comment here, right?
Conservatism is a political philosophy, tuber. Republicanism is a political party. They aren’t the same thing.
“You can try to push that spin, Ric, but everything Bush did gets tallied in the conservatives column.”
Jeebus, ‘snip.
For a while there I thought you might have an intellect. Alas! Apparently not.
Bush? A conservative?
What a day for a daydream, eh?
Oh, they’ll find some. I’m betting it’ll be some of the classics: “the audience isn’t interested”, “none of these stories rise to the level of scandal”, “this is all old news”.
…freed 10 times as many people as Lincoln, with about 300,000 less military casualties.
By the way, tuberhead, this is what a real cocoon looks like:
” Deferential, eager to please, prepared to keep a careful distance….
The press corps, most of us, don’t even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who’ve been advised they will be called upon that day.â€Â
#34 – Probably. And the already poor ratings will decline even further – say what you want about the American viewing (and newspaper reading public – yes, there are still a few of them left) but absolutely nothing about anything won’t sell papers or glue eyeballs to the sets.
It may be a race to see which comes first – NYT or some other major media BK or someone breaks from the herd and actually tries “journalism”.
I’m betting on the bankruptcy. The journalists can blame that on the business side of the paper, and they won’t have to worry about upsetting anyone in their social circle.
Aw, it’s like a petting zoo.
An e-ville petting zoo?
#38 Rob Crawford:
But once their employer folds, what ‘in’ to which social circle do the media purveyors have? Having employment with, say, The New York Times, opens doors. Once that is gone who are they? Who sent them? If ‘no one’ then they get on the curb and wait for scraps.
The local alt-weekly would have a greater pull.
George Bush, whom I like a lot because he’s a good and decent man above all, unlike the previous president who is a psycopathic rapist, ballooned our government, but creating the TSA, expanding the department of education exponentially (Not a happy time for serious conservatives), exponentially expanded the federal goverment’s role in health care, spent billions of dollars in Africa (Helping aids victims…the bastard), last dug his heels in and opposed any efforts to gain control of our borders. The results of the actions, are expected, by the democratic party to give them vote proof margins in perpituity.
I think this happened for two reasons. First, he’s a liberal republican. Second, after the events of 9/11, he was willing to make any deal, to drag the American hating democratic party into an effective defense of this country and to finally have one country stand up to the pre medivel animals of islam. He should have told them to go fuck themselves, did whatever the fuck he thought needed to be done, and then for good measure vetoed every piece of shit bill presented to hiim. But he didn’t. Because in the end he’s a decent man.
I’ll get back to everybody on what I think of the new president after he begins is term. Seeing as how he’s a marxist/leninist, I don’t think I’ll be impressed. And I promise to show him the same respect over the next four years, that you shitheads have shown George Bush. Only I’m smarter, and I’m even meaner when I’m pissed.
Only I’m smarter, and I’m even meaner when I’m pissed.
He is a big fucker, too, so watch it tuberhead!
Got a few mispellings and typos there, but basically William Buckly would not agree that George Bush is a conservative.
It is amazing – that by alienating readership/viewers/listeners the big boys have reduced their own power, and the one reason why anyone else catered to them. Only by catering to their client base do they have the access they need to retain their client base.
Oh so the press core that shouted rude questions to Rove and Bush from the White House lawn now sits and waits patiently to be given a list of names that will be called on to ask a question. Fuck this shit they really have turned into Pravda.
Prada, be more like it.
I think Mikey when they press hears Bush’s approval numbers hit a new low, and that Obama won the election, they think they are doing their job.
There will be some comfy government jobs for them to land in. Or possibly they’ll head to academia. I’m sure there will be plenty of nice NGOs to absorb them all.
I took a journalism class once and trust me they ALL, to a man, were far left and were boosting Obama back in 2005 when I took the class. Hell half of them had the pins begging him to run for office. This in a college in VA before he even announced for president. I doubt they will stop when they actually get jobs as journalists. I think we can expect for the next 4 years to be reminded at every opportunity that every misstep that O! or a Dem makes is a “distraction” from the serious economic downturn (did you ever hear that shit when they were trying to sell the recession for the last five years?) or that it is the fault of Bush. The people in that class seemed incapable of lookin in the fuckin mirror. They would have daily discussions about media bias, but the ONLY network they brought up was Fox. Some of them were even suggestion Al Jazeera was a good place to get balanced news.
#41 donald:
Do not forget the limitations imposed on the US government by the US Constitution. By design the legislature and the executive are separate, unlike in a parliamentary system. With a small minority in the legislature any executive is forced to play ‘let’s make a deal’ to get anything done, trading vetos on one thing for support on another.
And with a large majority, the same thing will happen. The split between legislature and executive, especially when the legislature comes from different geographical areas (states, and districts within states). That means that the legislature – each member – has a separate power base to maintain, and even if that legislator and the executive are of the same party the two will not see eye-to-eye on many things. Even within the same party and the same house there will not be a lot of eye-to-eye seeing.
With a large majority, any party in any part of the legislature will have different agendas comapred to the other house in the legislature, and will have differences with the executive. This design was genius, having power counter power, and by forcing compromise slowing things down. No man is an angel; not now, and not at the end of the eighteenth century. Forcing compromise and slowing was the best that could be hoped for. Bust power up – keep them squabbling – it isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. The only thing that could make it better is to have the Code Duello returned as a privilege of Congress.
#48 Rob Crawford:
Sure, that will provide security, but the rush of being catered to because of having an NYT press card? Not there.
Who the heck is going to return the phone call of some drone in the Department of Redundancy, Circumlocution Division?
No one important, that’s who. Instead of a cocktail party invite they get an offer to go watch a minor league baseball team – and they’ll have to buy their own snacks (reporting regulations, and all that).
Mikey, this constitution you speak of, I don’t really think it means what those words say anymore.
In reality Bmoe, what you witnessed is the new leaner and even more meaner donald.
#52 donald:
It still speaks when someone from another branch or house within a branch starts poaching on power. The power of office is very jealously guarded – never forget that little thing. Sen. Feinstein did not like not being consulted about Mr. Panetta – for example.
Mr. Obama may have the presidency, but he does not govern without dealing with Congress. In that respect he does not reign, and he certainly cannot rule without cutting more deals to tie him down than any can believe.
Mr. Obama is no Oliver Cromwell.
I think the Lord Protector was very much in mind when the US Constitution was written; and all of those delegates were happy they had George Washington to deal with and not Oliver Cromwell.
B-B-But…It’s their job to make sure that O!s Presidency is successful…
Chris “Tingle” Matthews says so…
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/06/matthews-i-want-to-do-everything-i-can-to-make-this-new-presidency-work/
It’s their job to make sure that O! is a great President..!
Our tax dollars are payin’ Tavis Smiley to say so…
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/09/video-tavis-smiley-explains-why-hes-in-the-bag-for-obama/
If guys like these are for him, what does it matter who may be against…
Mikey, I promise I’m aware of the constitution and I understand it better than about 99% of the population of this country. I also understand that the three branches of goverment feel free to use it to wipe their asses whenever it becomes inconvienent. It grinds my gears so to speak.
donald@41
You are right on target about Bush…
I think the Lord Protector was very much in mind when the US Constitution was written…
Lord Protector, yes. Lord Regulator, not so much.
Cromwell was a puritan. You don’t think those guys didn’t know about regulation?
That last was a bit of a joke…