Drooling Over Bush's Speech
Another balanced Fox roundtable of 'experts' shared their insights following tonight's speech: Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard and Mort Kondracke of Roll Call. Three male Bush cheerleaders. Why do I torture myself?
Speaking of torture, I've been meaning to post Bill O'Reilly's interview with Donald Rumsfeld the other night. News Hounds has the transcript. I don't know how they do it:
O'REILLY: Why do you think the press coverage is so hostile to the Iraq effort?If this were a made for TV movie, Rumsfeld and O'Reilly would say good-night to all the patriots watching, grab hands and skip over to the White House for its annual Christmas party.
RUMSFELD: Oh, I think it's always been so. In World War - in the Civil War they just vilified Abraham Lincoln. George Washington was almost fired a couple of times. Think of, think of World War II and Franklin Roosevelt. I was alive and, and he was vilified, Franklin Roosevelt. People ...
O'REILLY: Why? Is there a "why" behind the press' skepticism about armed conflict?
RUMSFELD: I don't know. I just know that there's nothing new about this. And, and Harry Truman was pounded over the Korean War and look at Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War. (irritated) This is what happens in a war. It's tough business and people die and our heart goes out to those wonderful people, but, by golly, if every time people started criticizing what's going on and, and, and you stopped doing what you were doing and didn't complete the task that's got to be completed over there, our country would be a totally different place and our way of life would be totally different.
[COMMENT: Exactly "how" our way of life would be totally different, Mr. Rumsfeld neglected to say. As usual, his remarks were like cotton candy. Sweet and transient.]
O'REILLY: Is Howard Dean using the conflict for political reasons?
RUMSFELD: Oh, I can'' climb into someone else's head. He's Chairman of the Democratic Party. I suppose when he gets up in the morning, what he decides to do is ...
O'REILLY: He says - he says you can't win the war.
RUMSFELD: Oh, that's utter nonsense. We can't lose the war over there! The only place you could lose it would be Washington, DC. They're not gonna lose battles over in Iraq! Our soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marine [sic] are doing an absolutely superb job ,,,
O'REILLY: My goodness ...
RUMSFELD: ... and they know it! And they're proud of what they're doing and they know it's noble work.
O'REILLY: Why doesn't Howard Dean know it?
RUMSFELD: Oh, goodness, I have enough trouble just doin' my job without tellin' ya' how he ought to do his job.
O'REILLY: I bet you'd like to tell him a few things, wouldn't ya'?
RUMSFELD: Well, not from this position. The President asked me not to get involved in politics, so I don't.
posted by storiesinamerica @ 6:32 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Instead of torturing yourself listening to Mort, Fred, and Bill, why don't you check out what proud Bush-hater...
https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20030929&s=chait092903
...Johathan Chait had to say:
"...a portion of his speech tonight genuinely moved me and made me think more highly of him. It was the part where he addressed opponents of the Iraq war, said he understand their passion but asked that they think of the stakes of defeat now that the war had happened and asked that they not give in to despair...."
http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=4501
Lucky me. I'm on deadline writing about the sad state of the arts in California and didn't have time to comment. Unfortunately, I wasn't moved. When I heard Bush address his critics, I thought, wow, he really is desperate. A million women marched for women's rights in March, 2004. He didn't care. A million marched at the RNC in NY. He didn't care. Tens of thousands protested the inauguration. Millions marched against the war worldwide. Three years ago, many on the left were asking the questions the right are asking only now. I don't buy it. He still doesn't care. His numbers are tanking and members of his own party are distancing themselves from him. His decision makers decided to back off from the evil, tough man talk tonight and go for a softer, gentler Bush. It's gonna take a lot more than one speech. I do give him credit for not screwing up as often as he usually does. My high school public speaking teacher would be proud!
Do you think rove was involved in the writing process?
Rove? You mean for Jonathan Chait's piece?
As for Bush's approval rating numbers, they've actually been increasing lately. Not that it really matters given that I really doubt he'll be running for a third term.
And about this media bias stuff you've been on....It's worse than you think:
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664
Drudge is a lefty! That explains why he constantly posts photos of Cindy Sheehan on his site. Welcome to the club.
The methodology of the UCLA study looked solid to me. What...are you going to tell me UCLA is a bastion of right-wing Bush-lovers?
Or is this another Karl Rove dirty trick?
Anonymous, everyone is biased. The notion that the media is liberal is ludicrous.
Ask Santa for the book, "Tragedy and Farce" and get back to me.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595580166/qid=1134977202/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-6703432-3819957?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
So tell me, just how biased are the UCLA guys?
Do you have even the slightest idea who they are, or what their political affiliations might be?
Say, compared to the authors of the book you cited? (Just checked out their resumes........Wow. I mean, wow.)
From the UCLA website:
The researchers took numerous steps to safeguard against bias — or the appearance of same — in the work, which took close to three years to complete. They went to great lengths to ensure that as many research assistants supported Democratic candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election as supported President George Bush. They also sought no outside funding, a rarity in scholarly research.
"No matter the results, we feared our findings would've been suspect if we'd received support from any group that could be perceived as right- or left-leaning, so we consciously decided to fund this project only with our own salaries and research funds that our own universities provided," Groseclose said.
Just a hunch, but I don't think the authors of the book you refered to had a 50-50 split between Gore and Bush supporters....
"His numbers are tanking and members of his own party are distancing themselves from him"
Or, not...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121900924.html
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