The Press Conference


Good god, what was that? I watched the first 15 minutes of that last night, and then decided the horrible Will Farrell movie that Mrs. Datanerd picked up wasn't so bad after all. Tom Shales has a wonderful writeup in today's post about it. It's a shame that a TV critic has to be the one to tell us the truth about the travesty that was last night's "Press" Conference, but apparently most of the front-page reporters have to be too polite. A columnist doesn't suffer that problem.
A Prime Time to Ask The President Questions (washingtonpost.com): 'When I say something, I mean it,' George W. Bush said decisively near the end of last night's prime-time presidential news conference. Nobody called out, 'When will you say something?' -- the White House press corps is too mannerly for that -- but some reporters, and some viewers, must have been thinking it.

One network reporter predicted accurately beforehand that Bush would vow to 'stay the course' in Iraq -- reviving one of the most inescapable clichés of daddy Bush's years in office. What the people of the United States as well as the people of Iraq want to hear, the reporter said, is what 'the course' is. Bush said he would stick to the June 30 deadline for handing the government over to Iraqis but also said the U.S. military presence there would continue after that date.

The guys over at the Pandagon: Press Briefing Live Blogging Thread has a live thread going throughout it. Go check out their commentary on it. Jesse's comments were probably closest to mine: "I have a six-pack of Killian's Irish Red, and I'm playing a little drinking game. It's called 'Drinking'. The goal is to take a sip every 15 seconds or so." My beverage of choice was San Miguel from the Philippines, but the motivation was the same.

Note that I'm not going to mention the shimmering tie. Yeah, it's fun to beat up on him for anything and everything, but we've gotta have standards, and making fun of someone for what they wear is stooping to the 2000 election level when they speculated about what Gore would wear based on being an alpha-male. So, no snarky remarks about the tie, understand?


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