March 3, 2004

LET'S TALK SOME MORE ABOUT THIS INEXPLICABLE EVENT

Bush Congratulates Kerry (Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, 3/3/04)

Reuters reports that Bush called Kerry to congratulate him for clinching the Democratic nomination, and said he was looking forward to a "spirited" race.

"We had a very nice conversation," Kerry said of the call.

Maria L. La Ganga of the Los Angeles Times speculates those were "perhaps the last cordial words the two will have for months to come."

NBC News's Norah O'Donnell told "Imus in the Morning" today that "when we first heard that it might have happened, I wanted to make sure we had several sources because it did seem sort of unusual that the president was calling him, but he did." O'Donnell said "it clearly was a surprising call. I think that, you know, the president was perhaps trying to reach across the aisle at a time when his campaign is about to sort of hammer the senator."

Here are three not-mutually exclusive possible states of the world. I am delusional. The President and/or his advisers are competent politicians. National political reporters are incompetent even at reporting the process stories they love so much.

I have heard or read about this call, usually presented with affectionate bemusement, on NPR and Imus, many weblogs and in newspaper stories from all the major outlets, inserted into almost every story about Senator Kerry's great victory on Super Tuesday. On Senator Kerry's big day, I keep hearing about the President acting like a decent human being. Political commentators are constantly mentioning the President and his five minute phone call when reporting on Senator Kerry securing the Democratic nomination.

And they're all wondering why he did it?

Posted by David Cohen at March 3, 2004 3:56 PM
Comments

Apparently the thought of Bush as a decent human being is a foreign concept to the media

Posted by: AWW at March 3, 2004 4:54 PM

I think the story as reported fits fairly well within the media storyline of Bush--he made a nice gesture, but his motive was the knowledge it would soften the vicious partisan slander that he is about to unleash on Kerry. Nothing Bush ever does is portrayed as because he genuinely believes in it, but because he is pandering to his base, or Karl Rove has some nefarious political scheme, etc.

Posted by: brian at March 3, 2004 5:14 PM

He's a brilliant, conniving, lying traitor who managed to usurp Kerry's media coverage during his great victory night ... But wait ... Bush is a puppet and too dumb to think of anything like that - it must be the secret cabal that actually runs the country .. But Republicans are all idiots, so how can that be ... I'm so confused.

Posted by: jd watson at March 3, 2004 5:21 PM

As they so aptly demonstrate time and time again (e.g. the Wellstone memorial-cum-rally), most of our liberal bretheren and sisteren have no class. Moreover, they can't even recognize it when it smacks them in the face.

Posted by: Roy Jacobsen at March 3, 2004 5:45 PM

When I worked on the NJ gubernatorial in 1985 I was fielding congratulatory calls on primary night and a staff person for Governor Tom Kean called to set up a conversation. It's entirely routine.

Meanwhile, I happened to know the staffer and he knew my politics so he was apopletic that I was working for a Democrat.

Posted by: oj at March 3, 2004 5:57 PM

Why were you working for a Democrat?

Posted by: Timothy at March 3, 2004 7:51 PM

Roy (cousin?) Jacobsen - there are two simple reasons for the call. One is class.

oj: the second simple reason for the call is that they are both Yalies (hard for a Red Raider to comprehend, I know).

Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at March 3, 2004 8:09 PM

It doesn't conform to the mindset they've built up about Bush, which is why the data is causing them to react like those misguided computers Kirk would always talk to on Star Trek and eventually force them to start short-circuting and emitting smoke before finally breaking down due to the inability to handle two contradictory ideas.

However, to Kerry's credit, at least he didn't pull a Dole and snarl "Stop lying about my record" the way Bob did to GHWB in front of Tom Brokaw after the 1988 New Hampshire primary.

Posted by: John at March 3, 2004 8:37 PM

This sounds like the scene in The Godfather when the capo grabs his opponent and gives him a kiss.
"bacio della morte" I believe it's called.

Posted by: ray at March 3, 2004 8:41 PM

er, Sorry David, comment should have read:

dc: the second simple reason for the call is that they are both Yalies (hard for a Red Raider to comprehend, I know).

I know you didn't attend Colgate.

Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at March 4, 2004 12:00 AM

Colgate? I went and looked at Colgate but [CENSORED] and that was the end of that.

Posted by: David Cohen at March 4, 2004 12:02 PM

Fred,
Cousin? I don't know of any branches of the tree in SF, but may be mistaken. Any Danes from North Dakota in your background?

I'd forgotton the Yale connection. And there are those anecdotes from GWB's Yale classmates about how he knew everybody; not that he was just good with names and faces, but that he knew about people. A person like that would make a call like that to a fellow Yalie.

Posted by: Roy Jacobsen at March 4, 2004 4:35 PM
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