April 14, 2004
NO ESTA WOBBLIENDO:
On Message: George W. Bush ignores the press at his press conference and takes his message of steadfastness in Iraq right to the American people. (Fred Barnes, 04/13/2004, Weekly Standard)
WATCHING PRESIDENT BUSH'S PRESS CONFERENCE Tuesday night, you could see why he drives the press crazy. No matter what they asked, his answer was invariably the same: We're staying the course in Iraq. It's important to gaining freedom for Iraqis and winning the war on terror.Not only that, he began the session with reporters by gobbling up 17 minutes of time they consider theirs. He devoted it to an opening statement--it was actually a speech--in which he said basically one thing: We're not flinching in Iraq. He was heroically on message, relentlessly repetitive, but effective in his own way.
Washington hates this type of public performance, which is characteristic of Bush. The press, the political community, the inside-the-Beltway lifers--they prefer a rich display of details, a bit of nuance, and some wit. Reporters, particularly, are soft on presidents who seem to like them or at least pretend to--or who pander to them.
Bush, of course, gives them none of that. He's not aiming to please the Washington crowd--the political elite. His audience is outside the Beltway--the mass--and he does surprisingly well in appealing to it. How does he do it? By being plain spoken and amiable and down to earth. By sounding more like Midland, Texas, than like Georgetown or Chevy Chase. By honing in on a single message and not giving reporters much else to write about. Bush tried Tuesday night to dictate the lead of stories.
If one was expecting a Kissingerian strategic case for America's intervention in Iraq, one wasn't going to get it from Bush. His argument was simple. Freedom in Iraq is good for Iraqis, good for America, and good for the world. And though we've had some tough weeks recently, we're sticking in Iraq and with our plan to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.
Three plus years into his presidency are there really still people who thought he'd wobble over Iraq? Posted by Orrin Judd at April 14, 2004 2:19 PM
My favorite hedgehog!
Posted by: Rick T. at April 14, 2004 4:42 PMHe's had the same M.O. for a decade now in politics, something the Texas beat reporters at the state capitol pretty much figured out by 1995 (they might not have liked what he was doing, but they knew he was going to govern on what he campaigned on). In Washington, political reporters are so attuned to the idea that living in the nation's capital eventually converts all politicians over to some varying level of Clintonistic word parcing and position-taking for style points, they can't believe he's not going to budge on this.
Posted by: John at April 14, 2004 10:05 PMThis has nothing to do with anything, but can somebody tell me how in the world there's a city called "Chevy Chase" and also a comedian named "Chevy Chase"?
It's not like we're dealing with some common set of words here, like "Johnson" or "Robert."
Just one of those little inconsequential things that has always bugged me in the back of my brain.