Watching the President, Thursday evening in his 4th prime time television press conference since 2001, is a bit like watching a one-legged child, wearing a parents overlarge clothing, attempting to jump rope, wobbly on his foot and lost in excessive cloth.
A painfully scripted exercise, both for leader and led, that is, in its aftermath, predictably suffering the self-satisfied corporate media’s equally predictable judgments.
The Emperor is still naked while the court still pretends to see the invisible outfit.
To my lying eyes, the President failed to answer all questions put to him.
From the first question on polls to those dealing with the role of faith in politics, the strong Iraqi insurgency, the rise in terrorist acts to Bolton, Delay and Korea, the President ignored the thrust of each and substituted the same tired talking points that have dogged these subjects for months if not years.
The assembled press, of course, know that the President substituted talking-point-jibber-jabber for fresh information as they hear Mr. Bush speak nearly every day.
That the President selected to ignore these pertinent areas of inquiry becomes, of course, an element of the real news choosier media chooses not to mention.
Also unmentioned was the President’s utter discomfort throughout the sweltering hour in the East Room.
Eye blinks, stammers and hackneyed attempts at humor all defied corporate media descriptions of Mr. Bush as forceful.
Of course, some questions contained elements so embarrassing the President, all jargon and eye blinks aside, had to attempt some damage control:

Q-What do you think of Putin now that he has expressed a willingness to supply weapons to outlaw regimes?
A-On the issue of vehicle-mounted weaponry to Syria. We didn't appreciate that.

Other questions were handled with a windy ramble topped with a blatant mischaracterization:

Q-Within the next year you think you could have very substantial American withdrawal of troops?
A-I said we'd get them out, and we've done that. In other words, the withdrawals that I said would happen have happened.

Got that folks?
The troops are home.
My favorite questions were those untranscribable moments that briefly returned the deer-in-headlights look to Mr. Bush’s eyes before his Manchurian Candidate conditioning kicked him back into down home president mode.
I guess I’m just left with an overwhelming impression of bold’s utter absence.

Modified Image: Reuters, curiousparents.com
- posted by Sean @ 12:16 AM