Pampered Bush meets a real reporter
Last week, I remarked on the apparently limited nature of American mainstream debate.
Today…
John Nichols: Pampered Bush meets a real reporter
On the eve of his recent sojourn in Europe, President Bush had an unpleasant run-in with a species of creature he had not previously encountered often: a journalist.
He did not react well to the experience.
Bush’s minders usually leave him in the gentle care of the White House press corps, which can be counted on to ask him tough questions about when his summer vacation starts.
Apparently under the mistaken assumption that reporters in the rest of the world are as ill-informed and pliable as the stenographers who “cover” the White House, Bush’s aides scheduled a sit-down interview with Carole Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public television network.
Coleman is a mainstream European journalist who has conducted interviews with top officials from a number of countries - her January interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently solid enough to merit posting on the State Department’s Web site.
Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader.
She asked tough questions about the mounting death toll in Iraq, the failure of U.S. planning, and European opposition to the invasion and occupation. And when the president offered the sort of empty and listless “answers” that satisfy the White House press corps - at one point, he mumbled, “My job is to do my job” - she tried to get him focused by asking precise follow-up questions.
…
The trouble is that accountability is not a concept that resonates with our president. The chief executive who gleefully declares that he does not read newspapers cannot begin to grasp the notion that journalists might have an important role to play in a democracy. And, if anything, the hands-off approach of the White House press corps has reinforced Bush’s conceits.
Bush would be well served by tougher questioning from American journalists, especially those who work for the television networks. And it goes without saying that more and better journalism would be a healthy corrective for our ailing democracy.
You can watch the interview here
(via SEB)
Wednesday 30 Jun 2004 | Paul | The Pit
