February 10, 2004

American Gladiator

President Bush did fine on "Meet the Press" yesterday. Tim Russert, not so fine. At least as far as Bush's critics are concerned.

They had high hopes for the interview. Russert is known as an incisive questioner and he had a full hour to interrogate the President. The editor of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, spoke for Bush haters everywhere when she urged Russert to seize the opportunity to be "a gladiator."
[...]

But it was Bush who came out of the interview looking smart and presidential. He breezed through the hour without a stumble or a pause, made his case in a relaxed, amiable way and apologized for nothing.

Russert can be relentless - he dismembered Howard Dean earlier in the campaign - but yesterday he was almost deferential. Perhaps he didn't want to assume a partisan gladiator's role. In any case, he produced nothing even remotely resembling a gotcha moment.

Give a little credit to Bush, too. Three years into his term, the President is not an easy man to ambush. Although his critics refuse to admit it, Bush is smart, tough-minded and extremely well informed. He is also very politically savvy.

Bush could, if he chose, sound just as sophisticated as vanden Heuvel or Kerry. They are all products of the same rich-kid finishing schools, after all. Kerry would never describe an important Iraqi politician as "a Shia fellow." But most voters don't mind this down-to-earth conversational style.

Bush also displayed a fine populist instinct when Russert asked him if he had been AWOL from the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War. The President scoffed at the notion, invited inspection of his records and then cautioned against the implication that the Guard is an off-brand branch of the military.

Kerry can have the war hero vote; Bush will take the weekend warriors.

The dramatic high point of the interview was supposed to be the question of the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But Bush refused to back down or second-guess himself. "This is a dangerous world," he told Russert blandly, and went on to say that he had absorbed intelligence reports, assessed the threat to America and made his judgment. This is an explanation that will not convince Bush's critics - but neither will it strengthen their case.

In fact, nothing Bush said yesterday was new, ill-considered or accidental (or particularly convincing). But that's not Russert's fault. The notion that Bush can be demolished by a journalist is pure fantasy. If the Democrats want a gladiator, they'll have to nominate one. And when they do, a fully armed George W. Bush will be in the arena, waiting.

This "review" by Chafets of the President's "performance" yesterday on Meet the Press is about as good as any out there and almost matches my own feelings, although I support the President whole-heartedly, which I doubt Chafets does, and I find his talents and strengths more profound than this journalist also.
President Bush made a good, strong, and personally responsible stand for his actions in the Global War on Islamist Terror and he did so in plain, honest terms.
This is something that alot of the American public can relate to and appreciate.
If it's something the talking heads in the print and TV media can't, like Ms. Noonan of the WSG, then, too bad.
I also agree with Mr. Chafets that Tim Russert's behavior was an unconscionably partisan attack.
To use the word "interrogate" is completely accurate.
I don't appreciate my President being given the 3rd degree fairly discourteously on national TV for prosecuting a just war that was started because this nation was viciously and cruelly attacked!
(I don't ever remember Billy Jeff Clinton getting grilled like this about his attacks on Iraq, the Sudan or even Bosnia and Kosovo and I think we're still looking for Milosevich's mass graves while we keep finding more and more of Saddam's.)
I wrote NBC that I am going to boycott them and their advertisers and I mean to do it.
The Liberal Media has gotten a pass from us for too long--after this Gestapo interrogation of Russert's on NBC, Janet Jackson's boob and the Reagan movie on CBS, CNN's confession that they lied for Saddam, Peter Jennings's partisan "news" reporting on ABC and the whole implosion of the BBC a few weeks ago for telling lies about Blair on the Iraq war, enough is enough!
I'm watching Fox News or nothing from now on.