Bush's speech
Mar. 6th, 2003 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenSo I turned on Bush's speech when others pointed out it was on and DAYUM did he not do well.
For those of you who didn't watch, or for those who did but didn't understand, allow me to explain:
My guess is he only went on tonight because his popularity is going down like [insert your own Lewinski joke here]. He wasn't really prepared. Well - he was prepared but he wasn't good at improvising and keeping his emotions in check.
His biggest move was the classic interview technique - go into the interview with one or two key points and move every question back to those points, regardless of whether or not they relate to the subject. It was amazing to watch him answer questions from Korea to Iraq with these rambling replies that made their way back to 9-11, or freedom, or his oath of office no matter what the question was.
The second thing he did was construct lots of strawmen (this often went hand in hand with the two talking points). Hence how he answered questions about opposition to the war with things like "We're trying to bring freedom to Iraq - you're not against freedom, are you?"
The third thing was to repeat something often enough in the hopes of making it sound true. He answered damn near every question with the phrases "September 11" and "Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction", as though saying it often enough would, like ME's hopes in season 3 for the Angel/Cordy relationship, make a connection between the two concepts true. He also used all 3 techniques together when mentioning the UN's demand for Saddam to disarm in many of his responses, as though by doing so he could give the appearance that he was working with the UN and not completely disregarding what it's been saying.
I liked how most of the reporters called him on his bruce reasoning, even if he never answered their questions - a couple even pointed out that he didn't answer them, which was good.
An interesting moment, I thought, was when he started to crack. It was when he was asked about the US basically giving the finger to the UN by going to war against its wishes (I'd get you the exact question but I can't get on CNN right now to get my hands on a transcript). Bush snapped at the reporter with a "no", then said the most truthful statement of the night, which was a snide "we don't need permission".
At which point you could tell his handlers prompted him to a reporter who was an obvious ringer. He called on her out of turn (even asking her if he'd called on her before she had a question). The reporter? A black woman who asked how his faith was guiding him, and should America continue to pray? Which then allowed Bush to talk about how moved he is by his faith and how he prays and basically he got to make himself look good while recovering his composure.
I am floored by how bad this press conference was. He said nothing of substance, yet as I scan some news websites now (and listened to Dan Rather's comments after the fact) I see some people talking about it as though he actually made sense. Amazing. Barnum was so right.
And I'm telling you - decades from now we're going to find out he was the most evil president we've had outside of LBJ. Contrary to Dubya's repeated statements tonight, America shouldn't learn a lesson from 9-11. They should learn a lesson about not immediately impeaching presidents who steal their elections. Christ.
For those of you who didn't watch, or for those who did but didn't understand, allow me to explain:
My guess is he only went on tonight because his popularity is going down like [insert your own Lewinski joke here]. He wasn't really prepared. Well - he was prepared but he wasn't good at improvising and keeping his emotions in check.
His biggest move was the classic interview technique - go into the interview with one or two key points and move every question back to those points, regardless of whether or not they relate to the subject. It was amazing to watch him answer questions from Korea to Iraq with these rambling replies that made their way back to 9-11, or freedom, or his oath of office no matter what the question was.
The second thing he did was construct lots of strawmen (this often went hand in hand with the two talking points). Hence how he answered questions about opposition to the war with things like "We're trying to bring freedom to Iraq - you're not against freedom, are you?"
The third thing was to repeat something often enough in the hopes of making it sound true. He answered damn near every question with the phrases "September 11" and "Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction", as though saying it often enough would, like ME's hopes in season 3 for the Angel/Cordy relationship, make a connection between the two concepts true. He also used all 3 techniques together when mentioning the UN's demand for Saddam to disarm in many of his responses, as though by doing so he could give the appearance that he was working with the UN and not completely disregarding what it's been saying.
I liked how most of the reporters called him on his bruce reasoning, even if he never answered their questions - a couple even pointed out that he didn't answer them, which was good.
An interesting moment, I thought, was when he started to crack. It was when he was asked about the US basically giving the finger to the UN by going to war against its wishes (I'd get you the exact question but I can't get on CNN right now to get my hands on a transcript). Bush snapped at the reporter with a "no", then said the most truthful statement of the night, which was a snide "we don't need permission".
At which point you could tell his handlers prompted him to a reporter who was an obvious ringer. He called on her out of turn (even asking her if he'd called on her before she had a question). The reporter? A black woman who asked how his faith was guiding him, and should America continue to pray? Which then allowed Bush to talk about how moved he is by his faith and how he prays and basically he got to make himself look good while recovering his composure.
I am floored by how bad this press conference was. He said nothing of substance, yet as I scan some news websites now (and listened to Dan Rather's comments after the fact) I see some people talking about it as though he actually made sense. Amazing. Barnum was so right.
And I'm telling you - decades from now we're going to find out he was the most evil president we've had outside of LBJ. Contrary to Dubya's repeated statements tonight, America shouldn't learn a lesson from 9-11. They should learn a lesson about not immediately impeaching presidents who steal their elections. Christ.
