Three Views of Bush
Here’s a trio of pieces, each of them looking at Bush from a different angle.
First, Paul Krugman wants to talk about a different falsehood that was in the State of the Union: Passing it along. It’s about the economy, Krugman’s main area of expertise, and surprise! Bush’s statements there don’t hold together any better than the Iraqi war justification.
Next, from Geov Parrish: Romper room. It’s a fun, but merciless, attack on Bush and his team, with the organizing metaphor being that where Clinton was a sex-crazed adolescent, Bush and his team aren’t even that developed, being instead a bunch of spoiled 7-year-olds, lacking empathy, prone to tantrums, and insisting that it’s someone else’s responsibility to pick up after their messes.
Finally, Glen sent in a link to the transcript from yesterday’s White House press briefing: Transcript for July 17. Some of it’s pretty bad; Scott McClellen is doing his best to stay on-message, but when the message is basically, “Hey; the president really wishes you’d just forget everything he ever said, and let him start over from scratch” it’s hard to keep the reporters from acting uppity.
Here’s an interesting tidbit:
Q Scott, when I asked you about the Cincinnati speech, I asked you if the President knew that the line had been taken out at the direction of the CIA, and you didn’t answer the question. It’s a simple “yes” or “no.” Did the President know?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think that — again, I can tell you what I know. And I know that we’ve got two different speeches we’re talking about here and two pieces of information that were based on some — well, one that was based on a specific source and a specific amount of information, and it was removed from that speech — another that was based on broader sourcing. And the President learned after the State of the Union address about these forged documents and the other information —
Q But I didn’t ask that.
MR. McCLELLAN: I know, Jeanne. I’m telling you what I know.
Q I’m asking specifically, did the President know, back in October, that at CIA direction that this information had been removed from his speech?
MR. McCLELLAN: And I’ve addressed it based on what I know and the President has stated, when he learned about it.
Q No, I am asking — it’s a “yes” or “no” question, or an “I don’t know.” It’s a direct question. Do you not know?
MR. McCLELLAN: I told you what I do know.
Oh, and there was this really fun exchange, too. Apparently the White House reporters read MediaWhoresOnline:
Q The White House web site has a picture on it of the President going over the State of the Union address and it says he’s examining it line by line and word by word. Did he in fact go over it line by line and word by word? Are you going to keep this picture on the web site in light of the controversy? And if he went over it line by line and word by word, why isn’t it proper for the President to take more responsibility for his own words?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you know, again, it goes back to exactly what I was talking about, I believe, with David, when we were going through how the vetting process works. There are a lot of people involved in that that have input into it and the bottom line is, the speech was cleared. But we learned some more information later we should not have included it in there. But I haven’t seen the specific picture.
