Posted on 12/22/2003 8:36:31 PM PST by Hillary's Lovely Legs
Lyndon Johnson got so angry watching Walter Cronkite's CBS Evening News that he'd call during the broadcast and demand to speak to the anchor right then, while Cronkite was on the air.
In person, Johnson would get right in Cronkite's face, sometimes lifting up The Most Trusted Man in America by his lapels.
"He was a strong man," says Cronkite, 87. "I was sure my suits would give way before he did."
Today, President Bush's relations with the media are no less tense than Johnson's were during Vietnam, Richard Nixon's during Watergate and Bill Clinton's throughout Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair.
But unlike his predecessors, analysts say, Bush openly brags about not reading newspapers, watching TV news or TV newsmagazines - dismissing the news media as unworthy of his time.
"I get my news from people who don't editorialize," Bush told ABC's Diane Sawyer last week. "They give me the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts."
"It's the old MBA thing: 'Give me the five points, the nut graph,' " says veteran CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante. He says this is one of the most secretive administrations ever - highly distrustful of the media.
Bush's wife, Laura, told Sawyer she read newspapers and columnists and tells her husband what they are saying.
CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller says that getting the news from his wife or aides seems to work for Bush. "We very rarely catch him unaware of something in the way that we used to catch Ronald Reagan. He is a very well-informed president."
And a deliberate one. Questioned at a recent press conference about a critical New York Times editorial about Vice President Cheney, Bush dismissed that influential editorial page, saying he never read it. And at last week's ceremonies honoring the Wright brothers' first flight, Bush took a dig at the Times, noting that it opined after the first flight that man was not destined to fly. "He enjoyed that a lot," Knoller says. The Times had no comment.
Bush may in part be playing to people who have distrusted the media ever since the Watergate days, when Vice President Spiro Agnew railed against the media's "nattering nabobs of negativity."
Cronkite thinks Bush may be exaggerating how little attention he pays to the media. "It's a defensive move. It must be very hard to have every move you make put under the microscope."
But that goes with the job and "it's difficult to understand why a president who spends so much time promoting the virtues of democracy would want to insulate himself from one of democracy's most important institutions, namely, a free and independent press," says Stanford University journalism professor Ted Glasser.
"One of the great ways to learn about America is by reading a newspaper on your own, whether it's the letters to the editors or anything else," says Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "It makes you wonder if the only people he is talking to are people who work for him or agree with him and whether everything he sees about America he learns through them or through the window of a motorcade. One of the few ways to not do that is to read a newspaper or watch TV."
Says Playboy editor James Kaminsky: "It's appalling to think that the man who runs the country somehow finds time for a long gym workout each day, but can't muster up the intellectual curiosity to peruse the newspaper. Is it laziness, arrogance or a willful combination of the two? Does the president really need a human filter to deliver only news the White House staff thinks he wants to hear? Do gossip items sometimes get thrown into the daily 'readings'? How about the funnies? How hard is it to watch the damn TV news, even while working out?"
Is it really hard to understand that he makes the news? As GWB put it, he gets his briefing directly from the "unnamed source in the Whitehouse."
This is also why the press loved the "poll politics" of Bill Clinton. If the wind blew, right or wrong, Bill Clinton blew with it (no pun intended). The press felt so important when they were able to sway public opinion and have Bill Clinton sway right with it. GWB gets the data and does what he feels is right. When it's a political decision he gets his data from his research team, not a political pundit who only pondered the issue that morning while sitting on the pot. Pot Pondering Political Pundits? I like it.
GWB does just fine and has assembled a great team. I only hope the press doesn't have enough power to derail him. We can only hope the press realizes how dangerous Howard Dean would really be and turn on him early.
Bingo. Note that the reason given for not checking out mainstream news (editorialization) is simply ignored.
As with the ACLU, I don't remember voting for any damned one of them. My thoughts and ideas are just as relevant as any of those A-holes, if not more, because I'm an American citizen.
They haven't a clue, have they?
As if they believe today's newspaper or TV has anything to do with the "real America".
And it's pointless telling them Bush has hired the best-of-the-best to advise him, hardly "yes men". They wouldn't understand that, either.
"It's difficult to understand why a president who spends so much time promoting the virtues of democracy would want to insulate himself from one of democracy's most important institutions, namely, a free and independent press," says Stanford University journalism professor Ted Glasser.
Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism: "It makes you wonder if the only people he is talking to are people who work for him or agree with him and whether everything he sees about America he learns through them or through the window of a motorcade.
Says Playboy editor James Kaminsky: "It's appalling to think that the man who runs the country somehow finds time for a long gym workout each day, but can't muster up the intellectual curiosity to peruse the newspaper. Is it laziness, arrogance or a willful combination of the two?....How hard is it to watch the damn TV news, even while working out?"
I'm with Bush - - I don't often read newspapers, either. (I may peruse the NY Post at Wawa while I'm eating lunch in my car, but that's it.)
Anything in the news that is important always ends up right here on Free Republic, complete with all the corrections of fact, analysis of spin, background and agenda of the source and the author, and cross-references with any number of other news sources. You simply do not get that anywhere else.
Thank you, Jim Robinson.
Oh puh-leeze. The media was Monica during the clintoon admininstration.
Ok, I made that up.
pretty good, tho.
That's Karl Rove's job.
Here we have:
1) The NY Slimes who have viciously lied and smeared him for 3-4 years.
2) Walter Cronkite, a far leftist who openly admits his hate for Bush.
3) A nudie magazine which considers Bush an enemy.
I don't blame Bush one bit. All they needed to do was add some quotes from Bush-hater Dana Milbank for the coupe-de-gras.
Pray for W and The Truth
Then it goes on, quoting sneers from hacks - who are these people? Who cares?
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