Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 8 Feb 2004 (Pres Bush on MTP)

Various big media television networks ^ | 8 Feb 2004 | Various Self-Serving Politicians and Big Media Screaming Faces

[Alas Babylon!]

The Talk Shows

Sunday, February 8th, 2004

Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. John Edwards (D-NC) and Pat Roberts (R-KS); and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-FL).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): President George W. Bush.

Transcript of Russert/Bush interview

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Former Vermont governor Howard Dean (D).

THIS WEEK (ABC): Senator John Edwards (D-NC), former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta and Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

LATE EDITION (CNN) : Sens. John W. Warner (R-VA) and Carl M. Levin (D-MI); retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark; Former Vermont governor Howard Dean; former Carter national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; and former Reagan deputy chief of staff Michael K. Deaver.

Transcript of Russert/Bush interview

[OldFriend]

Not bad enough that the purists sacrifice reality, they have led to the sacrifice of thousands of lives around the world while X42 was 'otherwise engaged'.

As with Perot, there will be no forgiveness for that fanatical decision.

[7thson]

I thought it was a pretty good interview. I may be biased but I thought Russert was an ahole as he kept pounding away with the Iraqi question. I also thought that President Bush was beginning to lose his patience for a minute - as if he was tiring explaining something simple to a child.

[Zechariah11]

Yeah ... typos. I make quite a few of them. It's a character flaw that i've come to accept. I apologize if it bothers you.

It was petty of me to point it out. It is I who should apologiz.

[cyncooper]

See links at 1634

[EllaMinnow]

While I check that, please read this!

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."

On Saturday, Sen. John Kerry made this tongue-in-cheek prediction about the show. "I know what everybody's going to say afterward. They're going to say he looks smart, looked presidential, knew his foreign policy and domestic policy. Of course, we're talking about Tim Russert."

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.



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/162674p-142628c.html

[cyncooper]

Thank you!

[MEG33]

Is this posted yet on FR?If not,can you post the article as a thread?

[EllaMinnow]

OMG! Have ya'll heard Kerry's comments from yesterday?

He said "I am not criticizing anyone for evading the draft by going to Canada, or those who blahblahblah, or EVEN THOSE WHO JOINED THE NATIONAL GUARD."

He made this remark to reporters after watching MTP with Governor Warner of Virginia, supposedly to show that he isn't criticizing the National Guard.
Big Johnny can't seem to keep his Guccis out of his piehole.

[EllaMinnow]

I'll post it now.

[MEG33]

Great

[Bikers4Bush]

Get a clue Dane, I don't act as if they don't exist I act according to their relevance. A.) The dems haven't even picked a candidate yet. B.) I'm not a dem so what they do is of no concern to me. C.) I'm tired of supposed republicans leaning more and more to the left in an attempt to "grow the party".

There are people who I don't want in my party, those people are liberals. Once you assume their issues and invite them along I have no reason to stay.

The GOP need to reverse it's present course.

[cyncooper]

I just heard a reference to the Kerry comments from yesterday.

But I notice the reporters are using his totally revolting comments as leverage against the president and to keep pursuing what they now call the "AWOL story".

If reporters were to ever use a republican (and President Bush would never question the service of another) as leverage regarding a dem, it would be in the form of "Can you believe they have the nerve to criticize you?".

[MEG33]

Just pull out Kerry's statement about Vietnam service not appropriate to discuss when disgrace in chief,BC was running!

[MEG33]

I thought I should bring the discussion back over here as it has nothing to do with Kerry.I cannot,however add anything to the discussion.I know you have many issues and all have been addressed on many threads.I am still sorry to lose your vote.

[Stu Cohen]

Schoolyard insults..like those involving bodily functions?I only noticed one of those today..hmmm #1414

How perceptive. Did you also notice the following comments directed at me?

"How about MISINFORMED FRAUDULENT POSTER????"

"So far removed from reality you must have gone with "Spirit" to Mars."

"Stu you are full of yourself. !!! "

"The forum is not a place to play with Dad's computer."

"Your pomposity is boring"

Perhaps I should type more angrily in all caps insults or make cute comments about how people's minds are involved in NASA activities?

I mean, as long as your are taking offense, I certainly wouldn't want you appear to be inconsistent.

[ilovew]

**No it's women who vote with something other than their intellect.**

Do NOT generalize us. Every woman is different. Yes, I'm sure there are women who vote based on who they think is the cutest. But no, the majority of women do not vote that way and if you think that then you're the sad one. And FYI, Billy boy is NOT AT ALL attractive. He's ugly, slimy, and creepy. Not to mention insincere. (And that's only the beggining of it but I shall refrain from the rest of my thoughts on the former president.)

[onyx]

Thank you, Fledermaus. You ought to be a professional pundit! I think you have written a thorough and fair review of the interview and I am in total agreement with you.

[Stu Cohen]

I worked in television for 25 years, Stu, 21 of those years for an NBC affiliate. I know something about how it works. President Bush doesn't control what is advertised on NBC during Meet The Press. And if the president, or for that matter any candidate, attempted to determine which commercials aired, that'd be one more thing for the opposition to use in their campaigns against him, because it'd become an issue of free speech.

Advertisers pay for certain time slots within shows. They know the nature of the program during which their ads will air and in fact sometimes use that very thing to their advantage. Commercials are not just arbitrarily dumped into a show without regard to content. Television sales execs would be out of jobs if that were the case.

Well, we have something in common (scary, I know). Media industry experience.

I understand this, arasina.

I didn't say he should have approved the commercials. I think he should have demanded a "no-commercial" clause. Any network would still jump on the commercial-free interview for an exclusive. He could have demanded it, and got it.

This is not unprecidented. None of the networks run commercials during in the hour-long state of the Union Address, they didn't run commercials during long stretches of coverage of the War in Iraq, etc.

I think an interview with the sitting President of the United States in a time of war is one of those situations in which the commercials should wait until the end of the interview. Co-mingling commercials of flying dogs and impotetnce products with the President's first private interview in some time is disgraceful.

In my humble opinion.

I've been in the media business myseld, and you know, and I know that NBC would have agreed to go commercial-free in a heartbeat if Bush had demanded it. And if they didn't, ABC, CBC, or Fox would have.

And that's exactly what he should have demanded. Again, IMHO.

I shudder to think that 5 years from now we will be watching the "Taco Bell State of the Union Address".

[tubavil]

What a disaster! bush was defensive and looked like he was under interrogation.

He failed to take charge of the interview and direct its tone.

He barely strung one complete sentence together the whole hour, let alone articulating a point.

The conservative talk shows I listen to are having a hard time mopping up after him.

I think he realizes he's already lost the election by the consistent screwing of his religious and conservative base. I predict the rest of his campaign is going to be ugly and embarrassing, culminating in a large loss.

[tubavil]

- I shudder to think that 5 years from now we will be watching the "Taco Bell State of the Union Address".

En Espanol...