Response by Gerald F. Seib to Email Concerning His WSJ Column Questioning Bush's Leadership Skills

Wall Street Journal | 9/12/01 | Me

[vbmoneyspender]

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a column by Gerald F. Seib in which he questioned Bush's leadership skills. The title of the column was "Attack Hits Bush With Severe Test Of His Untested Leadership Skills." Here is an FR link to the full column - Link

In response to my email to him, Mr. Seib wrote the following (my email comes first, his response comes second):

Dear Mr. Seib:

Shame on you sir. Why don't you have a little respect for the dead before you start questioning the leadership abilities of our President.

Sincerely,

Vincent Moneymaker

P.S. President Bush has served and is serving our country. Have you ever served our country?

____________________________________
Seib's response

I'm genuinely sorry the column struck you this way. My intention was, if anything, to suggest that the skeptics will be proven wrong, for that is the way I feel. And I thought the final line of the piece -- saying that presidents rise to the occasion--was an indication of that. I regret it came across to you otherwise.

Sincerely,

Jerry Seib

After reading Mr. Seib's column, you be the judge of whether he was being sincere in his email response. As for me, I continue to be sickened by his column.

[Paraclete]

I think you were a little over sensitive. I took Seib's column the way he characterizes it.

[vbmoneyspender]

Indeed, the very skills he now needs most -- the ability to unite a quarrelsome nation, the knack for transcending partisan divides, the talent to pull America's international allies behind him -- are precisely the skills that skeptics doubt he possesses.

I call writing something like that (one day after having the largest terrorist attack in American history occur) to be both extremely unhelpful and unpatriotic.

[praise]

The man has an opinion and you are being trivial.

[FReethesheeples]

The Wall street JOournal has quite a few liberals, mostly reporters, not columnists, such as a guy named Wessel who I saw on TV last night and who repeated this exact line, about how wonderful Clinton would have done in a situation like this

(I wanted to barf on him or punch his un-photogenic mug out).

Al Hunt is another who comes to mind.

Seib may be realitvely fair.

I'll read his article.

He usually seems to be somewhat even-handed.

But NPOT Al Hunt, the Journal's OFICIAL "resident socialist."

OF course, they have many EXCELLENT, superb, wonderful, terriffic

reporters and (mostly) columnists,

like John Fund,

Dorothy Rabinowitz,

George Mellowan (sp?),

Robert Bartley,

Mark Helpern,

Paul Gigot,

etc., etc.

[FReethesheeples]

The Wall street JOournal has quite a few liberals, mostly reporters, not columnists, such as a guy named Wessel who I saw on TV last night and who repeated this exact line, about how wonderful Clinton would have done in a situation like this

(I wanted to barf on him or punch his un-photogenic mug out).

Al Hunt is another who comes to mind.

Seib may be realitvely fair.

I'll read his article.

He usually seems to be somewhat even-handed.

But NPOT Al Hunt, the Journal's OFICIAL "resident socialist."

OF course, they have many EXCELLENT, superb, wonderful, terriffic

reporters and (mostly) columnists,

like John Fund,

Dorothy Rabinowitz,

George Mellowan (sp?),

Robert Bartley,

Mark Helpern,

Paul Gigot,

etc., etc.

[BCrago66]

You must grant that he gave you a sincere and non-defensive answer, which is to his credit.

[vbmoneyspender]

do you really consider it to be trivial to point out to a columnist that it is shameful for him to even been raising the issue of our President's leadership skills in a wartime situation?

[Paraclete]

I think he's simply stating what he sees to be true.

I was watching Charlie Rose on PBS (forgive me) and found a real dichotomy. On the one had Jim Hoagland, a renowned expert on the Middle East, blamed Clinton for being in the mess we're in now.

Then, Frank Rich (NYT), Halberstrom (NYT?), and Lewis (Boston paper) came on and their arrogance regarding Dubya was very evident. Like he is a bumbling idiot.

These are the people we can thank for fiddling while Rome burned.

[praise]

I dare say, there were plenty of times Bill Clinton's leadership abilities were in question on this forum and in many newspapers, as it should be. That is one reason America is a great country. We have the right to QUESTION any leaders ability and still live to post on FR. *hug*

[First_Salute]

Could have been yesterday's news.