Posted on 01/17/2002 8:43:59 PM PST by Jewels1091
WASHINGTON (AP) - It was ``must-see Thursday'' at the White House as a dozen NBC news cameras shadowed President Bush (news - web sites) through an unusually packed made-for-TV schedule.
He walked his dogs, huddled with CIA (news - web sites) and FBI (news - web sites) briefers, reached out to labor union leaders, pored over education policy with his advisers, lunched with Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), waxed profoundly about the presidency to White House Fellows, talked NATO (news - web sites) expansion with the Lithuanian president, signed a bill into law, gave marching orders to his commission on bioethics, sweated through a midday workout and received an award from the 4-H club.
By day's end, a camera was standing watch at the door as Bush entertained 11 Republican lawmakers over casual cocktails - no pretzels - in the White House residence.
``The president and the vice president have agreed to open up the White House today so that American people can have a very rich understanding of the events that take place at the White House, including many of the scenes that take place behind the scenes,'' said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (news - web sites).
And so, the executive mansion was essentially turned into a movie set, with massive panels of plastic sheeting erected on the North Lawn so that NBC anchor Tom Brokaw could tape his segments safe from the gaze of passing tourists. On the South Lawn, a remote-controlled camera at the end of a 20-foot jib caught Bush up close as he walked from the Oval Office to his limousine.
The one-hour NBC special, produced by its news division and called ``The Bush White House: Inside the real West Wing,'' will air Wednesday immediately before the network's fictional White House drama, ``The West Wing (news - web sites).'' Extra footage will be used for a separate Discovery (news - web sites) Channel special scheduled to air Jan. 25.
Thursday was no average day for a president who mostly keeps 9-to-5 hours. And White House aides admitted in private that they jammed more into Bush's day than they normally would in order to give NBC cameras an idea of the breadth of what their boss does.
The meeting with Lithuania's Valdas Adamkus, for example, was originally scheduled for the following week but moved up to coincide with NBC's taping, a White House official said.
One of 12 camera crews roaming the grounds since around 4 a.m. EST was allowed inside the exercise room of Bush's private living quarters for his weightlifting routine - after he'd worked up a good sweat.
The president's schedule for Friday showed no public events, except for his 3:15 p.m. departure for a weekend at Camp David.
Following G.W. Bush is like trying to dig dirt on Andy Taylor in Mayberry. Barbara (Aunt Bee) knows how to run a family!
I bet Martin Sheen is having a hissy fit...:) and BJC (that's billy jeff to northern freepers) and HRC (you remember her), I bet they are spitting nails.
LIFE IS GOOD!
God forbid this weasel Brokaw should be on display.
It was more likely a sniper screen so an average American wouldn't plug him!
Oh darn, I'll be at church - but this will be great - finally people will see A REAL PRESIDENT - instead of the fake one on TV.
How true that is - I live in San Francisco and there are SO many people who LOVE the show West Wing, and Sheen, and fantasize how it COULD have been with a respectable Democrat President, but they will have to face the ultimate reality of their fantasy - that Pres. Bush is more similar to the lofty goals and aspirations of Pres. Sheen than Bill Clinton ever was, and that has to kill idiologues!
Reality meets Hollywood - good going NBC - my hat is off to you for a class act.
Boy, this really frosts me! If FR had been around during the Reagan years, you could almost cut and paste what the press wrote about him, into what the press writes about Bush now. Stupid fabricated banalities!
Nope. It's The West Wing vs. The Left Wing.
biscuits and gravy, spoken like a true Southerner....:)
PS - there was a trivia question on the radio a while ago....they asked what people put on their biscuits for breakfast....the northerners said jelly.....:)
the Southerners all said gravy...:)
I'm thinking more like XXX, only without a plotline.
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