Not Following the Script

President Bush’s ardent defenders like to complain about how roughly he’s supposedly treated by that classic conservative bugaboo, the Liberal Media. In fact, Bush is apparently so scarred by all these terrible media types that he brags about not reading newspapers or watching the news.

Of course, the reality is that the White House press corps tends to be so farcically deferential to the President that they refuse to call him on even wildly bizarre or false statements. Watch Bush’s next press conference and you’ll see how the supposedly Bush-hating press corps tosses softballs instead of actual questions.

It is therefore particularly instructive to take note of the White House’s reaction to Bush’s June 24 interview with Radio and Television Ireland. Irish reporter Carole Coleman, you see, apparently committed the sin of wanting actual answers instead of scripted responses.

For example:

COLEMAN: Mr. President, you’re going to arrive in Ireland in about 24 hours’ time, and no doubt you will be welcomed by our political leaders. Unfortunately, the majority of our public do not welcome your visit because they’re angry over Iraq, they’re angry over Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?

BUSH: Listen, I hope the Irish people understand the great values of our country. And if they think that a few soldiers represents [sic] the entirety of America, they don’t really understand America then. There have been great ties between Ireland and America, and we’ve got a lot of Irish Americans here that are very proud of their heritage and their country. But, you know, they must not understand if they’re angry over Abu Ghraib – if they say, this is what America represents, they don’t understand our country, because we don’t represent that. We are a compassionate country. We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves – but we help people. And we’ve helped the Irish and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got a good relationship with Ireland.

COLEMAN: And they’re angry over Iraq, as well, and particularly the continuing death toll there.

BUSH: Well, I can understand that. People don’t like war. But what they should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there that had destroyed lives and put them in mass graves and had torture rooms. Listen, I wish they could have seen the seven men that came to see me in the Oval Office – they had their right hands cut off by Saddam Hussein because the currency had devalued when he was the leader. And guess what happened? An American saw the fact that they had had their hands cut off and crosses – or Xs carved in their forehead. And he flew them to America. And they came to my office with a new hand, grateful for the generosity of America, and with Saddam Hussein’s brutality in their mind. Look, Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, against the neighborhood. He was a brutal dictator who posed a threat – such a threat that the United Nations voted unanimously to say, Mr. Saddam Hussein –

COLEMAN: Indeed, Mr. President, but you didn’t find the weapons of mass destruction.

BUSH: Let me finish. Let me finish. May I finish? He said – the United Nations said, disarm or face serious consequences. That’s what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn’t disarm. He didn’t disclose his arms. And, therefore, he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons. He was dangerous. And no one can argue that the world is better off with Saddam – if Saddam Hussein were in power.

COLEMAN: But, Mr. President, the world is a more dangerous place today. I don’t know whether you can see that or not.

BUSH: Why do you say that?

COLEMAN: There are terrorist bombings every single day. It’s now a daily event. It wasn’t like that two years ago.

BUSH: What was it like September the 11th, 2001? It was a – there was a relative calm, we –

COLEMAN: But it’s your response to Iraq that’s considered –

BUSH: Let me finish. Let me finish, please. Please. You ask the questions and I’ll answer them, if you don’t mind. On September the 11th, 2001, we were attacked in an unprovoked fashion. Everybody thought the world was calm. And then there have been bombings since then – not because of my response to Iraq. There were bombings in Madrid. There were bombings in Istanbul. There were bombings in Bali. There were killings in Pakistan.

COLEMAN: Indeed, Mr. President, and I think Irish people understand that. But I think there is a feeling that the world has become a more dangerous place because you have taken the focus off al Qaeda and diverted into Iraq. Do you not see that the world is a more dangerous place? I saw four of your soldiers lying dead on the television the other day, a picture of four soldiers just lying there without their flight jackets.

BUSH: Listen, nobody cares more about the death than I do –

COLEMAN: Is there a point or place –

BUSH: Let me finish, please. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind. Nobody cares more about the deaths than I do. I care about it a lot. But I do believe the world is a safer place and becoming a safer place. I know that a free Iraq is going to be a necessary part of changing the world. Listen, people join terrorist organizations because there’s no hope and there’s no chance to raise their families in a peaceful world where there is not freedom. And so the idea is to promote freedom, and at the same time protect our security. And I do believe the world is becoming a better place, absolutely.

(The interview and a transcript are available online.)

Horrors! How dare Coleman take her job as a journalist seriously and refuse to swallow unquestioningly what the President deigns to allow her to have? How dare she disrespect the leader of the free world by actually seeking answers to her questions instead of being satisfied with canned responses?

The White House reacted swiftly, canceling a planned interview Coleman was going to have with Laura Bush and generally acting like a spoiled brat.

But wait, there’s more: Coleman was required to submit her questions in advance. Bush refused to give the interview at all unless he knew exactly what she was going to ask. He fully expected her to simply roll over as do so many American reporters so infuriatingly, and was completely unprepared when she acted like a real journalist instead of a stenographer.

We now know this is standard operating procedure for the Bush Administration. In The Price of Loyalty, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill revealed that Cabinet meetings are scripted down to the last detail, with White House political apparatchiks telling participants in advance what they will talk about, what position they will take, for how long they will speak, and so on. Any deviation from the script was frowned upon most severely.

Take a moment to consider the implications of the President of the United States – the most powerful man in the world – being utterly unable to function without a script.

Every week or two, C-SPAN broadcasts Prime Minister’s Questions from the British House of Commons, where the Prime Minister is required to answer questions from other Members of Parliament. Whenever Tony Blair is shown thinking on his feet, without resorting to evasion, stock comebacks or double-talk, it becomes painfully obvious that Bush wouldn’t last ten seconds in there. Likewise, the European media would never let a national leader get away with the sort of drivel that the American media so exasperatingly allows from Bush.

In the meantime, I have a request for Coleman: please quit your job in Ireland and come to work in America. We desperately need a journalist on the White House beat who actually practices journalism.