# Did the press corps save GWBush from total embarassment? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2002, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538 "2002-05-30T14:07:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/161 "2002-06-04T20:04:44Z")
Which part of that article in the Financial Times has anything to do with the alleged question about Brazil? I must have missed it. ---
**Author:** ![Tretiak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e57/32.png) [@Tretiak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tretiak)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/162 "2002-06-04T20:38:17Z")
From the Financial Times article: > [@](#): > > Earlier Mr Bush had said he was looking forward to trying some French food, because “[Jacques] is always telling me the food here is fantastic”, apparently indicating that he had not heard about the quality of French cuisine in his previous 54 years on the planet. Apparently indicating nothing of the sort, JacquesAss. Is it just me, or is this a case of the reporter really stretching things to try and make a point. Bush decidedly did not say, “I did not know this, but Chirac assures me French food is quite good.” he simply said Chirac keeps telling him how good it is. Hell the exchange could have gone something like this… BUSH: Hey Jacques? Jacques: Hey George, have you eaten yet, our food here is quite good. BUSH: I am hungry. JACQUES: Good I will have the chef prepare some of our famous toast, fried potatoes and onion soup. It is all quite wonderful I assure you. BUS: Yes, you mentioned that already. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/163 "2002-06-04T20:56:56Z")
Yeah, it’s the kind of thing you say to someone when you’re a guest at their house: “Hey, Martha, I can’t wait to taste that meatloaf of yours! Bob keeps telling me how terrific it is!” Ace’s link also claims that: > [@](#): > > Reporters shuffled their notebooks and looked at their feet, embarrassed by this spectacle of an American president jeering at a fellow American for speaking their host’s language. Whereas a bunch of other sources, such as [this one](http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020530.asp#1), claim: > [@](#): > > Chuckling, Bush quipped: “That’s very good. The guy memorizes four words and he plays like he’s intercontinental!” Bush laughed as the press corps in attendance also erupted in laughter. After six seconds of laughter from both the reporters and Bush, the President cracked: “I’m impressed. Que bueno. Now I’m literate in two languages.” And they have a clip from the event that bears this out. What did David Gregory have to say about it? > [@](#): > > David Gregory thought Bush reacted with humor. Gregory told Don Imus on Tuesday morning: “He was very funny. He’s very quick with the one-liner. I just thought it was so funny given that he speaks Spanish so often that he would go after me for that.” So, despite everyone’s characterization of it as a “nasty little attack” or a “hissy fit,” looks like it didn’t bother Gregory too much. (Hey, didn’t xenophon say that Gregory probably didn’t think it was funny?) And, in support of my comments about Clinton earlier in the thread, does anyone remember hearing any flak about this? I sure don’t. > [@](#): > > On Tuesday, both Brit Hume on FNC and Jeff Greenfield on CNN played an example of a President really being angry at a reporter’s question: President Clinton’s blistering retort to Brit Hume back in 1993. > > ``` > At the Rose Garden announcement of Clinton’s nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Supreme Court, a candidate Clinton decided on after a lengthy search process, Hume, then with ABC News, inquired: “The withdrawal of the Guinier nomination, sir, and your apparent focus on Judge Breyer, and your turn -- late, it seems -- to Judge Ginsburg, may have created an impression, perhaps unfair, of a certain zigzag quality in the decision-making process here. I wonder, sir, if you could kind of walk us through it and perhaps disabuse us of any notion we might have along those lines? Thank you." > > A glaring Clinton icily fired back: “I have long since given up the thought that I could disabuse some of you of turning any substantive decision into anything but political process. How you could ask a question like that after the statement she just made is beyond me.” > > Clinton then turned and walked back into the White House, thus prematurely ending the press conference. > > ``` Free ride! Free ride! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ace_of_Swords)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/164 "2002-06-04T22:09:54Z")
**Neurotik** , sorry, didn’t mean to lose you… The link was to buttress the argument that the press does indeed cover for Bush, which allows us move on to debate whether the press cover-up was worse than the gaffe, one of the original questions of the OP. **Pldennison** , seems to understand this, hence the ol’ ploy of his digging for comparable Clinton misdeeds – PLD, turning to you, you seem to argue that our current presidents track record of petty anger and embarassing comments is at all comparable to his predecessor. Would you like to state that, so I can tear it apart, or would you rather just continue to compare apples and oranges on your slideshow of a post? Your argument is meaningless cherry-picking. Watch, I’ll do it too! Does anything stack up to the embarassement and ridicule Bush brought on the presidency for this? “There’s Adam Clymer – major league asshole – from the New York Times,” Bush said. “Yeah, big time,” returned Cheney. [http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/09/04/cuss\_word/](http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/09/04/cuss_word/) Free ride indeed :rolleyes: Face it. The man has a track record of making asine, juvenile comments. If other countries want to call him all that, and callow besides, they don’t have to look so hard, nor create incidents out of whole cloth – a la Mr. Gore. Don’t take my word for it, take Crossfire’s! There appears to be a new gaffe, the “God Dang it” incident at a Breast Cancer fund-raising run (apparently GW still hasn’t learned about the difference between “Hot” mikes and “Cold” ones) In this excerpt, Dee Dee Myers (sitting in for Begala) makes the same point – Bush has an awful, awful track record when it comes to opening his mouth: > [@](#): > > There were no cameras, but we’ve got audio. So take a listen to the “Quote of the Day.” > > (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) > > BUSH: Again I want to thank you for running. Every step you take today is critical to finding a cure for breast cancer. > > UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m sorry Mr. President, did you signal? > > BUSH: Yes, what? > > UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m sorry, they dropped the call. We’re going to… > > BUSH: What are you talking about they dropped the call? > > UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They tried to connect you to the feed. The feed didn’t go through. > > BUSH: You mean I haven’t – they haven’t heard a word yet? > > UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I’m sorry Mr. President… > > BUSH: God dang it. > > (END AUDIO CLIP) > > CARLSON: So if that’s – if that’s the best you get, with Bush caught with the open mike, I must say I feel safe at night. God dang it. > > MYERS: I – you know what? I’m confident, Tucker, that’s not the best we’re going to get over the course of the Bush presidency. It’s a step in a beautiful journey. [http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0206/03/cf.00.html](http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0206/03/cf.00.html) Is there anyone here who doesn’t concede that the man is Gaffe prone? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/165 "2002-06-04T22:35:00Z")
So we are into the fourth page of Bush-bashing based on an incident which has not been proved and which most probably never happened but it is “so like Bush that even if it didn’t happen it _could_ well have happened”. Ummm, ok, carry on and have fun. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/166 "2002-06-04T23:46:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Pldennison, seems to understand this, hence the ol’ ploy of his digging for comparable Clinton misdeeds – PLD, turning to you, you seem to argue that our current presidents track record of petty anger and embarassing comments is at all comparable to his predecessor. Would you like to state that, so I can tear it apart, or would you rather just continue to compare apples and oranges on your slideshow of a post? Ace, I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t tear a hole in a piece of Swiss cheese. In any case, my argument is that: 1. Any given U.S. President is capable of saying something stupid into a microphone. If you want to argue that my Clinton example is not germane to that premise, take your best shot. If you don’t like that example, you can also use Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Or Gerald Ford’s comments about Poland not being under Soviet control. Or anything from the Nixon tapes. 2. We have not established with any degree of confidence that the comment on which the OP is based even happened. 3. The incident from your FT link has obviously been blown way out of proportion, and in fact the FT columnist completely misrepresents what happened. Watch the clip yourself–don’t take my word for it. 4. And shouldn’t the FT be more concerned with their own gaffe-prone Prince Philip, anyway? That guy makes anyone else look like a piker. 5. Bush hardly got a “free ride” on the Adam Clymer thing. It was all over the papers for days. 6. So the President, when told that his live feed to a charity event wasn’t working, said, “God dang it?” _Sacre bleu!_ The horror! What exactly should his reaction have been? “Oh, fiddlesticks, now I’m ever so angry?” Interesting that you chose not to quote the end of that exchange: > [@](#): > > CARLSON: It’s pretty innocuous, though, you’ve got to admit. > > MYERS: It is innocuous. It doesn’t have to be… > > CARLSON: No, I think it’s totally amusing. When foreign governments were listening in on the phone calls Bill Clinton was having with his girlfriend, I mean I bet there – it was better than “God dang it,” I have to admit. > > MYERS: That’s for sure – were much more interesting. 1. Far from getting a free ride, the press obsesses over _everything_ Bush says–because they’ve already decided that he’s stupid and prone to making gaffes. They’re looking for them. And you accuse _me_ of cherry picking? They take individual words and three- or four-word bits from what might have been five hundred word speeches. I’ll bet that if you wanted to look back through Clinton’s or Reagan’s speeches, you’d find plenty of zingers, too. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/167 "2002-06-05T00:58:56Z")
You know what the President said? When a phone Snafu made him see red? He muttered, “God dang it!” He practically sang it. How horrible! **Off With His Head!** ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/168 "2002-06-05T01:52:54Z")
> [@](#): > > (Hey, didn’t xenophon say that Gregory probably didn’t think it was funny?) Guess I was wrong about _that_, wasn’t I? I think Gregory made his point pretty well regarding the hypocrisy of Bush’s remark, though. Defend it all you want, it still comes down to a stupid, petty half-witticism from a small man. And just for the benefit of all of you decrying the “hijacking” of the thread away from the incident mentioned in the OP, I fully agree that there’s no compelling evidence that that specific incident ever happened. Whoopee. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/169 "2002-06-05T02:27:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Nice try at a save, Sua, but Dubya is not a professor or an MBA. Actually, Bush has an MBA. Carry on. Just doing my bit to fight ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![litost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@litost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/litost)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/170 "2002-06-05T02:40:09Z")
**pldennison** , Are you saying that all presidents in the past have made more or less their share of stupid statements? Is it only me who has a feeling that Bush has built up an unusual repertoire of ridiculous statements? ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/171 "2002-06-05T02:43:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ace0Spades \* > \*\ ***Neurotik** , sorry, didn’t mean to lose you… > > The link was to buttress the argument that the press does indeed cover for Bush, which allows us move on to debate whether the press cover-up was worse than the gaffe, one of the original questions of the OP. \*\* You didn’t lose me. I knew exactly the point you were trying to make. I just thought you did a terrible job at making it. How do the press cover for Bush? Because they didn’t print “securitize?” Riiiiiiight. I’d much rather have the press trumpeting up a slip of the tongue than delve into the deeper effects of policy. :rolleyes: As they said about Daly: “Write what he meant, not what he said.” Second, the European press must also be in on this big cover-up. Which isn’t surprising as the press on the other side of the Atlantic is generally right-wing and fond of Bush. As I said at the beginning of this threat, I read the Guardian and the Independent daily, and I never saw any mention of these gaffes that are reported in this guy’s column. In fact, I don’t think the Financial Times reported them outside this column. Maybe the press has finally grasped what is important and what is not important, although I doubt it. Much more likely is that people just don’t care. It’s not like the press is covering up the investigation into how the FBI and intelligence agencies screwed up. Frankly, I’d much rather have the press reporting on the truly wasteful and stupid policy initiatives that the Administration is pushing…like missile defense, slapping down the CAFE increases, drilling on federal land, etc. It’s just petty and moronic to focus on slips of the tongue when there are other things to criticize. And it makes the people doing the carping (unless done as a joke, cuz the screw-ups are generally pretty funny) sound petty and mean, as well. Just like Republicans focusing on Clinton’s sex life, which I found appalling and wasteful. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/172 "2002-06-05T04:46:03Z")
> [@](#): > > How embarrassed would he be to learn (and “learn” he should) that, despite obvious planning and rehearsal, his question was grammatically incorrect? Gregory asked, “M. le Pre’sident, pourriez-vous ajouter vos sentiments de cette question?” I checked the link provided above by pldennison and the recording, and apparently, the journalist only said “pouvez-vous ajouter vos sentiments?”. He didn’t say nor “de cette question” nor “a cette question”. So either the recording has been edited out, either the mistake has been invented out of thin air to ridicule the journalist… ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/173 "2002-06-05T06:33:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*Actually, Bush has an MBA. Carry on. Just doing my bit to fight ignorance. \*\* Thanks, **Sam** , I stand, er, sit corrected. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![JDM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@JDM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JDM)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/174 "2002-06-05T10:16:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\*And, in support of my comments about Clinton earlier in the thread, does anyone remember hearing any flak about this? I sure don’t. > > ## quote:\*\* \* > > On Tuesday, both Brit Hume on FNC and Jeff Greenfield on CNN played an example of a President really being angry at a reporter’s question: President Clinton’s blistering retort to Brit Hume back in 1993. > > At the Rose Garden announcement of Clinton’s nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Supreme Court, a candidate Clinton decided on after a lengthy search process, Hume, then with ABC News, inquired: “The withdrawal of the Guinier nomination, sir, and your apparent focus on Judge Breyer, and your turn – late, it seems – to Judge Ginsburg, may have created an impression, perhaps unfair, of a certain zigzag quality in the decision-making process here. I wonder, sir, if you could kind of walk us through it and perhaps disabuse us of any notion we might have along those lines? Thank you." > > A glaring Clinton icily fired back: “I have long since given up the thought that I could disabuse some of you of turning any substantive decision into anything but political process. How you could ask a question like that after the statement she just made is beyond me.” > > ## Clinton then turned and walked back into the White House, thus prematurely ending the press conference. > > * * * > > Free ride! Free ride! :rolleyes: \*\* I have to thank you for finding that Clinton/Ginsburg story- I was going to look for it myself. I saw that clip one of the very few times I watched Rush’s tv show in 1993. He played that clip, saying that he had gotten several calls from people saying that that incident of temper was the beginning of the end for Clinton. Rush said that he at first hadn’t thought it was so bad, but that after watching it again, that he agreed with those callers, and that Clinton had (IIRC) “lost it.” So Clinton didn’t get a free ride from Rush at least. I think the whole “God Dang It” fuss is really stupid, myself. Who hasn’t muttered something similar in similar circumstances? As regards the OP, there is [this,](http://www.estado.estadao.com.br/colunistas/pedreira/2002/04/pedreira020428.html) which I can’t read (I didn’t study Latin either :D). If somebody can read it, maybe we can get a bit more info. It looks like it’s dated 4/28, so maybe it’s a source for the Spiegel story. JDM ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/175 "2002-06-05T10:36:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by litost \* > \*\ ***pldennison** , > Are you saying that all presidents in the past have made more or less their share of stupid statements? Is it only me who has a feeling that Bush has built up an unusual repertoire of ridiculous statements? \*\* Yes, I’m saying exactly that. Anyone remember Reagan’s “The bombing begins in five minutes” remark in front of a hot mic? It’s my contention that more attention gets paid to Bush’s gaffes because they get reported more, for the simple reason that the press has already decided he’s stupid, so every gaffe is considered newsworthy. Otherwise, what Neurotik said. ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/176 "2002-06-05T13:19:16Z")
There was another incident, early in Clinton’s Presidency, when he swore into an open mike. The setup: as I remember it, there was some sort of minor photo-op ceremony in the Rose Garden with a bunch of kids, the Mayor of DC, and a congressman. Clinton’s handlers come and pull him away from his important work to attend it. When he gets there there he finds a lot of milling around and basically everything is a “cluster”. He’s pissed, and grabs an aide, with the live podium humming nearby. (again, as I remember it) “C’mere - c’mere! - listen goddammit. You can’t do this to me … You can’t bring me out here with the mayor, and the congressman, and all, and nothing’s ready to go.” The soundbite received a good bit of airplay at the time, and was held up by certain people in the conservative media as a representation that behind closed doors, Clinton was a rageaholic tyrant. Anyway. As far as W’s alleged “Do you have blacks there?”, I’d be somewhat more inclined to believe it if he had then followed up with “I have two of them in my cabinet.” And count me in as one who thinks W acted very immature and non-presidential when he snapped at Mr. Gregory for speaking French. Especially since he is so quick to trot out his “Mi nombre es Peggy Hill” routine every time he sees a Latino voter. ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/177 "2002-06-05T15:20:41Z")
The Gaffe that Won the Election for JFK: > [@](#): > > The 1960 election became a debate over experience. Although the two candidates had both come to Congress in 1946, Nixon tried to strengthen his position by playing up his foreign policy work as Vice President. Also, at forty-three, Kennedy’s youthful appearance did not help to discourage the attacks of Nixon. The Republican nominee had found a weak spot in the Kennedy armor and seemed to be gaining some momentum in the race. This was extremely important because, at the time, Republicans were in the minority nationwide. The run for the White House was going to be tight and any small advantage could pay enormous dividends. No sooner than Nixon had found his focal point, the first of several media oriented events weighed in on the eventual outcome of the election. > Nixon’s focus on an experience in foreign and domestic policy was undercut by one of his own. A tired and irritated President Eisenhower was anxious to end a press conference. A reporter asked what major decisions the Vice-President had participated in making. Eisenhower responded, “If you give me a week, I might think of one.” The response was not meant as a slight to Nixon, but as an attempt to make light of his own mental fatigue. Never the less, the slip came to the delight of Democrats and stimulated JFK to face challenge Nixon’s charges of inexperience. Kennedy quipped, " Mr. Nixon is experienced, experienced in the policies of retreat, defeat, and weakness." The Eisenhower comment was displayed prominently in the press and the democratic nominee’s show of feistiness also drew good media coverage. Suddenly, Nixon’s focus did not hold as much value. Ike’s Yogiism of the Week: > [@](#): > > Things are more like they are now than they have ever been before. --Dwight D. Eisenhower Eisenhower was infamous for mangling of English. He repeatedly suffered from an inability to remember on command words and phrases. This is known as … well, even Cecil isn’t [quite sure what it’s called.](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a961213.html) Sua ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ace_of_Swords)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/178 "2002-06-05T17:14:33Z")
Y’know, even the church now distinguishes the serial sins from the singular. Maybe y’all should too? **Pldennison** , yes, any president is _capable_ of a few malaprops, but from Bush it’s a lot more than a few. Again, it’s a track record. The press didn’t have to “decide” that Bush is a stumbling bufoon, it smacked them about the face like trout to a hibernating bear – they finally woke up and jumped on it. Since we’re still doing slideshows – if anyone has a president saying something comparable to “Major League Asshole,” in a live event, I’d like to hear it. That Bush is a victim of some liberal media bias is laughable. Clinton had every word parsed for evidence of murder, serial rape, his wife’s lesbianism, whatever else, for years – you think there were gaffes there that Rush and the rest of the Frothies said “Oh, we’ll give him a free pass on this?!” Right, please forward your complaints on press mendacity to A. Gore, TN. Again, the man has a track record. But don’t take my word for it – watch a random hour of tape from Bush and, well, any other president. Clinton could hold a room without notes for hours. Bush barely holds press conferences, and when he does, he can hardly go through a sentence without mispronouncing something. Especially the single syllables… what’s up with that? * * * Aside to **Neurotik** … well, I agree with you that the Guardian is irreplacable, and that we’d all be better off with public reporting on CAFE standards, ANWR, etc. But I’m not sure that pushing the press to gloss over the verbal flaps would give us that. Perhaps they’re so lowest common denominator that a press that doesn’t investigate funny gaffes investigates nothing! I’m probably just as entertained by this silly stuff as anyone else. Hell, that’s probably why I watch CROSSfi-er… ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/179 "2002-06-05T20:38:03Z")
For the record… [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61118-2002Jun4.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61118-2002Jun4.html) …the evidence is mounting. My doubt is waning. I’m starting to think he _did_ say it. The _Der Spiegel_ article is apparently convoluted, but I think the above link provides more solid facts. ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538/180 "2002-06-05T20:50:20Z")
For the record… [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61118-2002Jun4.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61118-2002Jun4.html) …the evidence is mounting. My doubt is waning. I’m starting to think he _did_ say it. The _Der Spiegel_ article is apparently convoluted, but I think the above link provides more solid facts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-press-corps-save-gwbush-from-total-embarassment/111538.md?page=10)