(This may degrade into a debate or pit but it should have a factual answer)
How come I don’t remember George W. Bush, before becoming president or while campaigning to become president, ever appearing on shows like Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Hardball, or any other show where the guest had to think on their feet and openly debate other guests or the host?
Has this trend just become recent? Did he appear on these shows but I just don’t remember it?
I see McCain, Obama, Lieberman, and others appear regularly to openly discuss and debate all sorts of political issues and they have to think quick, are asked tough questions, and are called out for wishy-washy double-talk answers.
I just don’t picture Bush doing well in such a format. Did he manage to avoid this somehow?
Bush actively avoids speaking with the press or answering questions without them pre-ordained or scripted. IIRC, he didn’t even want to debate in '04, eventually did, and then, well, we all remember the “mystery bulge.” As a statement of fact: candidly answering questions is not one of our President’s strong suits.*
Some photos showed what appeared to be an unusual bulge under his suitcoat. It was explained as related to security - maybe a bulletproof jacket. other folk suspected it was electronics for someone who was feeding his answers.
There were several on-line photographic attempts to identify it - and many comic attempts as well. Should be quite google-able.
No one’s really sure what it is, but type “Bush debate bulge” into google & you’ll be inundated with theories. Salon has an article and a rather good picture of the offending bulge. The official administration line was a “poorly tailored suit,” which is fairly laughable.
That’s a pretty dumb place to put a receiver, if that’s what it was. His suitcoat has pockets, fer christ’s sake, and it’s not like he’s going to be frisked before he takes the podium.
In Bush’s defense, I’ll point out that Leiberman, McCain, and Obama are senators and Bush was a governor. Political interview shows tend to focus on Washington and figures in national not state politics.
Thanks for the link. I guess that since we had just had a baby three weeks earlier, I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to the news at that point. Very interesting.
It seems to me that, while working on his father’s campaign for President, he made appearances on political talk shows–I saw him perhaps on Larry King or Charlie Rose? (hazy, hazy memory of this).
So was the back of his jacket (otherwise there would be no photos of it).
I’m not sure that the bulge was a receiver though. I suspect these things are very small these days. Small enough that it could go in a pocket and not be visible at all.
Yeah, but after his wallet, his cell phone, and the Single-Action Colt Walker revolver that all Texans are required by law to carry, he wouldn’t have room for a receiver!
I’m thinking it’s probably some sort of bullet proof vest or action movie rescue harness jetpack or some other fairly mundane thing like that. Also possible that the suit actually was tailored wrong, and for some reason, nobody noticed until too late, presumably being concerned with more important things, like making sure the super-secret action-movie rescue-harness jetpack was properly secured under the coat.
Can we count the 2000 Republican Primary Debates? My recollection is that Bush’s performance was rather less than stellar. (I specifically recall that he whiffed the question “Why do you want to be President?” - interestingly, the only candidate in the bunch who showed he had a clue as to what the Presidency is and is not about was Orrin Hatch, who was the first to drop out of the race for lack of support; says something about the electorate, I think).
No, I agree that Bush is not gifted in this format and it’s doubtful he would have pushed for appearances. I’m just saying that he didn’t have to actively avoid them as the invitations to appear on these shows probably were very rare, at least up to the point where he announced his candidacy for President.