I thought it was an entire party of wieners that got him into “trouble”.
It’s really trophy game. By the time you skin 'em and gut 'em, there’s nothing left. Think how that grill and bumper will look, mounted on your wall. Oh, yeah! 
Of course GWB got away with it. Go ask twenty loyal Bushies. Most of them never knew the town meetings and the military visits were all play-acting. It has become just another effective tactic. I have to hand it to them, it worked exceedingly well. The Democratic candidates, for whatever reason, continued to let Republicans into their appearances. They foolishly faced hostile questions. Now that Hillary has brought her campaign up to date, why are there objections? This tactic is now fully accepted, validated by GWB getting two terms in the White House. Say what you will about Mrs. Clinton, but she’s not fool enough to take a broadsword into a gunfight.
Hillary’s campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why is she so popular?
My evidence for my supposition is eight years of membership on this board and the threads I have seen develop in that time.
Well. That certainly settles that!
Not so fast. Those of us of more reasonable minds, who take everything the Bush Administration says with a grain of salt, are still suspicious about how how Jeff Gannon of trumped up “Talon News” so easily got into Bush White House press conferences to lob softballs at the president.
Having said that, I am appalled at Mrs. Clinton’s use of planted questions during debates. The trouble is that I don’t know how to avoid the practice. It is unfortunately par for the course at all levels of politics.
Just to be clear, what I am saying “didn’t happen” above is my condeming Bush, not Bush’s use of planted questions. For the record, I am convinced it’s happened plenty of times with Bush.
I’m not cheering the practice, but in my view Bush wasn’t the first, nor will Clinton be the last, to do this. It’s borderline unethical, but frankly, it’s the kind of thing that won’t ever stop. I can’t see condeming anyone for it. Anyone doing it can argue truthfully that it’s standard practice.
I dunno, seems like a sliding scale is in order here. Like, maybe, the plausibility of the question? When the aforementioned manwhore asked his questions about how The Leader could move forward when thwarted by a bunch of dumbass Dems, he may very well have asked the question without prior approval, they just knew approximately what to expect. Which isn’t so much lobbing a softball as T-ball. Is that really so much more dishonest than going on Fox Gnaws and having Sean Hannity slobber his knob? Probably didn’t screen the questions in advance, but why bother?
By the same token, a college student asking about the environment? Pretty plausible, even likely, which leads me to suspect that the question was planted as a contingency: she had an answer ready, would have been a shame to let it go to waste just because nobody asked. So, yeah, dishonest in the sense of electioneering, but pretty small beer, over all.
Now, if she had been asked about her years as Political Commissar for the Wellesley chapter of Lesbians for Mao, well…
Politicians will continue to try to get away with this, along with taking unnecessary foreign junkets, lying about their positions on issues, loading up bills with pork as favors for special interests, taking illegal or unethical campaign contributions, sliming their opponents with phony charges etc.
Condemn such behavior? Sure. Expect to eliminate it altogether? Unrealistic. Embarass hell out of the suckers, have a good time and let them know they’re not untouchable? You bet.
I am a liberal, and I can unequivocally say that, it’s reprehensible when anyone does this, regardless of political affiliation. Shame on Hillary Clinton and her campaign.
So, your post-count is your cite?
Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?
I’ll reserve judgment until Volume 2, Hillary Clinton and the Brass Ovaries.
Didn’t precisely this happen in an episode of Freaks and Geeks? If so, that strongly indicates that the practice is quite old and hardly unique to Bush-‘n’-Hillary.
In any case, it’s a bad, dishonest thing that is not OK. But the most important point is Gorsnak’s one about the difference between a news conference and a campaign stop.
(Where a “town hall meeting on social security” falls is not entirely clear to me. Who was funding it? The White House budget, presumably supplied by taxpayers? Or some PAC?)
IOW, you ain’t got nothin’, nothin’ at all, but can’t force yourself to admit it. Once yet again.
Just out of curiosity, where *was * your condemnation of the Bush White House for planting “Jeff Gannon” in the press room? :dubious:
Oh, well, you did get Shodan to agree with you, at least. Perhaps that counts for something to you.
Now do please try to focus your ire in the future on things that *did * happen, in reality. You really do need to understand how accusing people, whether individually or in broad groups, of hypocrisy for things they haven’t said or done is not an argument at all, just a source of wry amusement.
The righties have to take comfort where they can these days, even if is imaginary. It’s hard out there for a Pub.
A person’s inability to find anything *factual * to criticize “the other side” for would normally be expected to cause such a person to at least pause for a moment of reflection.
But not, of course, someone who places party not only before country and humanity but even before reality itself. I see no other way to understand it, do you?