Journeys with George

Great Debates
1

I’d heard this was going to be on HBO last night, and I was pretty eager to watch it.

There was this lady, a pretty staunch Democrat, and a member of the press who was among the travelling press corps with George Bush for a whole year during the campaign. She took a videocamera with her and filmed everything.

It was even better than I’d been led to expect. Not only was it a fascinating insight into the mechanics of a Presidential campaign, but it was a hell of an insight into Bush himself.

I remember this lady, the narrator, pitching the movie on CNBC yesterday. “Hate the guy’s politics, but love the man.”

I had never really credited Bush with being supersmart, or particularly charismatic, but this movie sure as hell changed my impression. He is wickedly quick, and funny, and likeable.

Some of the most insightful sequences came from an Englishman who was travelling with the corps. As neither Democrat, or Republican, he had the unique viewpoint of an outsider.

He said that Bush was a poor speaker, but he was a genius at shaking hands. Later, he points out that most of the press corps was Democrats. What he’d heard from Al Gore’s Press Corps was that after spending a year with Gore, most of the Press really disliked the guy and that showed in the stories they wrote about him. He goes on to say, that he’s not sure the people travelling with Bush did the right thing, as he charmed the pants off of them, and that showed in their stories.

One particular thing stands out. The narrator takes an impromptu vote of Bush’s press corps to see who’s going to win. They think Gore wins, and the vote gets leaked to some gossip columnists. This is a huge embarassment to the corps, and our narrator is completely cut off and shunned from the rest of the group.

The person who was most damaged by the incident was Bush, though. The narrator was very surprised when the next day, Bush came back and gave her a big hug, and brought her back into the fold.

After having watched this thing, I can’t help but think Bush is a nice guy, a smart guy, and a sincere guy.

I wonder what you Dems think.

2

And what did you think before the show?

3

I had no idea whether he was nice, I didn’t think he was charismatic, and I thought he was intelligent, but not especially so.

4

I thought he came across very Clintonesque, which surprised me. Just a good old Southern boy hanging out with the reporters in the back of the plane. OTOH, it sounded like they only got in close to the reporters after they saw how well it worked for McCain, so perhaps it was all calculated. OTOOH, it’s hard to fake likeability.

It was a very good documentary, and much more entertaining than watching the election returns. One complaint… I didn’t think she did a good job when she tried to get serious with Bush. I think from his viewpoint, she was pretty much the reporter he joked around with. So when she asked something serious, he made light of that as well. I read an article where she said she though that was very meaningful, but I think she’s a little misguided…

5

There should have been a :wink: at the end BTW.

Sounds interesting. Hope it’s shown over here soon. One of the Brit channels are sure to pick it up.

6

…And I do mention this in the 5th paragraph of my OP.

7

Smack:

He got pretty serious with her when he was trying to get her vote in that primary, and he got pretty serious with her after she asked that question about the Texas executions.

8

Why should it be a surprise that Bush comes across as a nice guy? Surely to god no-one is going to win the job unless they’re smart, likeable and good with people?

9

Well, I’m neither a Democrat nor a Bush fan, but I would have agreed with all three of these points even in the summer of 2000.

He’s sincere; he’s a nice guy; he’s smart, but intellectually lazy and burdened with an incorrect world view. :wink:

10

I would agree that Bush isn’t really stupid. He isn’t the smartest president we ever had, but then again 50% of them were below average.

But he doesn’t strike me as a thinker. It seems to me that he’s made all his intellectual decisions in the past and doesn’t trouble himself to make any more now. But maybe that’s a good thing…

11

It’s odd that I missed this one. I’ll keep an eye out for this show. HBO will probably show it again this week a few times.

12

I could buy the “nice” and “smart” part, not that they are very relevant to what actually gets done, but sincere? I can’t put “sincere” and “politician” together without gagging.

Incidentally, I’d always thought that Al Gore was a stiff, preachy pain in the ass based on his public pronouncements. Then I saw him in an informal moment with the press corps. Completely different person, much less affected and more likable.

Sincere, too (barf).

13

Yeah, he’s a likeable cuss. Smarter than Reagan, but then so is cottage cheese. Not as loveable. Wonder if there’s a connection? Now, Scylla and myself, we’re both real smart, but…well, never mind. Let’s talk about George, the Man Who Fell Up.

His folksy, Kennebunkport cowboy ways, how he always scrapes the divots off his boots. Think Laura can cook cornbread? See, when George eats catfish, its kind of ironic, a detached bemusement.

And the easy going, aw-shucks was he had of signing a death warrant, kind of like Will Rogers meets Torquemada. The straight ahead way he assures you that every blessed one of them was guilty. I would kind of like to ask him about the Illinois men, all 13 of them, released from Death Row because they were innocent. Like to ask him if he thinks Texas jurisprudence is so much superior to Illinois. Ask him if the thinks he’s going to Heaven, and will there be anybody waiting there, with a bone to pick. Couple of things to talk about.

A while back, some people investigated his daily schedule, see what he was up to, time management wise, what with the jogging and the meetings and all. Turned out, he spent an average of about 15 minutes agonizing over signing those warrants. Each, of course, not in the aggregate. Less time that you’d give to thinking about killing a six pack.

Yep, George the Good Ol’ Boy, folksy as all get out. And how I wish to God he would.

14

As a documentary lover and high school student I’ll say this is one of the best ones I’ve ever seen.

I’m no fan of Bush- during 2000 I supported Nader. Yeah, I know. I was even one of the guys who shouted “Hail to the Thief”- but this really changed my image of him. He’s all that stuff the other Dopers have mentioned of him, definitely likeable. I wish he was just a little bit more towards liberal and competent but as a person I sure respect him a lot. So, he has a teenage punk’s respect even though said punk is not a republican. Meaningful.

15

Ya see, this is where is starts Blackeyes, but soon you will be wearing khakis, reading “The Road to Serfdom”, and attending “Young Americans for Freedom” meetings.

Soon you will be one of us. :cool:

16

HA HA HA.

Oh man, comic gold.

wipes tears from eyes

17

How can you gauge if someone is sincere without actually asking them any hard questions? Yesterday’s Daily Howler nails the death penalty issue and the softballs that Bush got in 2000 and on. The pundits talk about how he dresses, how “presidential” he sounds, etc. etc. But as for content coming out of his mouth? Zilch. No one asks him on what basis he decided that these people were guilty, or that he had gotten a fair shake from the system: certainly not what criteria he was using to define fair. And no one would have followed up on it if they had.

It’s easy to be affable when no one is asking you any difficult questions or pushing for challenging responses.

18

I especially liked what he told her:

This to a woman who is a lifelong democrat, has a mother who is a senator, hurt his campaign with the leak, and will possibly show him in a bad light in the documentary she is making. He could just as easily blown her off, and let her career take serious damage.

I was impressed.

19

'Luce

I was kind of hoping to focus on insights from the film, rather than the tired old fallacious standard rhetoric, but…

I can’t imagine why the execution of a few convicted murders found guilty and sentenced to death would be of concern compared to the Democratic parties pro-abortion stance which sentences to death tens of thousands of absolutely innocent human beings a year.

If you’re looking at preserving human life, that is.
…If we’re just exchanging the old standard rhetoric, that is.

20

This is news, Scylla, I had no idea that you held anti-choice views. As you no doubt can figure out, I bring the matter of Our Leaders cavalier attitude toward capital punishment as an insight into his character, what kind of man we are talking about.

Suddenly, you want to compare embryos with adult human beings. You apparently regard this as somehow relevent.

I don’t much like abortion, I would be very unhappy to see it become a primary form of birth control, as happened in the Soviet Union. Its also somewhat troubling that a co-equal co-parent, the male, has so little control of the decision. Be that as it may, its not my body! Nor is it yours. It is hers. Period. The decision whether or not to bear children must be the decision of the one capable of doing it in the first place.

The decision to terminate pregnancy is, in most cases, a painful and harrowing choice. What is gained by making it a fearful, and possibly fatal one? Perhaps you are too young to remember when abortion was illegal, a back alley procedure for the poor, a discreet overseas trip for the privileged. But I remember it all too well, the terrible and painful deaths of frightened young women, whose only crimes were fear and ignorance, bleeding to death in taxicabs. Alone.

I know you like to pride yourself on being stern and hard-headed. But reflect and ponder: whose daughter deserves such a fate? Surely not yours. Then why his?

I had no intention of a hi-jack, but I can’t let this go unanswered. Frankly, I’m shocked. You are in your thirties, right? I’m in my fifties. I have seen, and I remember. If you never trust another word I say, trust me on this: it is a memory you do not want.