Caught the tail end of a press conference with Ari Fleischer today, and was only half paying attention. The entirety of the press conference was about Iraq.
But there was an older somber looking reporter who apparently asked some question about a rape / incident (?) in Los Angeles (?) and bluntly confronted Ari about the president’s views on it. The other reporters were audibly chuckling while the guy, who appeared to be deadly serious, asked his question. Ari sort of blew him off, saying something to the effect of “Surely you know by now, Sam [or whoever] that there are some places to get an answer to your question, but not here”. This indicated to me that the reporter was a semi-regular and known to Ari.
I missed pretty much the whole context of the exchange and only really started to pay attention when things seemed out of the ordinary. Anyone see this, know who this reporter is (is he a member of the press corps?) and if off-the-wall questions are par for him? I thought these characters only showed up at my city’s public city council meetings.
There seems to be a lot more of this going on at press conferences lately. I don’t know if it’s that the press veterans no longer attend or if it’s just that people simply don’t expect the real questions to be answered. I remember two odd questions at recent press conferences (coincidentally both of them religious in nature)… one was during one of the first Columbia press conferences. A woman from a newspaper in Texas asked what the religious faith of the Astronauts were. Now this is not necessarily a bad question, but the officials running the press conference said that only a limited number of questions would be taken, each had to only take a couple of minutes and there would be no follow-ups allowed. This woman actually seemed to think that her question was important enough to warrant being asked at that time.
The second one was during the President’s last press conference in the White House. A woman (different woman) asked him what the American People should do faith-wise regarding the upcoming war. Last I checked, Lady, the President wasn’t the spiritual leader of the American people even if he’d probably like to be. Why would what his opinion on what people should do spiritually matter?
“Last I checked, Lady, the President wasn’t the spiritual leader of the American people even if he’d probably like to be. Why would what his opinion on what people should do spiritually matter?”
No, he isn’t, but he sure is trying. See the recent Newsweek articles and Americans United’s following of Bush’s attempts to marry evangelical christianity to american government. It is quite scary how much Bush is getting away with.
I personally find his constant mentioning of his faith insulting. It’s ok for him to believe what he wants, just don’t vomit it all over the rest of us.
I also started a thread a while back about press conferences and how I thought they seemed to be a waste of time, because Ari’s not going to give out any ‘new’ information not matter what you ask, so why even go? Send an intern to that waste of time.
The president’s press conferences are another matter. There, a seasoned reporter can get some info, especially when the pres is not too tactful or intelligent.
Please decide now whether you would like to a) bring yourself up to date on recent events in GQ or b) continue your hijack.
drpepper, you can get the whole transcripts of White House Press Conferences from their website. That’s where I heard Fleischer refer to the questioner as “Les.”
Okay, getting back on track, how do crazy people get into White House press conferences? According to manhattan’s link, Les works for a Baltimore radio station. Surely this isn’t sufficient to get into the White House press pool?
Also, I remember soon after 9/11 some reporter asked some wacky question about some gay-rights group allegedly encouraging its members to give blood even if they were HIV positive, and what did the president think about this? Needless to say, this drew a lot of chuckles and a flustered response from Ari. Was this Les too, or some other wacko?