Bush on the NewsHour
Over time I go back and forth between listening to my favorite media outlets via podcast, and reading the transcripts. There’s pluses and minuses to both, of course. In terms of information content per unit bandwidth it’s impossible to beat text. On the other hand, you certainly get a better sense of a conversation in audio.
I was thinking of this while watching the NewsHour interview of Bush. You can find both transcript and mp3 download here.
My impression was that Bush was jaw-droppingly out of touch with reality. You really need to see the video in this case. Watching the president smile while defending his Iraq policy is maddening. You get a pretty good sense listening to it, particularly the way he stutters when a direct question is asked. Still, just reading the transcript, it’s hard to keep your jaw from dropping on the floor.
Take this excerpt, for instance:
MR. LEHRER: But to be very direct about it, Mr. President, you had a few years here and you’ve been in charge. And you’ve made a lot of decisions; you’ve made a lot of judgments about things and they haven’t worked. And so now you’ve made a new one. So why should anybody expect the new ones to work when the prior ones did not?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, actually - I will sound defensive - but some of my decisions actually have worked, like getting rid of Saddam Hussein and helping the Iraqi government form a unity government that is based on a novel constitution for the Middle East. As a matter of fact, in 2005, I thought - I mean, in 2006, I thought I’d be in a position to remove troops from Iraq, in other words, hand over more of the authorities to the Iraqis so they could take the fight, and then this sectarian violence that you described broke out. And the question is, do we try to stop it? Do we help the Iraqis stop it? And a year ago, I felt pretty good about the situation; I felt like we were achieving our objective, which is a country that can govern, sustain, and defend itself. No question, 2006 was a lousy year for Iraq. And so the question I’m now faced with is do I react to that or do we just begin to leave, which is - some people - decent people on Capitol Hill think we ought to do. I made the decision, let’s succeed; let’s work for success not work for failure.
What is going through his mind at this point?
Update: ThinkProgress looks at another section of the same interview where Bush, being asked about why non-active-duty Americans have been asked to sacrifice nothing for the Iraq war, replies: “They sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible image of violence on TV every night.”
It’s this kind of misdirection that makes me wonder about Bush. In the context he’s taking the word “sacrifice” to mean that which has not been given willingly, and in many cases, here I’m thinking of those of us who opposed the Iraq invasion, over the most vocal objection.
To ask the American people to “sacrifice,” say in terms of public service of one form or another, would be to put the largely passive public into an active role. Who knows what may come of that? The people may become actively involved in their communities, in our society, and thus the power of the Bushies would become diminished. That forseeable outcome must be avoided at all costs.
