I recognize that the job of being President means that you end up living in a bubble, isolated by security and the competing demands of running the country. I understand as well that the President has to rely to some degree on his staff to filter things for him. But this excerpt from President Bush's interview with Brit Hume on Fox last night is frankly unsettling because it suggests that not only is President Bush living in his bubble, but that he prefers it that way:
HUME: How do you get your news?
BUSH: I get briefed by Andy Card and Condi in the morning. They come in and tell me. In all due respect, you've got a beautiful face and everything.
I glance at the headlines just to kind of a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves. But like Condoleezza, in her case, the national security adviser is getting her news directly from the participants on the world stage.
HUME: Has that been your practice since day one, or is that a practice that you've...
BUSH: Practice since day one.
HUME: Really?
BUSH: Yes. You know, look, I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news. And I...
HUME: I won't disagree with that, sir.
BUSH: I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world.
Two thoughts ran through my head as I read this. One was a lyric from an Indigo Girls song, "Shine My Life Like a Light": "Well the world seems spent/and the President has no good idea who the masses are..." Pretty perceptive for two pinko-liberal lesbians, huh?
The second was of a photo op involving the first President Bush in 1991 or 1992, in which he is caught on camera marvelling at the scanner at the supermarket check-out counter. It was a clip that epitomized how out-of-touch he was with the ordinary American who, even by 1992, saw scanners in supermarkets all the time. Of course, the fact that he hadn't encountered scanners was at least understandable because the man had been ensconced in the White House since 1980, and probably hadn't been in a supermarket on his own since at least 1979, when he started campaigning for President.
But to deliberately avoid the news media that the other 250 million Americans see because you might be exposed to "opinions" lurking among the facts? That's inexcusable.
If it's a matter of time, well, okay, Presidents are busy people, but come on -- CNN Headline News repeats the top stories every half-hour. Alternatively, I'm sure that some low-level staffer could be assigned the job of assembling the half-dozen "must read" stories every day and giving copies to the President. Certainly, if I were President, I would look to the news media as a way of keeping my finger on the pulse of the country.
At the very least, is it too much to ask that our leader have a sense of what the news media is saying, if only as a check on what his advisors are telling him?
HUME: How do you get your news?
BUSH: I get briefed by Andy Card and Condi in the morning. They come in and tell me. In all due respect, you've got a beautiful face and everything.
I glance at the headlines just to kind of a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves. But like Condoleezza, in her case, the national security adviser is getting her news directly from the participants on the world stage.
HUME: Has that been your practice since day one, or is that a practice that you've...
BUSH: Practice since day one.
HUME: Really?
BUSH: Yes. You know, look, I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news. And I...
HUME: I won't disagree with that, sir.
BUSH: I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world.
Two thoughts ran through my head as I read this. One was a lyric from an Indigo Girls song, "Shine My Life Like a Light": "Well the world seems spent/and the President has no good idea who the masses are..." Pretty perceptive for two pinko-liberal lesbians, huh?
The second was of a photo op involving the first President Bush in 1991 or 1992, in which he is caught on camera marvelling at the scanner at the supermarket check-out counter. It was a clip that epitomized how out-of-touch he was with the ordinary American who, even by 1992, saw scanners in supermarkets all the time. Of course, the fact that he hadn't encountered scanners was at least understandable because the man had been ensconced in the White House since 1980, and probably hadn't been in a supermarket on his own since at least 1979, when he started campaigning for President.
But to deliberately avoid the news media that the other 250 million Americans see because you might be exposed to "opinions" lurking among the facts? That's inexcusable.
If it's a matter of time, well, okay, Presidents are busy people, but come on -- CNN Headline News repeats the top stories every half-hour. Alternatively, I'm sure that some low-level staffer could be assigned the job of assembling the half-dozen "must read" stories every day and giving copies to the President. Certainly, if I were President, I would look to the news media as a way of keeping my finger on the pulse of the country.
At the very least, is it too much to ask that our leader have a sense of what the news media is saying, if only as a check on what his advisors are telling him?
posted by Daniel at 2:49 PM
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