Molly Ivins (Truthdig): Bush’s Rose Garden Debacle

[Dudley_DUright]

Is it just me, or was that the worst presidential press conference in history? So I went back and read it over. Of course, in print you don’t get the testy tone: I heard it on radio and thought the man was about to blow up—not just because he was being questioned, which Bush appears to consider an offensive action in the first place, but because people continue to refuse to see things the way he does. How can they be so stupid or malign, he appears to wonder.

I ask: How can he be so repetitive, repeatedly using the oldest tactic of a verbal bully—saying the same thing louder, as though that would make it true?

Last Friday’s Rose Garden press conference seemed so awful I thought it worth wading through it again to see what set him off. Maybe if you saw it on television, it seemed better. Perhaps his banter with reporters works better on TV. But I left with the impression that this is a spoiled man whose frustration level when someone disagrees with him is that of a 3-year-old and that he’s the last person you want to see operating under a lot of stress because he doesn’t handle it well.

<snip>

Actually, the problem is the proposed program of tribunals is illegal—and not young intelligence officers but potentially old war criminals are at risk, as well.

more...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060919_molly_ivins_rose_garden_debacle/

[babylonsister]

1. I love Molly; she writes with such clarity and I rarely

if ever disagree!

[Danascot]

2. I've been waiting for * to have

an all-out on-camera breakdown/tantrum/losin'-it shit fit. It's only a matter of time.

[Captain Hilts]

3. President Queeg....nt