Friday, December 8, 2006
the tony & george show
Last night, channel surfing, I happened upon the press conference that Blair and Bush held during the day. They were in slightly subdued but brisk form. I always love watching them parry and thrust with the inquisitioners journalists. One man asked a question that was really four questions and Bush said something along the lines of so how come you get four questions for one? and of course there was a slightly nervous chuckle in reaction, but he pleasantly answered all four, to his credit. I'd want to slap some of these guys silly, they're so rude, but neither George nor Tony ever loses it. At another point, a British correspondent asked Bush whether, in light of the ISG report, Bush would admit he's blown it in Iraq. After a slight pause, he leaned on the podium, looked directly at the guy, raised his eyebrows, and said, "It's bad over there." Then he paused again and asked, "okay? happy? is that what you wanted to hear?" (Of course the guy really wanted Bush to say he was a terrible horrible no good very bad man, but we all know that. Seriously, though, who wants presidents or prime ministers to go around saying they were wrong? Everyone makes better-or-worse decisions, but shouldn't leaders simply morph worse ones into different ones? They have fiendishly difficult decisions to make and frequently nothing "right" but only slightly less wrong to choose from. So how would flaggelation help?) Anyway, the press conference was interesting and fun. Much more than it's being reported. It was also an insight into their private discussions and shared motivations as when Bush said neither he nor Blair want historians to look back at this time and ask, "were Blair and Bush asleep?!"
Labels: reflections
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