Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged
October 13, 2005
AP Response to Bush Teleconference Staged!
Media Madness
Hatched by Dafydd
UPDATE 18:23: See below.
Now the AP has taken to attacking the president for supposedly "staging" a teleconference with soldiers... because they rehearsed in advance which soldier would answer which question.
Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged
Oct 13, 2005
by Deb Riechmann
WASHINGTON (AP) - It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution.
When I first read that paragraph, my Skept-O-Meter went off like the Queen Mary's foghorn. What did Ms. Riechmann mean, the questions were "choreographed?" Aren't the questions always choreographed?
During an interview, for example, the interviewer always knows in advance the major questions he will ask, the order he will ask them, and to whom they will be directed (if multiple subjects are being grilled simultaneously). Often the subject also knows, to allow him to do whatever research is necessary to come up with a more detailed answer. Typically, major questions spawn follow-up questions; we have no clue from the AP story whether this happened this time, even though that would reveal much about the charge of being "staged."
So what the heck does Ms. Riechmann mean? How is this different from any other interview situation? Remember, the president is the interviewer, not the subject; he's playing Brit Hume, for a change of pace.
"I'm going to ask somebody to grab those two water bottles against the wall and move them out of the camera shot for me," [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison] Barber said.
A brief rehearsal ensued.
"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"
"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.
"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.
"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.
And so it went.
Yes... it went, rather than crashed, because the soldiers actually knew in advance the order in which they would speak! They didn't talk over each other or tussle for the microphone. Will Bush's perfidy never stop?
"If the question comes up about partnering - how often do we train with the Iraqi military - who does he go to?" Barber asked.
"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.
"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit - the hometown - and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.
And here at last we have the substance of the charge of "choreographing" the questions: that the soldiers knew in advance which of them was the expert in a particular area -- hence who would actually answer the questions pertaining to that area.
This is what the Associated Press is trying to pass off as another "scandal" in the Bush administration. This barely even counts as a college try; Ms. Riechmann may as well have just used the pre-existing template titled Bush the Lying Liar Version 23.
Does even the Left doubt any longer the bias of the press against this president and against Republicans in general? Or do they just go through the motions occasionally, tossing a bit of tainted, gray meat to their base, more or less as a hobby?
Of course, they had to close with an eyebite from somebody hostile to Bush:
Paul Rieckhoff, director of the New York-based Operation Truth, an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, denounced the event as a "carefully scripted publicity stunt." Five of the 10 U.S. troops involved were officers, he said.
"If he wants the real opinions of the troops, he can't do it in a nationally televised teleconference," Rieckhoff said. "He needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that's not a bunch of captains."
I don't know what branch of the service Mr. Rieckhoff served in (if any), but it's evidently one where junior officers stay at the Pentagon and only privates and non-coms actually venture into the field.
I wonder whether he applies that same scorn to a certain fellow who was a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam, the exact equivalent rank to "captain" in the Army or Marines: Lt. John F. Kerry.
UPDATE: I have now listened to the 4:26 audio that National Public Radio made available (hat tip to Octavius), and contrary to some of the commenters to this post and some lefty blogs, such as This Divided State, there is not one, single instance of anybody "coaching [the soldiers] along the way" (as Bryan at TDS claims).
Allison Barber asks one question and listens to Captain Kennedy's answer; she does not tell him to change anything or give him any feedback whatsoever. She runs through a couple of other questions but doesn't wait for the soldiers to answer.
Let me repeat something I said above, because it may not have sunk in. When you are evaluating verbal acuity or mental quickness, you don't want to reveal the questions in advance; you prefer to watch the subject squirm. But when you want to gather solid information, you do give him the questions in advance, so he will be prepared with complete and accurate answers.
President Bush was not giving these soldiers a pop quiz, for heaven's sake. He wanted to hear what they had to say when they'd had a chance to think about it. And even if every one of them had been given an opportunity to rehearse speaking his answer -- on national TV and before the Commander In Chief -- it is neither "staged" nor "choreographed," except in the most technical meaning of those words, and there is no example at all of "coaching."
These are the real opinions of real soldiers who know what the hell they're talking about. Even if half of them are captains.
Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 13, 2005, at the time of 05:02 PM
nosarcasm said:I saw the whole conference, I felt it was staged, answers talked
over with the soldiers giving out stat numbers.
Propaganda backfired.
theHawk said:Isn't everything on TV staged? Did people actually believe that live TV is ad-lib?
:wank:
gop_jeff said:We rehearse briefings to colonels and generals all the time. What makes anyone think a brief to the Commander in Chief wouldn't be rehearsed? :blah2:
no1tovote4 said:As CIC he wouldn't and shouldn't waste time on unprepared boobs.
However the focus on the positive made it seem like it was a campaign opportunity, even when he is not campaigning.
gop_jeff said:We rehearse briefings to colonels and generals all the time. What makes anyone think a brief to the Commander in Chief wouldn't be rehearsed? :blah2:
dilloduck said:Personally, I thought it was an extremely piss poor effort to convey an important message, was not just staged but staged horribly, and did a diservice to the cause. Whoever planned this thing out needs to be washing dishes somewhere. ( no offense to dishwashers ).
LIGHTS! CAMERA! PROJECTION!
By Michelle Malkin · October 14, 2005 08:35 AM
An overwhelming number of our troops support President Bush. This drives the MSM mad. So mad they lied about his Thanksgiving trip to Iraq in 2003. So mad they'll flog anti-military stories that undermine national security.
And have no journalistic merit whatsoever.
NBC News' Andrea Mitchell was breathless last night over her military-bashing "scoop" about the "staging" of a Q&A between President Bush and the troops.
Newsbusters breaks down the story for you (via Lucianne) and points to Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon, one of the few sane journalists in the White House press corps, who tried to restore sanity to the Bush-deranged MSM on FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume last night:
During the panel segment, Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon, responding to a comment from Morton Kondracke: You mentioned that this press conference was scripted and the administration has taken a huge hit today about, you know, they scripted this press conference. It's funny, but when that reporter back in December asked Rumsfeld about armor and that question had been planted by the reporter -- I'm sorry, the soldier asked Rumsfeld and the question had been planted by a reporter, I didn't hear any outcry from the press, but now that we're rehearsing it from the Pentagon we're hearing all this talk about it.
Reader Michele e-mailed last night:
My husband was in the military 40 years ago and the USO entertainers were performing for Christmas. The soldiers were told how to behave during the taping i.e.. where to look, when to applaud, etc. POINT: They have been rehearsing the troops for decades.
I'd also add that NBC's news division in particular has some gall making such a big fuss over anyone else staging things.
Same goes for the rest of the MSM.
Fake news? They know whereof they speak.
(Can you say "projection?")
Look for the talking heads to hype this story all weekend. I have no doubt the news producers will be prompting political commentators to, you know, "Get angry."
But that's not "staging." It's their therapy.
***
Other reax...
Jonah Goldberg:
"There is other news in the world. A profession itself so married to theatricality should have let this one go with a mild wrist-slap, or "in other news," report. But you can fully expect the folks who thought that gay guy from Talon News (what was his name?) was the second gunman of the Rove Conspiracy will once again slam their tinfoil hats on the floor and go batty over this. "
Iowa Voice dissects this AP story on the non-story.
Rob at Say Anything:
This is standard operating procedure for most major media interviews. The participants almost always know what is going to be asked them and the order in which it will be asked. I hardly think any of this warrants the staged charge issued in the headline of this article.Blogs 4 Bush: Staged? Hardly.
Joe Gandelman has a big round-up of both sides.
ABP: "Yet another example of pathetic MSM bias."
Dafydd at Big Lizards. Read the whole thing.
***
More!
Laura Lee Donoho:
The media has been guilty of creating an appearance of spontaneous news for years. My husband had the opportunity to see this odious practice for himself when he was deployed to Somalia in 1992.
One day as my husband and part of his battalion was out in a convoy he saw a CNN newscrew near a group of Somalis. The crew and the Somalis were blocking the road that my husband's convoy was attempting to go down so my husband checked into what was going on.
What he saw upset him so much that he called me that very day the first chance he got. He was livid...
14 October 2005
Speaking with President Bush
Yesterday, I (bottom right corner in the picture) was chosen to be among a small group of soldiers assigned to the 42ID's Task Force Liberty that would speak to President Bush, our Commander-in-Chief. The interview went well, but I would like to respond to what most of the mass-media has dubbed as, "A Staged Event."
First of all, we were told that we would be speaking with the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, so I believe that it would have been totally irresponsible for us NOT to prepare some ideas, facts or comments that we wanted to share with the President.
We were given an idea as to what topics he may discuss with us, but it's the President of the United States; He will choose which way his conversation with us may go.
We practiced passing the microphone around to one another, so we wouldn't choke someone on live TV. We had an idea as to who we thought should answer what types of questions, unless President Bush called on one of us specifically.
President Bush told us, during his closing, that the American people were behind us. I know that we are fighting here, not only to preserve our own freedoms, but to establish those same freedoms for the people of Iraq. It makes my stomach ache to think that we are helping to preserve free speech in the US, while the media uses that freedom to try to RIP DOWN the President and our morale, as US Soldiers. They seem to be enjoying the fact that they are tearing the country apart. Worthless!
The question I was most asked while I was home on leave in June was, "So...What's REALLY going on over there?" Does that not tell you something?! Who has confidence in the media to tell the WHOLE STORY? It's like they WANT this to turn into another Vietnam. I hate to break it to them, but it's not.
Tomorrow morning, the Iraqi people will vote on their constitution. The success of our mission or the mission of the Iraqi security forces is not defined by the outcome of that vote. If the people of Iraq vote this constitution down, that only means that the FREE, DEMOCRATIC PROCESS is at work in Iraq. They are learning to voice their opinions in the polling stations, not through violence. If it is voted down, they will have the chance to draft an even better version; One that may better serve the people of Iraq. This is up to them. It is history in the making and I will not let the media or anyone else (who has not spent more than two weeks here) tell me otherwise. I have been here for almost a year. I have seen the progress made in so many ways from January's elections to this referendum. Don't tell me what the Iraqi people can or can't do. They will tell you with their VOTES!
If you would like to see our interview with President Bush, you may get it HERE.
Kathianne said:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051014/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_iraq
Obviously there is an article, but the headline will do, via al AP. For a bit more clarity and lots of links:
http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2005/10/ap_response_to.html
UPDATE: I have now listened to the 4:26 audio that National Public Radio made available (hat tip to Octavius), and contrary to some of the commenters to this post and some lefty blogs, such as This Divided State, there is not one, single instance of anybody "coaching [the soldiers] along the way" (as Bryan at TDS claims).
Allison Barber asks one question and listens to Captain Kennedy's answer; she does not tell him to change anything or give him any feedback whatsoever. She runs through a couple of other questions but doesn't wait for the soldiers to answer.
Let me repeat something I said above, because it may not have sunk in. When you are evaluating verbal acuity or mental quickness, you don't want to reveal the questions in advance; you prefer to watch the subject squirm. But when you want to gather solid information, you do give him the questions in advance, so he will be prepared with complete and accurate answers.
President Bush was not giving these soldiers a pop quiz, for heaven's sake. He wanted to hear what they had to say when they'd had a chance to think about it. And even if every one of them had been given an opportunity to rehearse speaking his answer -- on national TV and before the Commander In Chief -- it is neither "staged" nor "choreographed," except in the most technical meaning of those words, and there is no example at all of "coaching."
These are the real opinions of real soldiers who know what the hell they're talking about. Even if half of them are captains.
