Friday, April 16

We'll Take Three Questions From This Side, Then Two From The Back, Then...

Can we please make a new rule - which is actually an old rule?

The President of the United States shall no longer set the rules for news reporting.

I heard this idiocy during the Bush-Blair lovefest in the Rose Garden this morning, and it sickened me that Bush had the audacity to lord these rules over the press.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you, sir. We will take three questions a side, and so why don't you ask one question to each of us.

You can start, Mr. Hunt.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, did you ask Secretary Rumsfeld to draw up war plans against Iraq in November, 2001, just as the military action was getting underway in Afghanistan? Why couldn't Iraq wait?

And Mr. Prime Minister --

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I thought -- one question apiece. Not one question or one question apiece.
SCREW YOU, MAN! Don't you DARE tell journalists how to do their job. They'll ask the questions and you're gonna answer them and you're gonna LIKE it, you manipulative little bastard. You answer to US. Remember?

Whew. What I would have given for just one person to do that. Unfortunately, the nice newspeople who cover the White House have been trained not to be naughty little boys and girls when talking to Mr. Bush. After all, since no one is apparently telling them how to do their job, Mr. Bush has to do that.

This guy has to go. Freedom of the press has been killed by these jackasses, and no one - NO ONE - wants to do a goddamned thing to challenge them on it. Utterly shameful.