Greg Mitchell, The Nation - Matt Lauer Interviews George Bush: The Silence of the Lamb

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/155929/matt-lauer-fails-burn-bush

Matt Lauer Interviews George Bush: The Silence of the Lamb
Greg Mitchell
November 8, 2010



There was no way to tell from the advance publicity and clips how poorly Matt Lauer would perform in his primetime interview with George W. Bush tonight, part of the ex-president's book-flacking tour (which will now move on to Oprah and a lengthy embed at Fox News). Oh, we had our suspicions based on Lauer's track record, but the reality was even worse than the fantasy.

For exact quotes, and probably a transcript, you can go elsewhere. NBC will be posting "extended" segments, and Bush will come on the Today Show and even answer viewer questions. They might well be quite a bit better than Matt's.

Time after time Bush would offer a whopper and Lauer either said nothing, or expressed sympathy for the poor man who was subjected o such harsh criticism. It went that way, from Bush saying there was "no intelligence" prior to 9/11 about terrorists maybe wanting to fly planes into buildings to stating flatly that lack of regulations had anything to do with the financial meltdown.

Bush said he had zero doubts about the WMD intelligence on Iraq, not one—and Lauer eagerly pointed out (doing his Judy Miller impersonation) that George Tenet called it a "slam dunk." Bush said posing in front of the window when flying over New Orleans was a mistake but Lauer pointed to local officials who had not done enough.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. More like : The Silence of the Chimp

[tularetom]

2. Hey, Matt knows which side of the butter his bread is on

No way is he gonna get suspended "indefinitely" like that hippie Olbermann over at the liberal part of NBC.

If Matt is told to kiss Bush's ass, his only question is "which cheek"?

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Maybe they're trying to get George Bush on the record

before somebody actually playing hardball with him?

I'm sure Jon Stewart will set the record straight.