Why is Bush so insistent on taking questions only

[Lindacooks]

from 'local press'? It must be because foreign journalists are asking actual questions, not lobbing softballs at the chimp. It's really quite embarrassing, having him ask for 'local press' in the so-called press conference.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. because

he's an ignorant jackass.

[Bertha Venation]

2. I wonder if it's also because he can't understand "foreign accents."

:eyes: It is EXTREMELY embarrassing.

[AndyTiedye]

5. Bush* Only Wants Questions That Are in the Script

not real questions from real reporters.

[gWbush is Mabus]

3. b/c Rove plants prescreened questions with "local press"

no red tie blue tie today???

[MnFats]

4. as a journo i have this to offer...

....Nixon is the first president i recall doing this....go to some mid-size city where the news organizations don't have a Washington bureau and let the locals come up with the questions.
the locals have their own beats to work and in most cases aren't up to speed on the key issues...thus they are reduced to asking standard, big-picture questions that Bush (like his predecessors) can answer with sweeping generalizations that make nice sound bites and drop-quotes on newspapers' front pages.

sadly the locals' are sometimes so enamored at being at a presidential press conference they forget what their jobs are ....

this worked pretty well for Nixon until journos all over got fed up and decided to change it. i think it was in Memphis that Nixon expected to face a whole bunch more softball questions....but the local newspaper staff had done its homework and repeatedly drilled nixon on watergate issues....it was almost comical...nixon was very pissed.


perhaps the journos of today will wake up and do the same with shrub.

[No2W2004]

6. Right...

the locals are all flattered and honored they get to ask the "president" a question. It's probably the highlight of their careers.

[buycitgo]

7. uuhhhhhhh.....there were lots of familiar faces axing questions today

he only singled out one local guy, that I saw...couldn't take it after that....had to bail

but David Gregory, David Sanger, Jonathan somebody, and a couple others I recognized, as well as a Brit and a Frog, axed questions

they were mostly tame, though, and dumbo answered the tough questions (like WHEN are we getting out of Iraq?) VERY abruptly

and he was REALLY agitated, over-exuberant, as was noted by even the human Xray, Judy Woodruff

[greenbriar]

8. I am sorry if you spelled axed this way on purpose

but it is ASKED

[maxsolomon]

10. they knew

alternate spelling "aks" as in "let me aks you sumpin".

[0007]

9. Saint Ronnie must have inspired the idiot.