Posted on 02/21/2005 4:39:15 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
Edited on 02/21/2005 4:49:28 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The best evidence that the Wead tapes put W in a good light? The fact that Today downplayed them in favor of . . . running another segment on Jason Tharp, the Marine recruit who drowned during basic training.
GMA picked up the Bush-Wead tape ball with an interview with Wead himself. It was one of those ironic/hypocritical moments in journalism. On the one hand, Diane Sawyer rapped Wead on the knuckles for promulgating the tapes, but on the other, there he was as the show's featured guest, presumably pumping up both GMA's and Wead's ratings.
"What kind of friend does this?" asked Sawyer, and Wead was actually able to keep a straight face as he claimed "if I had to do this over I wouldn't have done this at all."
But there he was on TV, of course, pumping the tapes and his book. In a post-modern variation on "the Devil made me do it," Wead asserted that "I was forced to make the tapes public by my publisher."
And of course, as we all know, it's not about the money. "I didn't do it for money. I could have sold the tapes for millions. And I didn't do it to sell books; the book could have been released before the election and used for partisan purposes; the, publicist said it cost me a $1 million not to release it then. This is for history." Hey Wead, why not go all the way and say you did it "for the children"?
Wead stated that "early on W felt disqualifed for high office because of his mistakes as a youth and this might have taken the pressure off of him," and let him get his life together.
One thing that all agreed on, from Jonathan Karl the ABC reporter who had a brief news segment setting up the Sawyer interview, to Sawyer, to Mead himself, was that W's "public statements and his private conversations are remarkably the same." I'd say that speaks very well for a man's integrity. Think the same could be said of either Clinton, for example?
Apparently ABC was concerned that the tapes showed W in too positive a light. Thus they imported 'presidential historian' [i.e., hired hit man] Robert Dallek not to proclaim that the significance of the tapes was how revealing they were of W's consistency and integrity, but rather, that they show "his conservatism [horrors!] and his ambition to become President."
The Today Show, obviously aware of the postive light in which the tapes put W, chose to bury the story at the very end of the first half-hour with a brief segment.
They featured instead yet another segment on the sad death of Marine recruit Jason Tharp, who drowned during a swim training session at Parris Island. This time, Katie dragged out his parents, a decent, dignified couple who were understandably distraught. The mother touchingly read from a letter from the recruit in which he said he wanted out of the Marines and asked for their help in that regard.
Katie is a past master, of course, of sympathetic words and phrases, particularly when, as here, they can be used to put the Bush administration in a bad light on a day when the release of the tapes had backfired on the Bush bashers.
Today Show/GMA ping to the Today Show ping list.
Thanks, governs..The tapes angered me because I felt it was betrayal...but the content so far has been good..The left must be devastated..sob.
Obviously no one has figured out that Karl Rove is behind this.
Always getting shot down.
As an aside, Katie is currently running a segment on her favorite theme: better living through socialism.
The guest is a woman from some kind of liberal group pushing a bill, sponsored by Ted Kennedy, requiring all employers to give a minimum 7 days paid sick leave.
Naturally there were the horror stories of sick employees, and the 'government-knows-best' angle to the effect that this would be helpful to the employers (i.e., if only they weren't too stupid to realize it).
Katie cooed in agreement, asked how much support the bill was getting, and proclaimed that not only would the bill be helpful but that workplace attitudes need to be changes.
She paid lip service to capitalism with a closing line about the need to balance this against the bottom line. Actually, that's not how I see the issue. It's not a question of profits vs. employee health. It's a question of who decides. Employers applying enlightened self-interest, or the government with its coercive power?
Somehow, Katie's disgusting mug was the first thing on my tv at 6 something this morning (TIVO) I hastily tried to find a channel selector. She had a couple from West Va whose son died as a result of Marine training in a swimming pool. From the interview with the parents, the kid was never really Marine material. So don't know how he managed to get by the screening.
Katie ran a lengthy segment on the Marine recruit last week. Apparently Couric decided that a little more anti-W venom could be squeezed from the story, and thus ran another segment this morning.
It's all W's fault.
/s
Do people recall that series of classic Saturday Night Live skits about the curio shop owner displaying his assortment of exotic sculptures, etc.?
"And in here's where you keep your w-e-e-e-e-d."
"I was forced to make the tapes public by my publisher."
And this coercion was accompliched by exactly what force?
"W's 'public statements and his private conversations are remarkably the same.' I'd say that speaks very well for a man's integrity."
I'd say the same. And I'm not surprised.
This is more bad news for the Left.
They have exhausted themselves trying to convince history and the world--not to mention themselves--that President Bush is not a man of brilliance, greatness, and sterling integrity.
They have failed. And, worse for them, their attepts have shown, to history and all the world--and increasingly, to their horror! to themselves!--that they themselves lack all of these qualities.
You can be sure of one thing: If these tapes had shown evidence of anything else, the Leftist Propaganda Machine (otherwise known as the "Mainstream Newsmedia") would have blasted it in headlines across the world! (Such are their "moral values".)
Absolutely no doubt about that.
Nope. Nor for 97% of Washington.
Judas is finished.
I hate how Wead's publisher held that gun to his head and MADE him release the tapes. :( sarcasm.
We all know what macho, gun-toting guys those upper West-Side New York publishing house types are.
Someone who doesn't get nearly the amount of credit they deserve for GW's strength is our beautiful First Lady . . . Laura. Remember, it was she who demanded he stop drinking. It was she who encouraged him in his search for Faith. Laura has always been his North Star . . . steady, always visible when he started to waiver, and consistently stable with her conservative views on life.
Yes, GW will go down in history as a great, great President . . . just as his wife SHOULD go down in history as a great, GREAT First Lady . . . maybe the greatest ever.
The debate about who was the GREATEST President would be a long, heated affair and no consensus would ever be reached. The debate about who was the GREATEST First Lady would be quite short . . . with a top two or three easily decided. Laura would be in the list.
Behind every strong man . . .
If this Wead's true belief why did he not destroy the tapes instead of publishing them?
He did it for history, and the chil-l-l-l-r-e-n.
Future NYT Headline
"Bush admits to smoking-Wead"
LOL.
I like your tagline, but honestly, it is not necessary, I was not going to watch anyway!
Good to hear, but I'm always concerned that some negligent FReepers might leave the show on while children are present, causing potentially irrevocable damage ;-)
LOL they do love the constitution.
Particularly that phrase, written in bold in the First Amendment: "a well-regulated National Organization for Women being necessary, the right to abortion shall not be infringed."
What? Oh, the shame....hehehe
Yup, Karl did it, right after he finished manufacturing the Rathergate tapes (as alleged yesterday by far-left NY Congressman Maurice Hinchey).
Maybe George Bush KNEW what he was doing when he did these interviews. I tend to think they put him in a good light all around don't you? The man is brilliant. I think our President is too sharp to do an interview thinking someone would not put it out there. So, he did the interview and spoke well and with integrity while this author is gonna be put down and has been already. President Bush was supposed to be a dim bulb wasn't he? Heh, heh...what a guy, what a guy!! Rope-a-dopa. :)
It wasn't an interview..They were discussions and I find the former friend is only exposing this to sell a book..but it only makes Bush look like Bush..The one we know and trust.
When the Leftists were spewing forth their customary propaganda at the beginning of the Clinton Administration with the catch-phrase "Men are afraid of a strong woman", those with the wit and honesty to understand what they were up to recoiled, yet again, in disgust, at their obvious manipulativeness as well as the falsity of their charge--i.e. their customary deceitfulness and mendacity.
Men love strong women. Strong women built America. Strong women ventured across the Atlantic to settle America; migrated west in covered wagons; endured the horrors of slavery, racism, and oppression to prevail over it all! My wife, mother, and daughter are all strong women.
For a man of George Bush's intelligence to claim a strong woman for his wife is neither surprising nor accidental.
Yes. She is to be praised highly. As are all strong, good women--and men.
Then he should have handed them over to the National Achieves to be preserved in history and "for the children"
Yes the are probably on RED suicide watch over at DU.
At our county GOP's recent Lincoln Day Dinner, our RINO Congressman -Sherry Boehlert - claimed that he was not there to tell us what Washington thought was good for us.
Five minutes later he was explaining that he favored increasing auto-mileage requirements, and how people don't realize that it would be good for them and the manufacturers.
Good morning, and thank you for another excellent summary.
It is always good to know what they're up to.
Thanks, US. As always, it's my [twisted] pleasure.
ssshhhhh!
Same thought I had.
I smiled and thought, "DU will claim this is a Rove leak".
Yup, I was just over there, and one guy had this as a Rove/CNN plot. Oh, and one guy suggested that W is implicated in Hunter Thompson's death.
Just want you to know that I look forward to reading your summaries every morning
....with a 16 oz. 7-11 coffee (with 3 packets of French..er, Freedom Cremes(-non dairy creamers) & a plain cake doughnut
;^) Happy Presidents' Day!
How are they going to work Jeff Gannon and Ken Blackwell into this?
Oh, thought it was an interview. Guess I got tht confused with the interview on TV I read about. Yes, we know and trust Bush and thank God for him.
One of the great things about being a paranoid schizophrenic is that every new fact or development, no matter how contradictory or inconsisent with what has been previously claimed, can be seamlessly woven into one's narrative. The raving moonbats at DU provide textbook examples of this everyday.
Seriously, they are a treasure trove for clinical psychopathologists.
Thanks, DC. Knowing that my fellow FReepers enjoy the threads keeps me going. And glad to hear you're drinking good old 7-11 java and not some yuppie latte!
Now you make me feel guilty for giggling so hard as I read them.
The "I Believe" threads were a howl all the way to Jan. 20 .
Somehow they will find an impeachable offense in these tapes, even though they are faked Rove reverse psychological plants like the faked/not faked TANG memos that Gannon secreted to Mapes through his lover, Scott McClellan and the fiery Latin, Ms. Stone.
Oh God, my head hurts
I'll have to return to the DU netherworld to see if they've picked up the latest lefty howler: the assertion made by far-left upstate NY Cong. Maurice Hinchey that Karl Rove manufactured the Rathergate documents. Yes, he flatly claimed that at a 'community forum' in Ithaca yesterday.
They are agreeing on Fox..except Jim Warren says he did not sell them and did not release 90% of them..His explanation that he thought Bush was going to be a great man sounds hollow to me.
It's betrayal by a supposed friend to me.
Might ask her why she's not a party to Social Security...
Probably....
But it turns out to be a "Throw me in briarpatch" moment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.