Posted on 02/27/2005 1:37:05 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
"I do not believe for a second that President Bush was openmouth and nonplussed and could not respond to Putin as the article was suggesting. This is why I am saying this story is fake and at best greatly over exxagereted."
Is this what you are questioning?
Exactly.
I can see Bush being stunned that Putin would ask such a ridiculous question.
Bush did respond... but asking the reporter if he felt free to report anything he wanted.
Are you asking about how Bush responded in private with Putin?
oops but=by
I doubt the veracity of this, but if true then I'd say it's a peek into how Putin really thinks, KGB style, and he's merely displaying 'transference' on how he would handle the press in the USSR, err... I mean Russia.
Yes.
Putin, "How dare you to cause CBS to force one of our agents off the air".
note: some words are lost in the translation, but this is pretty close.
I don't know. The video/audio clip I saw was the one with the Russian reporter.
"Is this really any different from what the people at DU or the Keith Olbermann/Jeff Gannon show believe?"
That was my first thought, too - great minds thinking alike.... Putin is "way out there" and lost to reality, but not much more so than most of the left in this country and every country.
The tables have now turned with coming of the new media, the blogosphere and the new government control of the Russian media, so now the west has regained te #1 position where the truth can be learned from the news.
"The administration's view was reinforced when Putin asked 'if you have such an advanced country, why is the NYC sewer system filled with alligators? And you say we have an alcoholism problem here, but at least we don't have all these people waking up in bathtubs filled with ice, minus a kidney."
Nothing new here. An awful of left-wingers think that Jeff Gannon was employed by the White House.
However, the MSM must be viewed with one's truth detector fully engaged.
Actually, here is a second thought.
This question and the topic in general may be for domestic russian consumption. Given the political history of the press in russia, it isn't a stretch to see that many russians might believe this, and it might be a tool to draw some similarities between bush and putin given putin's centralization of power. In this scenario, the disbelief western audiences show to this topic is irrelevant, it is a matter to be played out for internal propaganda.
I don't think any russian leader can be so mis-informed as to believe the US government can control the press on domestic political issues beyond a certain level.
This plays right into their whole theme of how "Chimpy Bushitler" is shredding all our civil liberties and clamping down on them, the courageous defenders of the First Amendment who dare to speak "truth to power" by (gasp!) trying to hold them accountable for the lies and DNC propaganda they spew, going around them to speak directly to the American people. ("How dare that ignorant Texas hillbilly even think he can challenge our power!").
They'll encourage this, totally blind to the fact that it make them look like soft little weak-spined pansies, not to mention spoiled little children. It's just too much fun for liberals to play the "victim" card, and they won't be able to resist protraying themselves as victims of the "world's dumbest fascist" (to shamelessly rip off Mark Steyn).
Some here are suggesting this occurred during the private meeting between Bush and Putin; others seem to think it refers to the press conference. During the press conference a reporter certainly did ask about the fired reporters. Bush explained that their employers fired them, not the government. If it is true that Putin made the allegation during the private meeting, of which there are obviously no video clips, then Putin truly is ill-informed.
Yes, the President did.
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