- On the eve of his recent sojourn in Europe, President
Bush had an unpleasant run-in with a species of creature he had not previously
encountered often: a journalist.
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- He did not react well to the experience.
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- Bush's minders usually leave him in the gentle care of
the White House press corps, which can be counted on to ask him tough questions
about when his summer vacation starts.
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- Apparently under the mistaken assumption that reporters
in the rest of the world are as ill-informed and pliable as the stenographers
who "cover" the White House, Bush's aides scheduled a sit-down
interview with Carole Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish
public television network.
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- Coleman is a mainstream European journalist who has conducted
interviews with top officials from a number of countries - her January
interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently solid enough
to merit posting on the State Department's Web site.
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- Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive
the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president
with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist
would a world leader.
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- She asked tough questions about the mounting death toll
in Iraq, the failure of U.S. planning, and European opposition to the invasion
and occupation. And when the president offered the sort of empty and listless
"answers" that satisfy the White House press corps - at one point,
he mumbled, "My job is to do my job" - she tried to get him focused
by asking precise follow-up questions.
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- The president complained five times during the course
of the interview about the pointed nature of Coleman's questions and follow-ups
- "Please, please, please, for a minute, OK?" the hapless Bush
pleaded at one point, as he demanded his questioner go easy on him.
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- After the interview was done, a Bush aide told the Irish
Independent newspaper that the White House was concerned that Coleman had
"overstepped the bounds of politeness."
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- As punishment, the White House canceled an exclusive
interview that had been arranged for RTE with first lady Laura Bush.
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- Did Coleman step out of line? Of course not. Watch the
interview (it's available on the www.rte.ie Web site) and you will see
that Coleman was neither impolite nor inappropriate. She was merely treating
Bush as European and Canadian journalists do prominent political players.
In Western democracies such as Ireland, reporters and politicians understand
that it is the job of journalists to hold leaders accountable.
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- The trouble is that accountability is not a concept that
resonates with our president. The chief executive who gleefully declares
that he does not read newspapers cannot begin to grasp the notion that
journalists might have an important role to play in a democracy. And, if
anything, the hands-off approach of the White House press corps has reinforced
Bush's conceits.
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- Bush would be well served by tougher questioning from
American journalists, especially those who work for the television networks.
And it goes without saying that more and better journalism would be a healthy
corrective for our ailing democracy.
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- Come to think of it, maybe one of the American networks
should hire Carole Coleman and make her its White House correspondent.
It would be Ireland's loss and America's gain.
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- http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/nichols/77302.php
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