last night i got out of my arabic class and it was pouring. one of my classmates always gives me a ride to the train station, but because of the weather and the resulting delays in getting to the station, it became clear that i was going to miss my train. she offered to just drive me home. this classmate is much more politically conservative than me. i think she's the only member of my class who supports the war in iraq and is a fan of the president.
so as she's driving me through the rain, it's 8:30 and she turns on the radio to catch the president's press conference. we sit there as the president goes through his opening speech. the whole time i am biting my tongue to prevent myself from making snide remarks. she is, after all, giving me a ride home. still, the president seems fairly coherent in his prepared opening remarks.
we reach my apartment as the opening remarks are winding down. i thanked my classmate for the ride and ran into my apartment. i checked my email then decided to watch the news conference. as much as i hate listening to the president when he gives a prepared speech, i was hoping that perhaps the questions would allow him to finally give something more than glib substance-less sound-bites. i turned on the t.v. and watched him answer a total of three questions before i turned it off again. "answer" is a charitable way of describing it. i don't think he really answered a single one. it was like he had memorized a bunch of prepared comments and then just recited random ones in response to each question regardless of what was asked. it was too frustrating to watch. he didn't even answer the softball questions well. i probably would have turned it off sooner had i not been mesmerized by the president's tie.
i rattled around the apartment for about 15 minutes before i felt obligated to turn it on again. after all, for months i've been fuming about how bush never holds press conferences--yet another example of how the president does not feel like he has to answer any of our questions. so now he was at least taking questions from the press. wasn't that what i had wanted him to do all along? i turned it on again and watched him not answer a few more questions. he dodged the question about mercenaries by pretending it was about other nations in the coalition. he dodged the question about who exactly we would hand sovereignty over to on june 30th, he dodged the question about why he and cheney were appearing together before the 9-11 commission (twice!). meanwhile the tie continued its psychedelic lightshow in the middle of the screen.
then it was over and the talking heads came on. i couldn't believe that not one mentioned the fact that he had not answered a single question (at least not among the ones that i heard). they seemed to be from an alternate universe, where the president's bumbling is bold and his failure to provide concrete answers is reassuring. maybe all the coherent bits happened during the time i turned it off.
in the office today, it was more reassuring. it was pretty unanimous that the president came across as an utterly hopeless moron. once again, i am embarrassed that this guy supposedly represents me to the rest of the world.
if you missed the press converence last night, and don't want to read the whole transcript here is a remarkably accurate summary of the question and answer bit. yes, it really was that bad.
