Voice of Reason: U.S. could use Question Time
The Bush administration, by nearly all accounts, runs one of the tightest ships in presidential history. This is especially true in its relations with the press. Case in point is the president’s lack of press conferences. In his three plus years in office Bush has given only about a dozen, the fewest of any modern president during a comparable period.
While this is lamentable, it is not as bad, relatively, as it sounds. Indeed, the number of presidential press conferences has dwindled rapidly since FDR, who held over 1,000 during his long reign. What’s disturbing about the current president, however, is the scripted nature of his press conferences and his paranoid distrust of the press, the nation’s watch dog, in particular.
In the lead-up to the start of the war about a year ago, the president all but acknowledged the scripted nature of his press conferences with his refusal to answer out-of-turn questions from White House reporters.
What’s surprising is the Bush camp doesn’t even bother to deny its disdain for the press, while at the same time using the press as its own propaganda machine, a role the press seems all to willing to take on. The media appears ready to “heel” and “sit” at the White House’s command, fearing if they dare to ask the hard questions they lose their precious access, access they don’t even have to begin with. It’s a fantastic theatrical farce!
In a Washington Post article from March 7 of last year, White House Communications director Dan Bartlett admitted the White House uses news conferences more sparingly than other types of presidential events, “because if you have a message you’re trying to deliver, a news conference can go in a different direction.”
“In this case, we know what the questions are going to be, and those are the ones we want to answer,” he said. “We think the public will see the thought and care and attention he’s given to a lot of the different questions that are being asked about the diplomatic side and the military side and the potential post-Iraq issue. These are all legitimate questions that he has answers for and wants to talk about.”
This cream puff treatment of the president by the press, and by the Democrats too (more so pre-election year), is a disservice to the American people. The president, war time or no, should always be held accountable.
Our president’s lack of accountability was really brought to my attention during a January trip to London. It was here I was granted admittance to the Strangers’ Gallery of the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Question Time.
For those who have not seen this event on C-SPAN, it is a 30-minute period each week during which the Prime Minister appears before the House of Commons, whose members can ask him whatever they wish. Aside from being highly entertaining to this American, it provides the opposition, as well as the British public, a chance to get answers straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, not some government mouthpiece.
During the session I attended PM Tony Blair was questioned mercilessly (yet politely) on his government’s role in leaking the name of David Kelley and the ongoing war in Iraq, as well as on such issues as education, prisons, old age benefits and Northern Ireland.
Sitting there, I couldn’t help thinking this Question Time format would be great for this country. That said, I can’t imagine American presidents standing up to that kind of scrutiny week in, week out, having to think quickly on their feet, shifting gears every few minutes. Bush, who can barely get through scripted remarks without bungling or mispronouncing at least one word, would be especially amusing.
(Will Stewart is a reporter for the Standard who can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)