Press Conference

I watched your press conference this morning, Bush. Nothing new. The same old cliches, repeated endlessly in answer to virtually every question, no matter what the particular angle of the questioner might be. I don't know how you get away with it--though I suppose you do have the pulpit. You basically subject the media to your agenda. The political edge gets sharper, as the November elections approach: "they"--the Democrats--"want us to leave Iraq before the job is done." The American people, you say (many times) need to understand that Democrats want us to leave before the job is done. A huge mistake, you say. If we leave, you say (many times) the terrorists will follow us here. I can just see it, Bush: boatloads of terrorists--maybe planeloads--crossing the Atlantic and landing in New York and Washington. You invoke the specter of Al Qaeda (many times): Al Qaeda, you assert, without any evidence I know of, "is still very active in Iraq." You suggest that Al Qaeda terrorists are behind all the bombings there: "the extremists, radicals, and Al Qaeda." You say (many times) that they're trying to halt the forward march of democracy in the region--the march, presumably, that you started and continue to support. I don't see a great deal of freedom marching in the region myself, Bush. I see tribal and sectarian violence. I see guns and bombs being used as the tools of choice to conquer, subjugate, and divide.

The effect of your press conference was to send me into another fit of frustration and despair, and I don't like myself for it. I don't like to confess that the subsequent report on the flight of John Mark Kerr (business class, champagne, pate, jumbo shrimp and chocolate cake) from Bangkok to Los Angeles was a lot more interesting than your press conference. I don't like the impulse to give up on our daily conversation, Bush, because it seems, at moments like this, to be a waste of breath. But there you go. That's how it seems today. And it's only Monday yet, the first day of the week.