Good speech, bad press conference. Occasional moments — when he got angry and forceful — when it clicked. A lot of the time, though, it was rambling and hesitant and stumbling and demonstrative of why Dubya doesn’t do press conferences. He got better as the conference went on, but, especially at the beginning, he clearly seemed nervous, and was overly and obviously careful trying to avoid saying anything that was going to be splashed across the headlines the next day.<\/p>\n
Which brings up the questions of mistakes and apologies. Multiple reporters clearly wanted (a) an admission of failure about Iraq or 9\/11 or something<\/i>, along with (b) an apology. That clearly would have led the news for the next several cycles — “Bush admits was wrong” … “Bush apologizes for failure” — and was clearly something Bush and\/or his advisors considered verboten<\/i>. Unfortunately, by not doing so, in turn he ends up with headlines of “Bush refuses to admit he was wrong” … “Bush won’t apologize.” It was a neat trap, and Bush wasn’t up to figuring a way out of it.<\/p>\n
Regardless, overall, though there were bits of good message (and when quoted in snippets, it sounded good), his presentation was frequently awful, especially compared to the relatively polished demeanor of Kerry. He came across, for much of the questioning, as, frankly, doltish.<\/p>\n
Net loss for the GOP campaign, frankly. I expect a poll drop, and I expect a dearth of press conferences for the next several months … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Good speech, bad press conference. Occasional moments — when he got angry and forceful — when it clicked. A lot of the time, though, it was rambling and hesitant and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":138053,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/03\/on-presidential-harassment.html","url_meta":{"origin":5278,"position":0},"title":"On “Presidential Harassment”","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 3-Mar-19 5:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm trying to decide if Donald's feelings are actually so hurt by criticism that he's compelled to lash out like an angry nine-year-old who thinks they are being picked on, or whether this is all just a hyperbolic way to whip up his supporters into a frenzy of knee-jerk condemnation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/trump-2019-02-26.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/trump-2019-02-26.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/trump-2019-02-26.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3926,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/09\/breaking_news.html","url_meta":{"origin":5278,"position":1},"title":"Breaking news","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 9-Mar-03 8:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"There's wild consternation in Washington, as Presidential Press Corps Doyenne Helen Thomas was snubbed at last week's press conference. 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