Monday, February 20, 2006

Potemkin Village Watch

A new feature here at TCR. As long as the Grand Ole Opry is the most hostile territory into which President Bush ventures, and questions about Laura Bush's political aspirations are among the most challenging he takes from an audience, this space will chronicle the ongoing absurdity of it all.

During his visit to Florida, President Bush spoke at the Port of Tampa. Here are the questions that confronted the president in the order in which the "unscripted" and "unscreened" audience asked them:

1. Mr. President, I just wanted to take an opportunity to tell you I think our country is blessed to have you as our President. We are very thankful that you don't make your decisions based on the polls, like previous Presidents have. And my comment is, is that I'm a homebuilder. I'm very happy right now. But I wanted to just keep you apprised that things are good now, the economy is good, interest rates are low. There are people that still can't afford homes in our country today. Affordable housing is very important. We, as homebuilders -- I served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Homebuilders. We'll be up in Washington in about a month or so to see you guys. But we're concerned with the environment just as much as anyone else is, and -- but there's got to be a balance to make sure that we can develop land and provide homes -- affordable homes. And also Congress is working on some things now that has an effect on financing and interest rates for people buying their first homes. And let's make sure that we have affordable homes for people. My daughter is a school teacher here in Tampa, and it's important to people like her, people that protect us -- the fire department, the sheriffs, they need homes. The times are good now, and I was a builder when your friend, Jimmy Carter, was President, and interest rates weren't so good back then, and those were tough times. And I just want to tell you that I'm blessed to be here today with you in this room, and we all love you. (Applause.)

2. Mr. President, you mentioned a trip next week to visit the sources of renewable additional technology to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We have a not-so-renewable resource, which is our precious Florida coastline. And because of your great brother, we do have an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent. How can you work with us to protect our Florida shoreline with respect to offshore drilling?

3. I'm from Winter Garden in the central part of the state. Pressed into service by your brother, Honorable Jeb Bush. I thought about calling him to ask him if he'd like to have the job back. The concerns from the central part of the state is, we've got a really unprecedented growth rate there in the middle part. The challenge is for mass transportation to free us from the oil that you talk about. Unfortunately, the proportionate share of funding that we're able to secure seems to be tied into pork barrel like light rail, which -- Congressman Mica needs to buy into the fact that it's not realistic. So how do we get free from that so we can get direct funding for mass transit?

4. Mr. President, welcome back to Tampa. And my question is, you've talked a lot about our addiction to oil today. You've also talked about advanced alternative fuel sources, in particular for household vehicles as a potential mitigant to that dilemma. But we have a very robust industrialized economy -- air, rail, shipping, trucking -- that has depended on oil, frankly, for generations to be successful and vibrant. So my question is, how do we maintain the most advanced industrialized economy on Earth, and actually reduce our dependency on oil going forward?

5. It seems to me that we are facing in this country -- I've had the opportunity to interface with people of Muslim countries, and the war is bad enough, and I applaud what you're doing, because freedom is important, but what concerns me is if the youth in these nations are being taught that you and I and us Americans are, in fact, the devil incarnate, or Satan, himself -- I guess my question is, what can we do about that, to win over the people, the children, the youth, so that the next generation will not be facing the same dilemma? I think this is an incredible problem.

6. I know that you and First Lady Bush have talked much about our hurting generation of teens and our unproductive teens in our communities. Just wanted you to talk a little bit about the efforts being made with the work that you're doing in initiatives that will help that.

7. Mr. President, it's an honor to be here with you today, and I thank you so much for the time that you take to share with us. I'm a 40-year-old father of a three-year-old. And I'm also an adopted child. And it seems that, anymore, through the results of legislation from the bench, that maybe the unsafest place for a child in this country is in his or her mother's womb. And my question for you is -- and I commend you for your Supreme Court picks. I thank you for your bold stance in who you picked -- (applause) -- my question is, with my son, this is the future of America. And my question is, where do you believe we're headed? Long after your term of serving us has ended, long after we've had other Presidents serve this country, where do you think we're headed in the areas of abortion, the areas of traditional marriage, in the areas of faith and the foundations that this country was founded upon that are so under attack anymore? Where do you believe we're going?

8. Thank you for being our President. We are all way better off and very safe. We appreciate it. How do you -- earlier you shared with us some intimacy about how you make decisions, and I felt that was heartfelt. How do you keep it together? What do you really think about when the biggest story this week was Dick Cheney's hunting trip, and not Al Gore blasting our troops and being treasonous in his regard to this war on terror in the Middle East? (Applause.) How do you keep it together?

9. In light of national security, some of us baby boomers are going to retire in the next three to five years. And the number of people replacing us is only at about 63 percent. So what are we going to do with immigration to make sure we have enough people to fill those positions?

10. It's a small part of the world, but it's very important to me -- I'm concerned about the children in northern Uganda who are the victims of the rebel Joseph Kony. And I'm wondering if you can bring any pressure to bear on President Museveni to stop that 20-year war and free those children from the bondage that they're under.


Note the phrasing of questions about abortion and immigration in 7 and 9. Also, note how questions that raise mild concerns---question 1 about affordable housing, and questions 3 and 4 about oil---are couched within compliments and effusive praise; this is a recurring and now blatant characteristic of the "questions" at these faux town hall sessions. Free advice for Bush's handlers: rhetorical techniques work best when used sparingly and subtly.

And of course question 8 speaks volumes, doesn't it?

A real town hall meeting in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Michigan, primetime on a Tuesday night, tickets actually available to the public, no scripts, random questions with no prescreening by aides, and families of current servicemen in the audience. It's called leadership. What's the above called?

33 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's called pathetic.
Nine more people who won't survive "the Rapture".

2/20/2006 4:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's nice to see that it didn't take long for you to dig out of the snow job that was dropped on Dec 12th, 2005.

I meant to write this sooner, but I've been busy.

2/20/2006 4:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This really happened?! I mean, this really happened. OMG, it's worse than I ever thought - not Bush (a given). But these people!?

2/20/2006 5:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cowardice

2/20/2006 6:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

BushCult.

2/20/2006 7:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We wish: "A real town hall meeting in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Michigan, primetime on a Tuesday night, tickets actually available to the public, no scripts, random questions with no prescreening by aides, and families of current servicemen in the audience. It's called leadership."

But what we get:

Depressing.

An insult to the history of our great Democracy.

Dog and Pony Show.

2/20/2006 7:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This could not have happened!

2/20/2006 7:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How and where do they find these people? Is there a crew at the front door that asks questions before letting them in? I know that in order to get called for "The Price is Right" there is a similar selection process. I assume there's also one to be on "American Idol."

2/20/2006 8:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At this point the only world leader less challenged by an audience is probably Kim Jong-Il.

2/20/2006 8:54 PM  
Blogger Hume's Ghost said...

Wow, CR. And I just got done with this

They really are enculturing a hero cult.

2/20/2006 9:27 PM  
Blogger Hume's Ghost said...

Gotta say, props to whoever asked question 10. Josephy Kony is probably the most evil bastard on the planet.

2/20/2006 9:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Im sorry that you chose to not include his comments on Darfur, which i think he actually did a good job on and I believe might have actually been unscripted cause he seemed to be caught off guard.

2/20/2006 10:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Apparently we can now finger where some of that $8 billion went that's missing from Iraq (or is it $9 billion? Oh well, who cares). He's paying top dollar for professional shills.

I wish I didn't actually believe this.

2/21/2006 10:33 AM  
Blogger David the Gyromancer said...

Sycophancy. And it is sick.

2/21/2006 12:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

semper fubar:

He's paying top dollar for professional shills.

Not the whole 8bn though, 'just' about 1,400,000,000+ :


"Report: Bush Spent $1.4 Billion on ‘Spin’

February 14, 2006

DALLAS -- The Bush administration spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising agencies over the past two-and-a-half years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released by House Democrats Monday.

With spending on public relations and other media included, federal agencies spent $1.6 billion on what some Democrats called "spin."

The six largest recipients of ad and PR dollars were Leo Burnett USA, $536 million; Campbell-Ewald, $194 million; GSD&M, $179 million; JWT, $148 million; Frankel, $133 million; and Ketchum, $78 million. The agencies received more than $1.2 billion in media contracts, according to the report.

Ketchum was embroiled in a scandal last year when it was revealed that the Department of Education had paid commentator Armstrong Williams $250,000 to promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative. [...]

The Department of Defense spent the most on media contracts, with pacts worth $1.1 billion, according to the study. The Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $300 million, the Department of Treasury spent $152 million, and the Department of Homeland Security spent $24 million during the period.

The PR and ad contracts included providing "expert advice and support in the development of several marriage-related research initiatives," an educational campaign regarding the "Medicare Modernization Act, and its coverage and benefits," and a contract regarding "message development that presents the Army's strategic perspective in the global war on terrorism," the study said. [...]"


Yout tax-$$ at work. :(

2/21/2006 12:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with above, it is called cowardice.

And heaven help us that that there are so many people that have drank the kool aide to ask such questions.

2/21/2006 12:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Double-think.

2/21/2006 9:03 PM  
Blogger moodshifter said...

I vote cowardice. And to those who agree to this charade, well, they are authoritarian cultists (yea, i stole that from either digby, daou or greenwald - I can't remember). They might just be naiive. I suspect the questioners were chosen from Republican party donor rolls or from membership lists from church's whose pastors can be trusted.

2/21/2006 9:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I guess pointing out that this is no new phenomenom would be a waste of time right?

This has been going on for years now.

2/22/2006 12:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not just cultists, but malleable ones, able to change their version of reality to fit whatever the latest talking points are.

The only thing I wonder is whether they're Bush cultists, or authoritarian cultists.

If the former, I wonder what they'll do when (if?) Bush leaves office ("go catatonic and die" would be just fine) - or if they'll come in handy when (if?) Bush decides not to leave office.

If the latter, we are truly doomed, because they'll simply transfer their allegiance to whichever figurehead the puppetmasters come up with next.

They are truly the stuff of which unquestioningly obedient shock troops are made.

2/26/2006 1:15 AM  
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