Direct link to the interview mentioned in the article below:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0624/primetime/primetime56_1c.smil
http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/nichols/77302.php
John Nichols: Pampered Bush meets a real reporter
By John Nichols
June 29, 2004
On the eve of his recent sojourn in Europe, President Bush had an unpleasant
run-in with a species of creature he had not previously encountered often: a
journalist.
He did not react well to the experience.
Bush's minders usually leave him in the gentle care of the White House press
corps, which can be counted on to ask him tough questions about when his
summer vacation starts.
Apparently under the mistaken assumption that reporters in the rest of the
world are as ill-informed and pliable as the stenographers who "cover" the
White House, Bush's aides scheduled a sit-down interview with Carole
Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public television
network.
Coleman is a mainstream European journalist who has conducted interviews
with top officials from a number of countries - her January interview with
Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently solid enough to merit posting
on the State Department's Web site.
Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing
reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves.
Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader.
She asked tough questions about the mounting death toll in Iraq, the failure
of U.S. planning, and European opposition to the invasion and occupation.
And when the president offered the sort of empty and listless "answers" that
satisfy the White House press corps - at one point, he mumbled, "My job is
to do my job" - she tried to get him focused by asking precise follow-up
questions.
The president complained five times during the course of the interview about
the pointed nature of Coleman's questions and follow-ups - "Please, please,
please, for a minute, OK?" the hapless Bush pleaded at one point, as he
demanded his questioner go easy on him.
After the interview was done, a Bush aide told the Irish Independent
newspaper that the White House was concerned that Coleman had "overstepped
the bounds of politeness."
As punishment, the White House canceled an exclusive interview that had been
arranged for RTE with first lady Laura Bush.
Did Coleman step out of line? Of course not. Watch the interview (it's
available on the www.rte.ie Web site) and you will see that Coleman was
neither impolite nor inappropriate. She was merely treating Bush as European
and Canadian journalists do prominent political players. In Western
democracies such as Ireland, reporters and politicians understand that it is
the job of journalists to hold leaders accountable.
The trouble is that accountability is not a concept that resonates with our
president. The chief executive who gleefully declares that he does not read
newspapers cannot begin to grasp the notion that journalists might have an
important role to play in a democracy. And, if anything, the hands-off
approach of the White House press corps has reinforced Bush's conceits.
Bush would be well served by tougher questioning from American journalists,
especially those who work for the television networks. And it goes without
saying that more and better journalism would be a healthy corrective for our
ailing democracy.
Come to think of it, maybe one of the American networks should hire Carole
Coleman and make her its White House correspondent. It would be Ireland's
loss and America's gain.
Published: 5:47 AM 6/29/04
--
Steven L. Sheffield
stevens at veloworks dot com
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