Thursday, July 01, 2004

# John Nichols at The (Wisconsin) Capital Times - Pampered Bush meets a real reporter - commentary on the interview King Georgey faced when he was in Ireland. [root] 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 [in RealVideo]) 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. [End the War on Freedom] The reason Presidents don't normallly meet real reporters is that the reporters know that if they do their jobs, they'll never get another interview or press conference. 11:55:45 AM    comment () Elections Are Moot. As if they haven't always been. "WASHINGTON (AP) - The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission." At least now people... [LewRockwell.com Blog] If the government does establish such "guidelines," I wouldn't be at all surprised if some terrorists struck the United States just in time to give the Feds an excuse to cancel the elections. Purely by coincidence, of course. 11:47:36 AM    comment () Silent Cal had a lot to say. Historians have trivialized Calvin Coolidge as a do-nothing President naive enough to believe that "the business of America is business," and many have rated him as one of the worst of all time. However, he produced remarkable results without sacrificing... [Mises Economics Blog: Austrian Economics and Libertarian Political Theory] A look at Coolidge's record, and a collection of quotes. 10:44:46 AM    comment () # Richard Seaman - First Flight of SpaceShipOne into Space - nice pictures! [End the War on Freedom] These are the best photos I've seen yet! The photographer used a long lens, which allowed him to take very nice in-flight close-ups. 9:15:40 AM    comment ()

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