This is what passes for news

17 Responses to “This is what passes for news”

1. gianluca_b, on March 4th, 2008 at 9:11 pm Said:

   the calm before the storm ?

 

2. This is what passes for news · SmokeSignalz, on March 4th, 2008 at 9:13 pm Said:

   [...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]

 

3. davidw, on March 4th, 2008 at 9:34 pm Said:

   gianluca, I think this is the circus INSTEAD of the storm!

 

4. gianluca_b, on March 4th, 2008 at 9:39 pm Said:

   no, it spins up
   it must be a storm

   I ve even have my weather bones tickling
   but I agree, I can stay up till 4 am for so much longer
   lets quite it tonight : )

 

5. Andy Weinberger (yes, I am related), on March 4th, 2008 at 9:49 pm Said:

   They missed the news that G. Bush now has the record for a President for most days NOT being spent in the White House. It is in the vicinity of 850!!! (He has edged out Reagan). What a record. These are days at Camp David, his Texas ranch and his family’s home in Kennebunkport, ME. And how many days was he away between inauguration and 9-11 (including most of the summer at his ranch)?? What a disgrace (and so are the CNN headlines).

 

6. Trevor Bechtel, on March 4th, 2008 at 9:54 pm Said:

   That last one looks like it could have had potential.

 

7. LaraH, on March 5th, 2008 at 1:08 am Said:

   oh CNN, i thought you said YouTube. same-same, never mind.

 

8. Thomas, on March 5th, 2008 at 12:27 pm Said:

   Andy where did you get your numbers, I am curious.

 

9. Devan, on March 5th, 2008 at 12:30 pm Said:

   All I’ll say is, they finally mentioned cricket on the front page!

 

10. Andy Weinberger (yes I am related), on March 5th, 2008 at 12:34 pm Said:

    The new out-of-the-White House tally was on NPR (WNYC) Tuesday evening. I have not looked yet to verify it. During August 2001, my esteemed brother (that is, this David) told me the shocking figure up to that time, which I unfortunately don’t remember. If you find the numbers, please post them here, as will I.

 

11. johne, on March 7th, 2008 at 8:12 pm Said:

    A Washington Post March 2nd story:
    “Mark Knoller, the CBS Radio News correspondent who keeps the best statistics on presidential travel, reports that Bush’s past weekend in Crawford with the Danish prime minister was his 70th visit as president to his Texas ranch. By Knoller’s count, Bush has spent all or part of 452 days of his presidency there.”
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....224_2.html

    “…the late Ronald Reagan [the previous presidential vacation record holder]… tallied 436 days in his two terms.” http://www.chron.com/disp/stor.....42364.html

    To be fair, some of those Crawford days could be called working vacations (and niether story addresses the question of non-Crawford vacations).

 

12. johne, on March 7th, 2008 at 8:42 pm Said:

    Regarding David’s post, it’s the authenticity thing.

    The president is a genuine and unapologetic representative of authoritarian reaction, corporate greed and rich-kid arrogance, and so gains the press’s admiration, or at least respect, as being true to an ideal.

    On the other hand, Clinton, Kerry, Edwards, et al, claim to represent American values and Enlightenment traditon, but often fall short of combining the finer qualities of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and both Roosevelts, so can only earn the media’s contempt.

    Obama may have correctly gauged that a politician still mostly lacking in substantive accomplishments and the inevitable failures and inconsistencies that accompany them, may be able to solve this conundrum. Even so, the press frets that he was an acquaintance of the apparently corrupt Rezco, not something you want to see in Caesar’s wife, and he has also been called on to explain a six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon relation to Farrakhan.

    McCain, on the other hand, with his carefully cultivated reputation as a maverick, may have the wiser strategy: he can actively seek out the endorsement of a whore-of-Babylon anti-Catholic like Hagee, who evidently thinks the jihadists are God’s instrument of punishing America for having coddled of the Palestinians, and still suffer no ill effects. Because it proves his maverick-ness, don’t you see? How authentic!

 

13. johne, on March 7th, 2008 at 8:51 pm Said:

    Oops. The foregoing was meant to comment on “So much for press neutrality.”
    Whatever.

 

14. Andy Weinberger (yes I am related), on March 8th, 2008 at 12:14 pm Said:

    johne,

    Thank you for the numbers. I must have heard it wrong while I was driving, although it is still a very high number, and a record. While he may have been “working” on some of these days, I suspect the real work of federal government is done in Washington, where a lot of others in the government are. You can’t get the same feedback and ideas from people if you don’t see them in person and have interactions with them on a personal level. I don’t know how much talking he does to the government while he is whacking brush in Crawford.

 

15. David Weinberger, on March 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am Said:

    If Bush didn’t spend so much time on his ranch, then the brush would have won.

 

16. johne, on March 9th, 2008 at 11:44 am Said:

    Oh come now, Andy. I’m sure that those various devices that the president seems to carry around under his clothing are precisely to enable him to debate the finer points of budget policy and Middle Eastern peace with advisers, even while he clears brush!

    http://homepage.mac.com/c.shaw.....bum15.html

 

17. Andy Weinberger (yes, I am related), on March 9th, 2008 at 8:16 pm Said:

    One could have been a chain saw.

 

Leave a Reply