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Frankly, I'm a bit shocked at some of the negative opinions regarding Bush's performance on Meet the Press, especially from conservative commentators. What, have you had your eyes closed through the last 10 Bush interviews? Did you begin mistaking his improvement in prepared speeches for an improvement in his improvisational political scat skillz? This is George W. Bush. Not Jack Straw, not Dick Cheney and certainly not Tony Blair. So, judging based on that scale (reality), Bush did a-ok. He took some hits on the economy, but he expanded his defense of action in Iraq beyond "Saddam is evil," and sounded relatively confident and thoughtful. Much, much better than his pants-down spanking and self-immolation with Dianne Sawyer. And the sound-bites, probably the most politically important product of the show, came out pretty well.

Howard Kurtz put it best:

But he made no single mistake that could be replayed again and again with Janet Jackson-like fervor. In that sense, Bush survived the encounter with one of the top interrogators on television. Russert asked hard questions but didn't break much new ground.

I thought Bush was going to be dog food against Russert. Instead, he held his ground, interrupted Russert rather than vice versa and spoke with conviction. B+.

UPDATE:
It seems that I practice the "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Posted by Bill at February 9, 2004 02:16 PM | TrackBack (0)

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Posted by: free porn at April 6, 2004 07:49 PM