Missing Scott McClellan
Missing Scott McClellan
If you thought White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was bad, check out his deputy Dana Perino, who filled in yesterday:
Q What was the President’s reaction to former Secretary Powell talking to Republican senators on the Hill about Bolton?
MS. PERINO: Scott McClellan addressed this with the pool this morning. We are not going to respond to anonymous sources.
In fact, Powell had admitted to contacting senators about Bolton, and the reporter called her on it:
Q But, Dana, it’s not “anonymous sources,” I mean, Powell’s office put out a statement saying that, indeed, he’s had conversations with at least two Republican senators about his reservations about the Bolton job.
MS. PERINO: “Anonymous sources” in terms of what those conversations were, that they had conversations is not — we don’t know what those conversations were and “anonymous sources” we’re not going to comment on, in terms of the content of them.
Not only is the revised answer incomprehensible, it’s also irrelevant. The reporter asked about the President’s reaction to Powell talking to Senators about Bolton. Perino didn’t need to discuss the content of Powell’s conversations to respond.
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Yet another sad chapter in the life of The Potemkin President:
Among her legacies, Russian Empress Catherine the Great brought the term “Potemkin Village” into the vernacular. It refers to the elaborate villages erected by Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to impress Catherine with her new Crimean conquests. In today’s political parlance, the term has become synonymous with the sophisticated facade and the clever ruse – that is, virtually any accomplishment or policy that “appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance.”
Fast forward two hundred years after the death of Catherine the Great and meet George W. Bush, the Potemkin President. Through his mastery of techniques that would have made Potemkin himself proud, Bush has been able to advance unpopular policies, derail popular programs of the opposition, deflect deserved blame and appropriate undue credit. From rented reporters, purchased pundits, and rigged rallies to scripted sessions, fake news and pseudo-science, an unapologetic White House has sought to alter public perceptions to control political debate – and reality itself…
- MORE –
April 23rd, 2005 at 6:59 pmWith all due respect, I think bush is the equivilant of an evil garden gnome in rove’s Potemkin Village more than he’s deserving of getting credit for putting this soulless, ghost-town government together himself. Thanks for the explanation of P.V. though. I had the concept but not the background.
“Not only is the revised answer incomprehensible…”. Historians will look back and judge the bush era the incomprehensible years.
April 23rd, 2005 at 7:47 pm“anonymous sources” was the talking point and Dana wasn’t going to stray from it
April 23rd, 2005 at 8:36 pmWhen I was in the Air Force, we had a saying: “you can dazzle them with brilliance, or baffle them with bullshit.” Guess which one the Shrub’s people go for.
April 25th, 2005 at 1:14 pmHe dazzle baffles with brilliant bullshit!
April 25th, 2005 at 1:22 pmYou got that right!
April 25th, 2005 at 1:30 pm