We welcome extremists...as long as you're extremely moderate! : )
Posted By: TechSupport on 2009-04-17
In Reply to: I so agree with EVERYTHING. - Sunflower
Oh, gosh. I cracked myself up.
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Oh we're just ALL racists and extremists
no matter how many times people explain to you that we are not Bush cronies and explain how we are not racists you continue pointing your finger towards us and crying *Racists!!! Look over there racists!!!* People aren't buying it nor appreciating it and it's really a reflection of the liberal agenda's intelligence level as a whole.
Your play in your outdated playbood of *just keep screaming something is true even when there's no substance to it OR it's been proven to be wrong* is so outdated and so blantantly transparent that if liberalism was a football team they would be losing 99-0 because EVERYONE knows EVERY play in their playbook.
You're right, I was 16 once and not that long ago...
And I did have rumors spread about me in a similar fashion. I had to have ultrasounds, was wearing baggier clothes and that is the first thing that was said was that I was pregnant. I didn't give one fig what was said because I knew the truth. All of my friends and family knew the truth. It was the people who were saying such things that looked bad when month after month went by and I had no baby.
They've got some extremists to get rid of
You don't really know anything about Great Britain, obviously. They've got hate-mongers standing in Hyde Park every Sunday afternoon, gathering crowds and spouting all kinds of extremist garbage.
'Splain that to me, Lucy.
talking about extremists?
got a mirror? I'd say you are so far at the extreme end you are about to fall off.
Unfortunately, Muslim extremists don't agree with you.
xx
Moderate Muslims
The majority of the Middle Eastern people are moderate and not anti-American. And Obama is winning more and more over.
Only the terrorists are anti-American.
You have to study history, update yourself and do not put everybody into the same pot and stereotyping.
No extremists like you have labeled him a jerk and racist
He hasn't proven anything. To liberals accusation is a verdict. Mr. Bennett has written a book of virtues. Why don't you hold your accusation/label until you've read that book..not that I expect you will. Anyone who knows Bennett and his work know he's not a racist. He was taken out of context and that was that. He stated a hypothetical situation and in the next breath said it would be morally reprehensible.
You may think us conservatives are so illiterate that we would just believe the baloney taken from context, but you are wrong.
Agree completely......Muslim extremists are not
Heck, the media is just now putting out the so-called honor killings these muslims believe in. There is no honor to it.....it is cold-blood murder. They do it here (where they can do as they please) and they do it back in their home country, so please, there is no despair. It is a sick ideology they live by. Little boys brainwashed from childhood on to hate. The women are the ones who are in despair.
Wrong. Rightwing Extremists, not conservatives.
Like hate groups and neo-nazis. If you are a member of one of those type of groups, then yes, this report is about you.
Yes, there were and I moderate these forums. If you have a problem
you need to take it up with the Administrator. You can email admin@forumatrix.com
I went to a very moderate Baptist church as a ....sm
child and teenager, and no drinking alcohol or dancing was allowed whatsoever.
Moderate Muslims are not terrorists.
I find it interesting that you twisted President Obama's words from "winning over moderate Muslims" to "winning over terrorists." How very "pro-American" of you!
I am talking about moderate muslims
in the Middle and Far East, not about Muslims who live here in the US!
The Muslims who are in the Middle East have been won over by OBAMA.
Because leftist extremists are not emotionally or mentally adults
They cannot hold their own in debate, so they throw fits and insults. They throw they pre-programmed leftist talking points that have nothing of substance behind them. They cannot have an adult conversation simply because they are not adults psychologically.
JM credibility on moderate inclusive bipartisan
nm
Moderate Muslims aren't the terrorists...(sm)
He's pointing out the distinction between the two instead of labeling all Muslims as terrorists and pi$$ing off the whole middle east like the Bush admin did, and like you just did with your post.
Moderate muslims by definition have already been "won over." So what exactly is
Obama's strategy here?
A moderate muslim is a muslim who is willing to coexist peacefully with people of other faiths and who are comfortable with the democracy of the U.S. So you see, they don't need to be "won over." To the fundamentalist muslim, a moderate muslim is a sell out who has watered down their faith.
Basically what Obama is doing is elevating himself to the benevolent peacemaker, declaring he is going to choose is words wisely and have us all believe that he alone can win over the "moderate muslims" when in fact it means absolutely nothing. This just more Obama posturing for the media. The funamentalist muslims (the ones that need to be won over) will never be won over because in their own mindsent they are holding true to their Islam teachings.
The moderate Islamists, that is the general population
condemn the actions of the fundamentalists and radicals, they do not agree with them, as those backfired on them.
These wars have nothing to do with religion, they are all political wars.
extremely helpful
Extremely helpful, if you ask me. Have to let the people know whose fault it was.
Even I will admit that KO is extremely
biased toward Obama. Have you see McCain in the Membrane? But I do enjoy his humor. I often wonder though, who has to pick up those papers off the floor after he throws them at the camera?
#1, The Nation is extremely partisan. #2.
Tillman didn't talk about why he went into the service to anyone. We will have to assume that what his mother is saying is true. Has the wife spoken out? I would think if he told his deepest heart's secrets, it would be to her. She was his high school sweetheart. Here's a snippet from a Newsweek article.
He joined the service just after a honeymoon to Bora Bora with his high-school sweetheart, Marie. He and a younger brother, Kevin, slipped off to enlist in Denver, where they could avoid publicity. Kevin, who gave up a budding minor-league baseball career, remains in the Army. Pat Tillman wanted no attention, no glory, for joining the rank and file. He didn't want to be singled out from his brothers and sisters in the military, says former Cardinals coach Dave McGinnis. Tillman apparently had made a pact with his family to stay silent about his service, a promise they have kept. They have gathered to grieve inside the comfortable family home in a leafy enclave of San Jose.
His was no simple case of patriotism; Tillman was never known as a flag-waver. His agent, Frank Bauer, told reporters he had suspected that Tillman might quit to teach or to practice law like his father, Patrick Sr., but not to join the military. Snyder, his college coach, said Tillman never used the word patriotism when he explained his plans to enlist. He just seemed to think something had to be done. When players asked why he enlisted, he didn't want to talk about it. McGinnis says there were reasons Pat said he had that he didn't want to divulge, and the coach respected his view and his right to make his own path. Tillman had always been different. When he joined the pros, he rode a bicycle to practice because he didn't own a car. He refused to buy a cell phone. A sports publicist at Arizona State once described him as a surfer dude.
It seems his mother decided the pact no longer had any merit. Personally, I see another Cindy Sheehan, disobeying her son's wishes.
Delusional and extremely dangerous.
I just hope he doesn't get us all killed in the next 3 years. 
Thanks very much for posting this.
Your last statement is extremely ignorant
There are nearly 1.5 million abortions performed in the U.S each YEAR, more than the entire death toll in Iraq thus far.
I'm the opposite....Extremely doubtful....
...Obama will win with Biden. Bayh would have been a better choice. Ah well.....
I just did a search for it. That is extremely scary. nm
x
I find that extremely hard to believe
Usually we get shoved out of the way when we go to eat places like buffets where there is a black crowd. Yet if we did it, it'd be a "hate crime" and we'd be arrested.
Oh wait I forgot this scenario: We went to our towns little carnival where they serve all kinds of different food and the black folk in the area (it was only on one street a block wide) started chanting "Obama" and getting all hyper and out of order and knocked over a little white boy and when the dad started yelling at them to chill out they started in on him being a racist and the cops made HIM leave. Amazing.
SO yeah, unless you were at a KKK fish fry, I find that hard to believe.
He is extremely hateful. Why would Obama go to
nm
You'll be waiting a long, long time, then, cuz she's going to do
Melanoma, especially above the neck, is extremely worrisome..sm
for eventual metastasis to the brain. I think we have the right to see his medical records.
So right! Joy is extremely rude, but I dont "hate"
nm
Extremely well-stated post! I agree with you 100%
Most importantly, it was YOUR decision, along with your doctor. It was NOT the decision nor the business of anyone else.
Hats off to you!
Extremely revealing article written
by a first-generation African-American woman (hard to get by with calling her a racist) in The National Thinker:
Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa
Well worth reading the entire thing: http://209.157.64.200/focus/news/2278969/posts?page=1
your post is extremely rude, hateful, harassing, insulting...
I post here once more YOUR rude reply to my post, I quote...
...'You don't listen very well, do you?
Tell you what. You liberals seem to need everything spoon-fed to you and I've come to the conclusion that all we're doing is interfering with your mental progress.
Look up the speech and see if you can maybe figure out for yourself what he said that was disgraceful - if your mind will even allow you to consider tht possibility.'
For this your comment you should be BANNED from posting. I comply with the rules of this forum and abstain from giving you some appropriate insults in return. I think them only.
He died a long, long time ago! (If he was ever
Don't force your beliefs on others. It further devalues your faith in the eyes of others.
to make myself extremely clear, it looked as if the baby was unconscious, was limp and looked to be
@
I no more understand it than I understand the extremely poor taste and blasphemous sm
post with pictures on the other board. Are we clear now?
You're entitled to your opinion. I guess it depends on what side of the spectrum you're on.nm
x
We're not defending Bush we're pointing out the obvious
All you see in your view is Bush, Bush, Bush. Nobody else exists. You have yet to answer any of the questions I posed yesterday. We're not the one obsessing about Bush. I'm sure you'll counter that with I don't owe you any answers! It's really telling that for five or six days this board was mute about the Israel/Lebanon situation. You were too busy posting trash news about Bush like nothing was even happening, but I know that the left has wait for its talking points. You all cannot formulate opinions on your own. You have boilerplates ready to go though. *This is Bush's fault because _____________ but you have to wait on Howard Dean, Bill Clinton, etc. etc. to fill in the blanks for you. It's not just a phenomenon here but with all the left. You can count on at least two days of silence when something unforseen breaks out in the world, because they have to retreat to their bunkers to get their talking points straight, but it will always start with *This is Bush's fault because....
Hey, if they're smoking cigs, they're paying for SCHIP.
xx
They're too lazy to show patriotism......they're waiting
xx
So you're not racist but you're most definitely SEXIST and AGEIST!!!
"Someone more in our age group..."
"She should be taking care of her family."
Your true colors are showing, and they're truly ugly.
Just because they're LOSING doesn't mean they're VICTIMS.
What is it with people these days? You think that just because Hamas is getting its fanny handed to it that that magically makes them victims, and we should all weep and throw cash at them?
From the dawn of time, lesser civilizations have fallen to stronger ones.
It's why the human species survived and the neanderthals didn't.
It's why Rome conquered the Celts.
It's why the Barbarians conquered the Western Roman Empire.
It's why the British conquered the American Indians.
It's why the Spanish conquered the Aztecs.
It's why the Muslims conquered Israel the first time. But, since their societal progres seems to have permanently parked in the Stone Age, now Israel is conquering them right back.
Deal with it.
You're right. They're simply not worthy of a reply.
They're not tax breaks....they're tax credits
xx
I'm snotty, you're rude...we're even....
My dearrrr....not everyone in this country pays taxes. So you are wrong there. Obama said "spread the wealth." From his own mouth. The interview in Canada...economic parity and redistribution. Words from HIS mouth. If you believed those words from his mouth as much as you believed other words from his mouth, you would know he is a socialist. Selective memory is a wonderful thing ain't it??
You're right. They're all wack-jobs... nothing
so they try to make themselves feel important by standing around on street corners with their posters and their dollies.
Most of them are just buffoons, good for nothing other than being laughed at by the rest of us. But the ones that totally lose all reason, and go so far as to shoot people (in a church of all places...) is pretty off the deep end.
how long
back and forth through my working day about 20 minutes or less.
Very long and quite sad
At least she got to go home to Ireland.
The Sunday Times October 09, 2005
Ireland: I wanted to slap him
George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman’s White House interview that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE journalist explains why the president made her blood boil
With just minutes to go to my interview with George W Bush, I was escorted to the White House library, where a staff member gave instructions on how to greet the president: “He’ll be coming in the door behind you, just stand up, turn around and extend your hand.”
I placed my notes on the coffee table, someone attached a microphone to my lapel, and I waited. The two chairs by the fireplace where the president and I would sit were at least six feet apart; clearly I would not be getting too close to him.
*
The room was well-lit, providing the kind of warm background conducive to a fireside chat. Several people had crowded in behind me. I counted five members of the White House film crew, there was a stenographer sitting in the corner and three or four security staff. I was still counting them when someone spoke. “He’s coming.”
I stood up, turned around to face the door and seconds later the president strode towards me. Bush appeared shorter than on camera and he looked stern and rather grey that day.
“Thanks for comin’, Mr President” I said, sticking out my hand. I had borrowed this greeting directly from him. When Bush made a speech at a rally or town hall, he always began by saying “Thanks for comin’” in his man-of-the-people manner. If he detected the humour in my greeting, he didn’t let on. He took my hand with a firm grip and, bringing his face right up close to mine, stared me straight in the eyes for several seconds, as though drinking in every detail of my face. He sat down and an aide attached a microphone to his jacket.
Nobody said a word. “We don’t address the president unless he speaks first,” a member of the film crew had told me earlier. The resulting silence seemed odd and discomforting, so I broke it. “How has your day been, Mr President?” Without looking up at me, he continued to straighten his tie and replied in a strong Texan drawl, “Very busy.”
This was followed by an even more disconcerting silence that, compounded by the six feet separating us, made it difficult to establish any rapport.
“Will Mrs Bush be seeing any of our beautiful country?” I tried again, attempting to warm things up by adding that I had heard that the taoiseach would be keeping him too busy for sightseeing on his forthcoming trip to Ireland.
“He’s putting me to work, is he? Have you not interviewed Laura?” “No, I haven’t met your wife.” I suggested that he put in a good word for me. He chuckled. By now he seemed settled and the crew looked ready, but still nobody spoke. I was beginning to worry that the clock may have already started on my 10 minutes.
“Are we all ready to go then?” I asked, looking around the room. The next voice I heard was the president’s. “I think we have a spunky one here,” he said, to nobody in particular.
MC, a White House press officer whom I’ve decided not to identify, had phoned me three days earlier to say that President Bush would do an interview with RTE. “Good news,” she had said. “It goes this Thursday at 4.20pm. You will have 10 minutes with the president and Turkish television will talk to him just before you.”
My initial excitement was dampened only by the timing, much later than I had hoped. The interview would take place just three hours before I was to fly back to Ireland to cover his arrival at the EU summit at Dromoland Castle in Clare and just 15 minutes before the start of RTE’s Prime Time programme on which the interview would be broadcast. It would be practically impossible to have the president on air in time for this.
“That’s fabulous,” I gushed, “but is there any way I could go before the Turks?” I had previously explained about the Prime Time programme, so MC knew the situation. “I’ll look into it,” she offered.
The interview sounded like quite a production. We wouldn’t be able to just saunter in there with a camera. It would be filmed by a White House crew, which would then hand over the tapes to me to be copied and returned the same day.
MC asked me for a list of questions and topics, which she said was required for policy purposes in case I should want to ask something that the president needed to be briefed on. The request did not seem odd to me then. The drill had been exactly the same for an interview I had conducted six months earlier with the then secretary of state, Colin Powell.
“What would you ask the president of the United States?” I enquired of everyone I met in the following days. Ideas had already been scribbled on scattered notepads in my bedroom, on scraps of paper in my handbag and on my desk, but once the date was confirmed, I mined suggestions from my peers in RTE and from foreign policy analysts. I grilled my friends in Washington and even pestered cab drivers. After turning everything over in my head, I settled on a list of 10 questions.
Securing a time swap with Turkish television ensured that I saw the president 10 minutes earlier, but there was still less than half an hour to bring the taped interview to the production place four blocks away in time for Prime Time.
Still, with the arrangements starting to fall into place, the sense of chaos receded and I returned to the questions, which by now were perpetually dancing around my head, even in my sleep. Reporters often begin a big interview by asking a soft question — to let the subject warm up before getting into the substance of the topic at hand. This was how I had initially intended to begin with Bush, but as I mentally rehearsed the likely scenario, I felt that too much time could be consumed by his first probable answer, praising Ireland and looking forward to his visit. We could, I had calculated, be into the third minute before even getting to the controversial topics. I decided to ditch the cordial introduction.The majority of the Irish public, as far as I could tell, was angry with Bush and did not want to hear a cosy fireside chat in the middle of the most disputed war since Vietnam. Instead of the kid-glove start, I would get down to business.
*
On Thursday June 24, Washington DC was bathed in a moist 90-degree heat, the type that makes you perspire all over after you have walked only two blocks. Stephanie and I arrived at the northwest gate of the White House that afternoon, and were directed to the Old Executive Office building, Vice President Dick Cheney’s headquarters, and were introduced to MC, whom I had spoken to only by phone. An elegant and confident woman, she was the cut of CJ, the feisty White House press secretary on The West Wing television drama.
A younger male sidekick named Colby stood close by nodding at everything she said and interjecting with a few comments of his own every now and then. Colby suggested that I ask the president about the yellow suit the taoiseach had worn the previous week at the G8 Summit on Sea Island in Georgia. I laughed loudly and then stopped to study his face for signs that he was joking — but he didn’t appear to be. “The president has a good comment on that,” he said.
The taoiseach’s suit had been a shade of cream, according to the Irish embassy. But alongside the other more conservatively dressed leaders, it had appeared as a bright yellow, leaving our Bertie looking more like the lead singer in a band than the official representative of the European Union. It was amusing at the time, but I was not about to raise a yellow suit with the president. “Really?” I asked politely. But a little red flag went up inside my head.
Then MC announced that she had some news for me. “There may be another interview in the pipeline for you,” she said.
“Me?”
“We’re not supposed to tell you this yet, but we are trying to set up an interview with the first lady.”
She indicated that the White House had already been in contact with RTE to make arrangements for the interview at Dromoland Castle, where the president and Mrs Bush would be staying. As an admirer of Laura Bush’s cool grace and sharp intellect, I had requested interviews with her several times previously without any reply. Now the first lady of the United States was being handed to me on a plate. I could not believe my luck.
“Of course, it’s not certain yet,” MC added. And then her sidekick dropped his second bombshell. “We’ll see how you get on with the president first.”
I’m sure I continued smiling, but I was stunned. What I understood from this was that if I pleased the White House with my questioning of the president, I would get to interview the first lady. Were they trying to ensure a soft ride for the president, or was I the new flavour of the month with the first family?
“I’m going to give the president his final briefing. Are there any further questions you want to pass on to him?” MC asked.
“No,” I said, “just tell him I want to chat.”
Stephanie and I locked eyes and headed for the ladies’ powder room, where we prayed.
Mr President,” I began. “You will arrive in Ireland in less than 24 hours’ time. While our political leaders will welcome you, unfortunately the majority of our people will not. They are annoyed about the war in Iraq and about Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?”
The president was reclining in his seat and had a half-smile on his face, a smile I had often seen when he had to deal with something he would rather not.
“Listen. I hope the Irish people understand the great values of our country. And if they think that a few soldiers represent the entirety of America, they don’t really understand America then . . . We are a compassionate country. We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves. But we help people. And we’ve helped the Irish and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got a good relationship with Ireland.”
“And they are angry over Iraq as well and particularly the continuing death toll there,” I added, moving him on to the war that had claimed 100 Iraqi lives that very day. He continued to smile, but just barely.
“Well, I can understand that. People don’t like war. But what they should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there that had destroyed lives and put them in mass graves and torture rooms . . . Look, Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, against the neighbourhood. He was a brutal dictator who posed a threat that the United Nations voted unanimously to say, Mr Saddam Hussein . . .”
Having noted the tone of my questions, the president had now sat forward in his chair and had become animated, gesturing with his hands for emphasis. But as I listened to the history of Saddam Hussein and the weapons inspectors and the UN resolutions, my heart was sinking. He was resorting to the type of meandering stock answer I had heard scores of times and had hoped to avoid. Going back over this old ground could take two or three minutes and allow him to keep talking without dealing with the current state of the war. It was a filibuster of sorts. If I didn’t challenge him, the interview would be a wasted opportunity.
“But, Mr President, you didn’t find any weapons,” I interjected.
“Let me finish, let me finish. May I finish?”
With his hand raised, he requested that I stop speaking. He paused and looked me straight in the eye to make sure I had got the message. He wanted to continue, so I backed off and he went on. “The United Nations said, ‘Disarm or face serious consequences’. That’s what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn’t disarm. He didn’t disclose his arms. And therefore he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons . . .”
I was now beginning to feel shut out of this event. He had the floor and he wasn’t letting me dance. My blood was boiling to such a point that I felt like slapping him. But I was dealing with the president of the United States; and he was too far away anyway. I suppose I had been naive to think that he was making himself available to me so I could spar with him or plumb the depths of his thought processes. Sitting there, I knew that I was nobody special and that this was just another opportunity for the president to repeat his mantra. He seemed irked to be faced with someone who wasn’t nodding gravely at him as he was speaking.
“But Mr President,” I interrupted again, “the world is a more dangerous place today. I don’t know whether you can see that or not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There are terrorist bombings every single day. It’s now a daily event. It wasn’t like that two years ago.”
“What was it like on September 11 2001? It was a . . . there was relative calm, we . . .”
“But it’s your response to Iraq that’s considered . . .”
“Let me finish. Let me finish. Please. You ask the questions and I’ll answer them, if you don’t mind.”
His hand was raised again as if to indicate that he was not going to tolerate this. Again, I felt I had no choice but to keep quiet.
“On September 11 2001, we were attacked in an unprovoked fashion. Everybody thought the world was calm. There have been bombings since then — not because of my response to Iraq. There were bombings in Madrid, there were bombings in Istanbul. There were bombings in Bali. There were killings in Pakistan.”
He seemed to be finished, so I took a deep breath and tried once again. So far, facial expressions were defining this interview as much as anything that was said, so I focused on looking as if I was genuinely trying to fathom him.
“Indeed, Mr President, and I think Irish people understand that. But I think there is a feeling that the world has become a more dangerous place because you have taken the focus off Al-Qaeda and diverted into Iraq. Do you not see that the world is a more dangerous place? I saw four of your soldiers lying dead on the television the other day, a picture of four soldiers just lying there without their flak jackets.”
“Listen, nobody cares more about death than I do . . .”
“Is there a point or place . . .”
“Let me finish. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind.”
By now he was getting used to the rhythm of this interview and didn’t seem quite so taken aback by my attempt to take control of it. “Nobody cares more about death than I do. I care a lot about it. But I do believe the world is a safer place and becoming a safer place. I know that a free Iraq is going to be a necessary part of changing the world.”
The president seemed to be talking more openly now and from the heart rather than from a script. The history lesson on Saddam was over. “Listen, people join terrorist organisations because there’s no hope and there’s no chance to raise their families in a peaceful world where there is not freedom. And so the idea is to promote freedom and at the same time protect our security. And I do believe the world is becoming a better place, absolutely.”
I could not tell how much time had elapsed, maybe five or six minutes, so I moved quickly on to the question I most wanted to ask George Bush in person.
“Mr President, you are a man who has a great faith in God. I’ve heard you say many times that you strive to serve somebody greater than yourself.”
“Right.”
“Do you believe that the hand of God is guiding you in this war on terror?”
This question had been on my mind ever since September 11, when Bush began to invoke God in his speeches. He spoke as if he believed that his job of stewarding America through the attacks and beyond was somehow preordained, that he had been chosen for this role. He closed his eyes as he began to answer.
“Listen, I think that God . . . that my relationship with God is a very personal relationship. And I turn to the Good Lord for strength. I turn to the Good Lord for guidance. I turn to the Good Lord for forgiveness. But the God I know is not one that . . . the God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom. But I get great sustenance from my personal relationship.”
He sat forward again. “That doesn’t make me think I’m a better person than you are, by the way. Because one of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, ‘Don’t try to take a speck out of your eye if I’ve got a log in my own’.”
I suspected that he was also telling me that I should not judge him.
I switched to Ireland again and to the controversy then raging over the Irish government’s decision to allow the use of Shannon Airport for the transport of soldiers and weapons to the Gulf.
“You are going to meet Bertie Ahern when you arrive at Shannon Airport tomorrow. I guess he went out on a limb for you, presumably because of the great friendship between our two countries. Can you look him in the eye when you get there and say, ‘It will be worth it, it will work out’?”
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be doing this, I wouldn’t have made the decision I did if I didn’t think the world would be better.”
I felt that the President had now become personally involved in this interview, even quoting a Bible passage, so I made one more stab at trying to get inside his head.
“Why is it that others don’t understand what you are about?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. History will judge what I’m about.”
I could not remember my next question. My mind had gone completely blank. The president had not removed me from his gaze since we had begun and I wanted to keep up the eye contact.
If I diverted to my notes on the table beside me, he would know he had flustered me. For what seemed like an eternity, but probably no more than two seconds, I stared at him, searching his eyes for inspiration. It finally came.
“Can I just turn to the Middle East?”
“Sure.”
He talked about his personal commitment to solving that conflict. As he did so, I could see one of the White House crew signalling for me to wrap up the interview, but the president was in full flight.
“Like Iraq, the Palestinian and the Israeli issue is going to require good security measures,” he said.
Now out of time, I was fully aware that another question was pushing it, but I would never be here again and I had spent four years covering an administration that appeared to favour Israel at every turn.
“And perhaps a bit more even-handedness from America?” I asked, though it came out more as a comment.
The president did not see the look of horror on the faces of his staff as he began to defend his stance. “I’m the first president to have called for a Palestinian state. That to me sounds like a reasonable and balanced approach. I will not allow terrorists determine the fate, as best I can, of people who want to be free.”
Hands were signalling furiously now for me to end the interview.
“Mr President, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, still half-smiling and half-frowning.
It was over. I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same colour as my suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some important issues — probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.
I was removing my microphone when he addressed me.
“Is that how you do it in Ireland — interrupting people all the time?”
I froze. He was not happy with me and was letting me know it.
“Yes,” I stuttered, determined to maintain my own half-smile.
I was aching to get out of there for a breath of air when I remembered that I had earlier discussed with staff the possibility of having my picture taken with the president. I had been told that, when the interview was over, I could stand up with him and the White House photographer would snap a picture. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I stood up and asked him to join me.
“Oh, she wants the photograph now,” he said from his still-seated position. He rose, stood beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. Taking his cue, I put an arm up around his shoulder and we both grinned for the cameras.
In my haste to leave I almost forgot the tapes and had to be reminded by the film crew to take them. I and my assistants bolted out to the street. We ran, high heels and all, across Lafayette Park. Running through rush-hour traffic, I thought that this had to be about as crazy as a journalist’s job gets.
I had just been admonished by the president of the United States and now I was turning cartwheels in order to get the interview on air. As I dashed past a waste bin, I had a fleeting urge to throw in the tapes and run home instead.
At the studio I handed over the tapes. My phone rang. It was MC, and her voice was cold.
“We just want to say how disappointed we are in the way you conducted the interview,” she said.
“How is that?” I asked.
“You talked over the president, not letting him finish his answers.”
“Oh, I was just moving him on,” I said, explaining that I wanted some new insight from him, not two-year-old answers.
“He did give you plenty of new stuff.”
She estimated that I had interrupted the president eight times and added that I had upset him. I was upset too, I told her. The line started to break up; I was in a basement with a bad phone signal. I took her number and agreed to call her back. I dialled the White House number and she was on the line again.
“I’m here with Colby,” she indicated.
“Right.”
“You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,” she began.
I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming. I had naively believed the American president was referred to as the “leader of the free world” only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by outsiders, and not among his closest staff.
“You were more vicious than any of the White House press corps or even some of them up on Capitol Hill . . .The president leads the interview,” she said.
“I don’t agree,” I replied, my initial worry now turning to frustration. “It’s the journalist’s job to lead the interview.”
It was suggested that perhaps I could edit the tapes to take out the interruptions, but I made it clear that this would not be possible.
As the conversation progressed, I learnt that I might find it difficult to secure further co-operation from the White House. A man’s voice then came on the line. Colby, I assumed. “And, it goes without saying, you can forget about the interview with Laura Bush.”
Clearly the White House had thought they would be dealing with an Irish “colleen” bowled over by the opportunity to interview the Bushes. If anyone there had done their research on RTE’s interviewing techniques, they might have known better.
MC also indicated that she would be contacting the Irish Embassy in Washington — in other words, an official complaint from Washington to Dublin.
“I don’t know how we are going to repair this relationship, but have a safe trip back to Ireland,” MC concluded. I told her I had not meant to upset her since she had been more than helpful to me. The conversation ended.
By the time I got to the control room, the Prime Time broadcast had just started. It was at the point of the first confrontation with the “leader of the free world” and those gathered around the monitors were glued to it. “Well done,” someone said. “This is great.”
I thought about the interview again as I climbed up the steps to RTE’s live camera position at Dromoland Castle to account for myself on the 6pm news next day. By now the White House had vented its anger to the Irish embassy in Washington. To make matters worse for the administration, the interview had made its way onto American television and CNN was replaying it around the world and by the end of the day it had been aired in Baghdad.
Had I been fair? Should I just have been more deferential to George Bush? I felt that I had simply done my job and shuddered at the thought of the backlash I would surely have faced in Ireland had I not challenged the president on matters that had changed the way America was viewed around the world.
Afterwards I bumped straight into the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who was waiting to go on air.
“Howya,” he said, winking.
“I hope this hasn’t caused you too much hassle, taoiseach,” I blurted.
“Arrah, don’t worry at all; you haven’t caused me one bit of hassle,” he smiled wryly.
I don’t know what he said to the president, who reportedly referred to the interview immediately upon arrival, but if the taoiseach was annoyed with me or with RTE, he didn’t show it.
When I returned to my little world on the street called M in Washington, I felt a tad more conspicuous than when I’d left for Ireland. Google was returning more than 100,000 results on the subject of the 12-minute interview. The vast majority of bloggers felt it was time a reporter had challenged Bush.
At the White House, the fact that I had been asked to submit questions prior to the interview generated enquiries from the American press corps. “Any time a reporter sits down with the president they are welcome to ask him whatever questions they want to ask,” Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told the CBS correspondent Bill Plante.
“Yes, but that’s beside the point,” replied Plante.
Under repeated questioning, McClellan conceded that other staff members might have asked for questions. “Certainly there will be staff-level discussion, talking about what issues reporters may want to bring up in some of these interviews. I mean that happens all the time.”
I had not been prevented from asking any of my questions. The only topics I had been warned away from were the Bush daughters Jenna and Barbara, regular fodder for the tabloids, and Michael Moore — neither of which was on my list.
Moore did notice RTE’s interview with the president and in the weeks that followed urged American journalists to follow the example of “that Irish woman”.
“In the end, doesn’t it always take the Irish to speak up?” he said. “She’s my hero. Where are the Carole Colemans in the US press?”
© Carole Coleman 2005
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This article is extracted from the opening chapter of Alleluia America! by Carole Coleman, to be published by The Liffey Press on October 14 at €14.95.
Okay, as long as....SM
you don't mind you, your loved ones, or someone else's loved ones to be killed BEFORE we take action, we can sit around and see who attacks us next. But then of course, if Saddam had ordered an attack, or slipped the goods to someone to carry that attack out, you would have blamed Bush for not acting on all that intelligence we had before the war. You simply cannot have it both ways. In light of the fact that 3000 people perished in a couple of hours, I'm not afraid to stand behind a president brave enough to stand up to any threat.
What took them so long????
I heard the 34% was down to 29% for Bush and 18% for Cheney. It has taken this complete break down of our government for people to finally see what most of us have known all along. BUSH IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE ROTARY CLUB, LET ALONE THE U.S. The words incompetence and tin ear and arrogance are now coming out of the mouths of the staunchest of Republicans, senators, congressmen, strategists, advisors, etc. And the outright lies are finally coming to light, thanks to videotape. Of course we only have the pre Katrina tape but it shows those who absolutely refused to entertain the thought that his president was anything than honorable is, in fact, just a greedy arrogant politician like so many others. As I said before, time to storm the Bastille and throw them out, the whole sorry lot of them or we can always sell the country to the UAE. They would probably do a better job of running it than this poor excuse for an administration. As Isabel from Florida said on Lou Dobbs the other day, I could run this country better from my kitchen table. I believe her.
that is a long
string of words that is so illogical I just slap my rump and shout hallelujah. Not much more can be done other than that.
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