News Flash: Bush Seeks Occasional Relaxation
Dan ‘Don’t Call Me A Liberal’ Froomkin has really blown the lid off of this story:
As part of his new media strategy to get out of Washington and reconnect with the voters, President Bush dined with “community leaders” Sunday night in Miami Beach.
Or so the White House wanted you to believe.
In fact, Bush spent the evening at the exclusive Joe’s Stone Crabs restaurant talking about sports and movies with a bunch of former Miami Dolphins football players, an actor and the flamboyant host of a raunchy and ribald Spanish-language variety show.
It was only hours after Bush had learned that an Israeli air strike had killed dozens of Lebanese children, a moment for soul-searching if there ever was one.
But what did Bush want to talk about?
Former Dolphin Jim Kiick told Steve Wine of the Associated Press that topics of conversation included movies, the 1972 Dolphins and fellow attendee and former Dolphin Dan Marino’s achievements — but little politics.
Amazing! Who knew the president was a human being who needed occasional down time? And you want to know what’s even more amazing? That valuable space on the Washington Post website is expended on this nonstory – or for that matter, given to Dan Froomkin at all!
Well done, Dan, well done…
I recently attended a talk on leadership given by Doris Kearns Goodwin. She spoke mostly about Abraham Lincoln in part, I’m sure, because that is her most recently published book. But over the course of the talk she told some anecdotes involving Lincoln, FDR, and Johnson (whose administration she worked in).
She told us that FDR very much enjoyed having his political friends and acquaintences visit him at the White House for dinner with drinks and cigars afterwards. She said he had a rule that they could talk about anthing they wanted so long as it wasn’t a current issue being debated in the government. He expressly forbade them from talking about the war (WWII) during these get togethers.
Rather than describe this as a fault, DKG lauded this as a strong display of leadership in that FDR understood that we all need some downtime from the day-to-day grind; even Presidents. She went on to say that both Lincoln and Johnson, the former President during the Civil War, the latter during Vietnam, also understood the curative power of a drink, a cigar, and some talk and storytelling with good friends.
By the measure of Froomkin I guess Jimmy Carter was the best President ever because he was always on. Too bad he never accomplished anything worthy of putting him in the historical company of Lincoln, FDR, and Johnson (perhaps Reagan and Bush II someday).
I’m sure the Reluctant President dined on Pet Goat. That’s his fave after all, especially in Florida.
[...] Propagandist Mark Coffey for his continued defense of indolent criminal reactionary Bush, oppositional to Comrade Froomkin. [...]
This sort of reminds me of the routine tirades you hear, no matter who is in office, whenever the president takes a vacation or is imply out of Washington for a time. It’s so ridiculous. Quite simply, if the Qana strike paralyzed a president and left him unable to do anything other than sit and brood, I’d consider him unfit for office.