Abstract

Dishonest, Moronic or Both?

The author claims that American journalists, especially conservatives, have been largely unwilling to ask tough questions of President George W. Bush. Recently [Bill] O'Reilly complained on television, radio and in his syndicated column about a December 2003 group interview conducted by about a dozen and a half writers and scholars with John Kerry in Al Franken's apartment. Months later, O'Reilly became exercised upon reading a short paragraph about the meeting in a "New York Times Magazine" profile of his nemesis, Franken, in which "Time" managing editor Jim Kelly was quoted observing, "By the third go-round, the answer [regarding Iraq] was getting shorter and more relevant." O'Reilly has apparently never seen a public official being asked a tough question over and over until he offers a straight answer. When reporters attempt to re-ask Bush a question, he merely repeats the same nonsense he spouted in the first place. With few exceptions, reporters tend to let him get away with it. Finally, there's O'Reilly's idea that the world would be shocked if Bush held a similar meeting. Bush and his advisers have meetings like that one all the time. The primary difference between them and Kerry--at least at the meeting I attended--is that they do not have the guts to go on the record. O'Reilly has a problem with Kerry taking tough questions for two hours on the record? As with Bush, we're left with the perennial unanswerable question: dishonest, moronic or both?