Tuesday, April 13, 2004
WHY THE PRESS CONFERENCE? Because David Broder, the walking instantiation of conventional wisdom in Washington, had the following to say during Sunday's taping of Meet The Press:
Later, he added:
BRODER: Well, it’s been a terrible week or 10 days for this country and therefore for the administration. But I think compounding it has been the fact that of all moments, the president chose this moment to disappear. At a time when the country really needs to hear from a president, from its president, and the world needs to hear from the president, he’s gone silent on us, and it’s inexplicable to me.
Later, he added:
BRODER: Tim, what strikes me about this is that the two White House officials who briefed reporters yesterday when this was released were asked: What did the president do when he got this memo? And they said, "Well, we can't discuss the president's response." That's stunning to me because it fits into what I'm afraid has been a pattern of passivity on the part of President Bush in dealing with this whole question of terrorism, a pattern that continues even today when we don't know where the president is in his thinking about what's happening now in Iraq, what's happening with the 9-11 Commission. The country needs a president at moments like this.
