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Theme : BushBeating Around the Bushby Antonia Zerbisias
In fact, according to Tuesday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Leading Republicans across the country received White House memos designed to guide their interviews with reporters after Bush's speech. The GOP officials were told to promote Bush's plans for the economy, jobs, health care `compassionate' faith-based community services and, lastly, Iraq.'' Also on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that Junior himself was meeting with two (unnamed) newspaper columnists and then lunching with "11 anchors of network evening news and Sunday shows." Gee, do ya think he handed out souvenir SOTU '03 sweatshirts, too? Not that these highly paid meatheads can be so easily co-opted by rubber chicken served on Lincoln china but, come on. How else to explain most of the subsequent coverage? Flipping around Tuesday between the networks, MSNBC and CNN, and then surfing the dial again yesterday, it seemed that most of the analysts missed the first 25 minutes of Bush's speech — specifically the part during which he discussed domestic and economic issues. It's as if all they heard was blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, Iraq, chemical agents, Saddam, lethal viruses, Iraq, shadowy terrorist networks, Saddam, vials, canisters, crates, Saddam, Iraq, Iraq. If there was any serious or comprehensive analysis of Bush's latest round of tax cuts, and what impact they will have on his ballooning deficit, or on the country's soaring unemployment rate, or on the lengthening lines at food banks, I didn't hear it. There was probably even less criticism of Bush's much-vaunted structural changes in the country's Medicare system. But then, the panelists were mostly politicians or partisan strategists. Not an economist, labour expert or even a sociologist in the lot. So the discussion centred mostly on style over substance. No wonder that nobody, on any network or in any mainstream paper I saw yesterday, held Bush to account for some of the promises he made in last year's "Axis of Evil'' SOTU. (Come to think of it, what happened to the axis, and how come he hasn't mentioned chief axle Osama bin Laden since July?) That despite how, on Tuesday on CNN for example, much time was spent by in-house Dr. Sanjay Gupta comparing prescription drug prices in the U.S. with those in Canada. Or how much play was given to the latest Gallup poll that reveals a majority of Americans believe that Bush, whose job approval ratings are dropping faster than American bombs over the no-fly zone in Iraq, should focus on the economy. Yesterday, it was back to Showdown: Iraq, Part 286: The Search For The Smoking Gun, with the occasional pause for the Raelian court appearance over their media clone job and the Earth-shattering news that poor little rich girl Athina (Onassis) Roussel was turning 18. Watching either MSNBC or CNN, you would have even been hard-pressed to know that there had been an important election in Israel on Tuesday. (Meanwhile, CBC Newsworld provided splendid coverage. But then, as my E-mail bag reminds me, CBC is biased and can't be trusted and promotes anti-Semitic views.) Still, the TV coverage wasn't totally shallow. CNN's invaluable Jeff Greenfield provided solid, thoughtful analysis, pointing out the "pedestrian'' aspects of the domestic proposals in the SOTU. Chris Matthews' of MSNBC's Hardball hit a few homers, especially when he mocked Bush's transparent proposal to fund the development of hydrogen-powered cars, as if this president was ever a friend to the environment. But Matthews was the exception. All in all, the mainstream media fell into line yesterday. Even the New York Times wasted few column inches on domestic matters. For hard-hitting criticism of the SOTU, the only place to look was the Internet. Which is pretty much the story every day in these times. I mean, where else will you find headlines calling the Super Bowl the cow patty strewn field it really is? Antonia Zerbisias >appears every Thursday. You can reach her at azerbis@thestar.ca
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