Bush Chide(d) ... a Reporter Cried!
Well actually, no, he was quite ok with the whole thing.
I was looking for an unrelated video at Expose the Left when I came upon this little story. Apparently Bush made a joke about a reporter wearing his shades during a cloudy press conference not knowing that the reporter in question, Peter Wallsten has an eye condition that requires extra UV protection. For the record, Wallsten, who routinely takes written notes, wears only normal glasses indoors, and did not inform anyone at the Whitehouse of his condition, was ok with the joke and later, when the President called to apologize after learning the truth, said everything was fine and even encouraged the President to continue his joking around.
What's interesting is the response from some, and this is more for the die-hard BDS sufferers, who want to make a big deal of it. You know who you are. Just reading some of the comments on TP (I've never noticed how fitting that name is until now) is especially telling of the lefts tendency to use knowledge gained after the fact, that was not known to the participants at the time, to judge past events. Since it has now come out that Wallsten has a serious eye ailment (but as mentioned above is not without sight), though that was not widely known at the time, it's Bush's fault for making a joke about his use of shades. As one person put it, he should have assumed that anyone wearing sunglasses is blind. This wouldn't even be of the slightest interest if it wasn't a prime example of the same type of distortions of logic that led to the "Bush lied ..." meme (of course that also has problems in that many of the supposed "lies" have been, with the aid of captured documents and personnel, shown to be more true than previously believed).
I have no problem with anyone who wants to use this story to make fun of Bush. It's just one of those unfortunate situations where a person makes an social faux pas, and as such is fair game for friend or foe to use to rip into him, it's just those who try to use this to demonize the man personally are going a little too far. The Righteous Indignation bit is becoming a little tired, especially when the 'victim' himself is on record saying he took no offence. My advice, just make some jokes and move on.
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Now the story I was looking for was a video of an O'Reilly segment from last night debunking yet another NYT op-ed about a poor unfortunate 19 year old who was held at GITMO just because he happened to take the wrong turn while vacationing in Afghanistan.
The story gets interesting though when O'Reilly adds the parts the NYT editors choose to leave out or just gloss over, namely that this poor unfortunate boy, who was only released to face terrorism charges in France, is a member of a family with a little more than a passing involvement in terrorism itself. His brother, step brother, mother and father are all currently in French prisons having been convicted of terrorism related charges. His dream vacation to Afghanistan was to a al-Qaida training camp (which he admits but claims he was tricked into going), and his return trip to France, where he claimed to be headed when he was captured, just happened to take him to the Afghan/Pakistan border.
Once again the New York Times has shown a complete disregard for the facts in chasing down a story that may put a negative light on the current administration. Even with their tragically flawed history of printing unfounded accusations with not even the least credible piece of evidence, they still continue day after day on their crusade to demonize the military and their civilian leadership. At least CBS knew enough after their first big goof that things had to change if they stood any chance of reclaiming their credibility; no such luck it seems at the Times.
At some point you'd think someone in the NYT head office would look at their declining reader base and start to think, "maybe our campaign to discredit our own military may not be what's best for us or our country".
I was looking for an unrelated video at Expose the Left when I came upon this little story. Apparently Bush made a joke about a reporter wearing his shades during a cloudy press conference not knowing that the reporter in question, Peter Wallsten has an eye condition that requires extra UV protection. For the record, Wallsten, who routinely takes written notes, wears only normal glasses indoors, and did not inform anyone at the Whitehouse of his condition, was ok with the joke and later, when the President called to apologize after learning the truth, said everything was fine and even encouraged the President to continue his joking around.
What's interesting is the response from some, and this is more for the die-hard BDS sufferers, who want to make a big deal of it. You know who you are. Just reading some of the comments on TP (I've never noticed how fitting that name is until now) is especially telling of the lefts tendency to use knowledge gained after the fact, that was not known to the participants at the time, to judge past events. Since it has now come out that Wallsten has a serious eye ailment (but as mentioned above is not without sight), though that was not widely known at the time, it's Bush's fault for making a joke about his use of shades. As one person put it, he should have assumed that anyone wearing sunglasses is blind. This wouldn't even be of the slightest interest if it wasn't a prime example of the same type of distortions of logic that led to the "Bush lied ..." meme (of course that also has problems in that many of the supposed "lies" have been, with the aid of captured documents and personnel, shown to be more true than previously believed).
I have no problem with anyone who wants to use this story to make fun of Bush. It's just one of those unfortunate situations where a person makes an social faux pas, and as such is fair game for friend or foe to use to rip into him, it's just those who try to use this to demonize the man personally are going a little too far. The Righteous Indignation bit is becoming a little tired, especially when the 'victim' himself is on record saying he took no offence. My advice, just make some jokes and move on.
-------------------------
Now the story I was looking for was a video of an O'Reilly segment from last night debunking yet another NYT op-ed about a poor unfortunate 19 year old who was held at GITMO just because he happened to take the wrong turn while vacationing in Afghanistan.
The story gets interesting though when O'Reilly adds the parts the NYT editors choose to leave out or just gloss over, namely that this poor unfortunate boy, who was only released to face terrorism charges in France, is a member of a family with a little more than a passing involvement in terrorism itself. His brother, step brother, mother and father are all currently in French prisons having been convicted of terrorism related charges. His dream vacation to Afghanistan was to a al-Qaida training camp (which he admits but claims he was tricked into going), and his return trip to France, where he claimed to be headed when he was captured, just happened to take him to the Afghan/Pakistan border.
Once again the New York Times has shown a complete disregard for the facts in chasing down a story that may put a negative light on the current administration. Even with their tragically flawed history of printing unfounded accusations with not even the least credible piece of evidence, they still continue day after day on their crusade to demonize the military and their civilian leadership. At least CBS knew enough after their first big goof that things had to change if they stood any chance of reclaiming their credibility; no such luck it seems at the Times.
At some point you'd think someone in the NYT head office would look at their declining reader base and start to think, "maybe our campaign to discredit our own military may not be what's best for us or our country".
posted by Bic at 2:15 p.m.
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