http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ Newsday.com - Bush Can Walk, but He's No Star With Talk

August 12, 2001

IT IS NOT the habit of this space to stoop to physical traits, given especially that the eyes of the author, himself, bear the rare markings of the gods in a foul mood. President George W. Bush, however, comes in for special notice.

No earnest American watching Bush on TV the other night, no mater how far gone in their swoon over his stem cell homily, could help noticing the blankness of his close-set eyes. Television has that way of magnifying the fluff of the visual over the substance of the audio. Additionally, when reading from the TelePrompTer, the president's eyes appear to purse in the unmistakable manner of a slow learner engaged in a fitful challenge.

This negative image, however, was not to be allowed in the newspapers of America.

News photographers were forbidden to take still pictures of the 43rd president delivering his speech at his Texas ranch on embryonic stem-cell research. The cheap reason the White House spin doctors gave was that the cameras would somehow distract the president. Ronald Reagan, whose antiquated Cold-War, double-digit misery index polices Bush is blindly re-activating, would have laughed his protégé out of his ten-gallon hat. Reagan never met a TelePrompTer he couldn't master.

Those fuzzy, out of focus, active Bush photographs newspaper editors were forced to present to their readers were lifted from television. Usually this technique is resorted to during some emergency, such as an explosion or a rescue, say, when only live TV cameras are present.

Newspaper photographers were allowed to photograph him around the ranch, wrangling in his jeans or clearing away brush, and the Associated Press was even permitted to photograph him after his speech, posed in such a manner as to suggest to readers that he was actually speaking.

The framed image of Bush reading this particular speech, I suspect, was pre-judged to have been too jarring and antithetical. There he was, lips curled and eyes pursed, sweating his way through a text written for him about a complex subject, the depth of which, other than its political implications, he clearly had no way of understanding. One thinks of Reagan reading those primer speeches about the Strategic Defense Initiative, the key difference being that whereas neither man comprehended the subject matter, Reagan read his script like the schooled actor he was, blessed at least with the gift of speech.

Image control is very much a factor with White House spin doctors and has been since the days when Richard Nixon laid his defeat to a weaker debate-showing on television against an inexperienced but more telegenic John F. Kennedy. In subsequent years, Americans may well have been served up better looking white, male candidates, as these things are judged, but they have not always come with gray matter between the ears. Gerald Ford, for example, drove his White House doctors batty with his nasty habit of bumping his head when getting into the presidential helicopter. Faced with an image dilemma, the White House simply banned news photographers from the executive helipad. The Ford solution appears now to have been applied to Bush's problem with the TelePrompTer.

It is not yet clear how long the White House will stick with its ban against news photographers during presidential speech reading sessions. Is it possible to re-train the president to read the TelePrompTer and look reasonably intelligent at the same time?

In addition to juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, researchers just might be able to find a cure for whatever it is that ails the president. I'm not talking about the set of his eyes here but rather Bush's inability to read TelePrompTers, or walk, for that matter, without appearing confused.

Science does not, as the president's speechwriters suggested, hold solutions to all human deficiencies. Gazing upon this president, who came to office under questionable and, some suggest, illegal means, one can not help but pray that he, himself, might turn out to be the poster boy for those who oppose cloning.

A clear sigh of relief went up in one room full of loyal Americans when this rich, successful - though quite deficient ex-embryo who has made it all the way to the White House - declared forthright: "I am against cloning."

Whew!

Newsday, Inc.

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), August 17, 2001

Answers

My daily button push.

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), August 17, 2001.

In my day we knew how to deal with wishy-washy, candy-ass, momma's boys. America needs more John Wayne's and less George Bush's.

-- George S Patton (JustKickin@ss.org), August 17, 2001.

Well, with as well as the economy is doing nowadays, rest assured, this bush will be a one termer also!! I know and so do most here that the President has very little influence on the economy, but the public in general doesn't have a clue to the workings of an economic cycle.

-- Gary (gcphelps@yahoo.com), August 18, 2001.

No wonder the US is the laughing stock of the world! Dumbya is such a bleedin wanker!

-- Some bloke (from@London.com), August 18, 2001.

Jerry Seinfeld and George W. Bush--the tragedy of close-set eyes.

-- (phrenology@your.service), August 18, 2001.

Where you guys been? We had this guy Clinton you must have missed.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), August 19, 2001.