The Press and Separation of Powers
By Steven Taylor @ 12:27 pm
However, the press either doesn’t understand SoP or, at least, pretends not to.
From today’s Press Conference
"Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself, John, and others here, as we run up to the issue to get me to negotiate with myself in public; to say, you know, what’s this mean, Mr. President, what’s that mean. I’m not going to do that. I don’t get to write the law. I will propose a solution at the appropriate time, but the law will be written in the halls of Congress. And I will negotiate with them, with the members of Congress, and they will want me to start playing my hand: Will you accept this? Will you not accept that? Why don’t you do this hard thing? Why don’t you do that?"
While I fully understand the collective desire on the part of the press to have definitive answers on a long list of issues, there really is a gross oversimplification on this topic (which is common with such matters) in which the questioning seems to start from the proposition that it will be president himself (or, at least, the White House) that will be writing the legislation. Further, the questioning on this topic has a certain feel of an attempt to find a “gotcha” soundbite. This isn’t to say that many of the questions aren’t good ones. And, further, they are questions that the president has invited by raising this topic.
On a related note, Bush has been as good as he hs ever been in these post-election press conferences, If he been like this during the campaign (and especially the debates) I believe that his victory would have been more decisive. It is as if winning has erased any tentativeness that he was feeling. I will grant that to some degree it is not unexpected: being re-elected is a transformative experience. |
