To: lurqer who wrote (37434 ) 2/8/2004 12:55:23 PM From: lurqer Read Replies (3) | Respond to Going into watching the Prez's speech, I thought that the questions Russert would ask were not going to be as important as the follow up questions. That's because I expected the Prez to be well prepared. Now I'm not the brightest bulb on the test bench, so when something happens, I may not pick up on it. But if something happens again and again, I tend to notice. There were two repetitive characteristics of the Prez's interview. The first is associated with the phrase "Let me finish", and the second with the phrase, "I hate to repeat myself". Both of these, I believe were part of his having preprogrammed answers. If Russert tried to cut off what was clearly a canned answer, we got the first response until Bush had finished his prepared remarks. The second response occurred when Russert would ask a similar, or even a not so similar question later, and would precede Bush repeating one of his prepared remarks. It looked it's most contrived when Bush would repeat a previous prepared statement for a question that the answer didn't quite fit.
