- Bush's Worldview

"The best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world." --George Bush

washingtonpost.com

Bush's Filtered News

By Michael Kinsley

Friday, October 17, 2003; Page A29

Quote--

To President Bush, the news is like a cigarette. You can get it filtered or unfiltered. And which way does he prefer it? Well, that depends on the circumstances. When he is trying to send a message to the public, Bush prefers to have it go out unfiltered. He feels, for example, that the "good news about Iraq" is getting filtered out by the national media. "Somehow you just got to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people," he said the other day. So, lately, he has been talking to local and regional media, which he trusts to filter less.

But when he is on the receiving end, Bush prefers his news heavily filtered. "I glance at the headlines, just to get kind of a flavor," he told Brit Hume of Fox News last month. But, "I rarely read the stories" because "a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news." Instead, "I get briefed by [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card and Condi [Rice, the national security adviser] in the morning."

mkinsley@msn.com

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© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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New York Times

On Listening

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: October 16, 2003

Quote--

There was a headline that grabbed me in The Times on Saturday. It said, "Cheney Lashes Out at Critics of Policy on Iraq."

"Wow," I thought, "that must have been an interesting encounter." Then I read the fine print. Mr. Cheney was speaking to 200 invited guests at the conservative Heritage Foundation ・ and even they were not allowed to ask any questions. ...

Had this ingrown administration ever exposed itself to people even mildly opposed to its policies, let alone foreigners, it might have avoided some of its most egregious errors. Had it listened to its own Army chief of staff, who had served in Bosnia, it might have put more troops into Iraq, as he advocated. Had it listened to its own State Department, it might not have recklessly disbanded the Iraqi Army without having enough U.S. troops to fill the security vacuum.

The complete article may be purchased at -http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/16/opinion/16FRIE.html -- or may be available at your local library