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Prez and veep Side by SideBy Rick Horowitz It must have been the acoustics. It's not a small room, the White House East Room, but once you start filling it with reporters hungry for some actual news (or at least an actual apology) at an actual televised prime-time presidential press conference -- well, who knows where the sound goes? Maybe it got stuck in all the hair spray. Anyway, the question was relatively brief for a presidential-press-conference question, and relatively straightforward; there were only two parts. The second part was about Iraq. This was the first part: "Mr. President, why are you and the Vice President insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission?" Mr. President dealt with the Iraq part first, and then he turned to the commission part. "Because the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions, that's why we're meeting. And I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions." It must have been the acoustics; somehow, the president had missed hearing a crucial word. The reporter -- as helpful to the Leader of the Free World as any White House reporter would be under the circumstances -- restated his question, and even added some information. Just to be helpful. "I was asking why you're appearing together, rather than separately, which was their request." And this time the president said: "Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them." Which was true in a chronological sense, if not exactly in a psychological sense. Answering questions from the 9/11 Commission is about the last thing George Bush wants to do -- at least not on his own. And he won't have to. That, of course, was the price the commission had to pay to get Condoleezza Rice to testify in public, and under oath: The president and his No. 2 would meet with the commission in private, and not under oath. And together. You can only imagine the quivery White House calculations that went into that little wrinkle in the normal order of things. This is a president, after all, whose grasp of detail is already the subject of nervous speculation in many quarters. Who is already suspected of playing puppet to Dick Cheney's puppet master. Wouldn't insisting on a joint appearance just reinforce those speculations? Add to those suspicions? And yet Team Bush clearly decided that they'd rather have all of that than have their guy do a solo act. All of that, plus the late-night jokes and the editorial cartoons, plus the inevitable comparisons with Bill Clinton, who could hold forth on practically any issue of public policy at interminable length, who was, in fact, virtually incapable of keeping his mouth (let alone his zipper) shut. All of that would still be better, Mr. Bush's strategists must have figured, than subjecting their guy to an hour or two of close questioning. What does that tell you? And how comforting is that? Meanwhile, I keep wondering if there's any wiggle room. Not in the president's desire to bring a cheat sheet to the exam; he's made that perfectly clear. But I keep wondering just how much the members of the 9/11 Commission actually conceded. They agreed to let the prez and the veep appear together, yes. But did they agree to let Mr. Cheney answer every question first? Or to let him consult with the president before either of them answers, or interrupt the president to "clarify" something? What about eyebrow twitches? Hand signals? Coughing in code? I'm thinking curtains, or maybe cubicles; that way, they could appear "together" but still be questioned more-or-less separately. Actually, I'm thinking isolation booths -- microphones and soundproof walls, and headphones that could be turned on and off with the flip of a switch. You wouldn't want to have a problem with the acoustics. Posted 4/15/04. Rick
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Rick Horowitz
