A Press Conference

This time, with real live reporters

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

4/30/05

http://zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/pc43005.htm

Putsch, clearly feeling his back was against the wall on the whole issue of Social Security, came out from under the White House where he had recently been hiding from stray clouds, and braved a press corps that was noticeably absent paid GOP hacks and male prostitutes.

With approval ratings for recent GOP miscues such as Social Security, ending the filibuster, and Terri Schiavo all in the 30s, and his own down around the mid 40s (the lowest ever for a President just four months after reelection), Putsch’s handlers clearly felt that the risk of Putsch saying something really stupid was outweighed by the need to stop the slide.

Of course, just six months ago, they didn’t need to worry about Putsch saying something stupid. He did, all the time ("I own a timber company?") but the American media, so ably represented in class and intent by Jeff Gannon, never reported such things, preferring instead to rhapsodize about how Churchillean Putsch was.

So, Bob Scheiffer notwithstanding, when Putsch screwed up the other night, it did get reported. (More on Scheiffer’s efforts to protect the president from his own mouth in a moment.)

Folks at Air America and MediaMatters and the new anti-Drudge website, "Raw Story," had a field day with the press conference, of course, but mainstream reporters, doubtlessly mortified by Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon, actually asked Putsch some pointed questions, and reported on his generally weak responses. No word on if they were still being required to submit the questions in advance. Putsch dealt with the hard questions by not answering them, of course. Compare with that painful charade of a press conference held in March of 2003 on the eve of battle.

And, not to be too cynical, but a lot of the business-oriented associates who own all those little reporters in the mainstream media are beginning to get cold feet over the insane ideology and religious whackery that is the hallmark of this administration. I suspect a lot of reporters feel freer to report critically, without feeling their jobs might be at risk, than was the case just a year ago.

When Putsch pulled one of his usual gambits, trying to have his cake and eat it too, it got reported. He pulled one of his favorite talking points, the pre-fabricated phrases that make up so much of his vernacular, which he had been playing all during his efforts to dismantle Social Security: He referred to the funds as "...file cabinets full of IOUs" (in Putsch-friendly "town meetings" he likes to say "useless IOUs" – apparently he was warned to avoid that particular adjective during a full-blown – even without Jeff Gannon – press conference) and then, literally seconds later, said, "People say, Well, I don't want to have to take risk. Well, as I outlined in my opening statement, there are ways where you don't have to take risk. People say, I'm worried about the stock market going down right before I retire. You can manage your assets. You can go from bonds and stocks to only bonds as you get older."

Those "cabinets full of IOUs" are the very treasury bonds he’s encouraging people to invest in! What’s more, it’s what people CURRENTLY have their Social Security accounts invested in!

This is where Bob Schieffer stepped in, remarking after the press conference that it seemed that "the President did not appear to step on his own story" when of course it was transparently evident to one and all that he did. I wonder if Schieffer was Gannon’s mentor?

Putsch stated at one point, "I feel strongly that there needs to be voluntary personal savings accounts as a part of the Social Security system." Well, why not have voluntary personal savings, period? That way, there’s no cap on returns, like there is on his half-baked scheme (that’s right, folks: working folks would assume the risk, but the government would assume the rewards beyond what people would get anyway!) and it could be done without messing with Social Security: just encourage companies to pay their workers better.

When all else failed, he tried blustering. When the focus shifted to his efforts to have "means testing," the practice of cutting benefits in relation to other income, he avoided mentioning that his plan envisioned implementing such cuts when the other income exceeded twenty thousand a year (that would be "the upper middle class", it seems). A reporter asked of means testing, is it "... a system where a rich person, say Dick Cheney, wouldn't get much out of it?" Putsch snapped, "Now wait a minute, don't get personal here, that's international TV. That's a cheap shot."

No, it isn’t. Of course, Cheney won’t get much of a Social Security check, since he spent most of the past twenty five years in public life, but his pay-off, the short time he was President of Halliburton, ensures that he’ll never have to worry about the size of his Social Security check. No eating dog food for old Dick!

Incidently, there is one little nasty in his Social Security privatization scheme that he forgot to mention: the accounts would not be protected in the event of bankruptcy. As it stands now, if you go bankrupt, for whatever reason, your Social Security is still there, and your checks are protected. The privatized ones won’t be. So you work all your life, get hit by a bus, your insurance doesn’t pay (and why should they, since it’s nearly impossible to sue them under "tort reform") and you declare bankruptcy at the age of 65. No Social Security for YOU; it all goes to satisfying creditors! Enjoy that dog food, and be glad that Dick Cheney hasn’t bought it all up!

When Putsch wasn’t contradicting himself, he was playing games with numbers. "The system goes broke in 2041. In 2027, for those listening, we'll be obligated to pay $200 billion more a year than we take in in order to make sure the baby boomers get the benefits they've been promised." The "goes broke in 2041" is based on an assumption that the economy will only grow at 1.3% a year for the next 36 years. But even then, look at what he was really saying: if we wait 23 years to fix it, it will cost $200 billion a year, or nearly as much as we’re wasting in Iraq now. If we do something about it right now, it will cost less than $50 billion a year, and will bullet-proof Social Security against 36 years of severe recession. That’s what he was saying!

And then, of course, he flatout lied, too. For example, he referred to the charming practice of "renditioning," which is that of shipping people off to other countries to be tortured, as "hypothetical." There’s no hypothetical about it. America has been doing it for some time, and the proof of it is there for all to see. If Putsch is bright enough to run a computer, he might get on what he calls "the inter nets" and do a Google for Maher Arar. It’s not a common name: nonetheless, he’ll get quite a few hits on it, mostly dealing with a huge lawsuit by the Syrian-born Canadian against the US.

On Iraq, he was, as always, panglossian. He chirped happily about the progress of the Iraqi army (that would be the one that is getting slaughtered at the rate of over 100 a week), remarking, "Recruitment's high. It's amazing, isn't it, that people want to serve, they want their country to be free?" Well, when it’s the only paying gig in town, maybe it’s not so amazing. The very best neighborhoods in Iraq get eight hours of electricity a day, and others average less than three. The very town where Saddam gassed the Kurds has been without fresh water since the Americans deliberately destroyed it during the early fighting in the spring of 2003. Less than one percent of reconstruction projects have already begun. Oh, and there is a civil war going on.

No, Iraq isn’t doing very well at all, Putsch.

We did get to see a new verbal tic this time. Every time he got hit with a hard question, he would begin his reply with, "Yes, I appreciate that..."

Just like we appreciate him, no doubt.