A Failure to Communicate

[PhilipShore]

Magic City Morning Star
A Failure to Communicate
Feb 27, 2006

http://magic-city-news.com/article_5426.shtml

President George W. Bush has had plenty of trouble communicating his vision for the country. Some of it is due to his occasional verbal gaffes, some of it is due to Bush's staff, but most of it is due to the people hired to cover the President, the White House Press Corps.

Watching the Press Corps go after White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan over the Dick Cheney hunting accident was disturbing to say the least. I've seen divorces that were less ugly than the feeding frenzy over the accident and the implications of it. Namely, why Cheney decided to wait to tell the press until, oh I don't know, until Harry Whittington was tended to medically and whether that constituted, drum roll please…a conspiracy to hide something that would justify Cheney stepping down. With this hostile a press, it's a wonder the Bush Administration can get any message out without it being parsed, spun, re-spun, reparsed, dry cleaned, and repackaged to say something completely different than what the Administration official said.

Such is the case with the recent flap over the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) taking control of six major ports in the United States. As someone who is undecided on the issue, let me tell you it's difficult to find facts on the actual deal itself. The story has been so spun and attacked from both sides that it's hard to get to the heart of the matter. President Bush wasn't exactly a big help either when he said he wasn't aware of the deal until the proposal came across his desk.

Does anyone really buy this? Something this huge has to have the President's fingerprints one it somewhere, so it's hard for me to think Bush, someone I consider to be far more intelligent than his critics say he is, could be surprised by this deal. It would be like Hillary Clinton testifying before Congress about Whitewater and then claiming she didn't know anything about…okay, bad example, but you see my point.