For some reason, the C-Span website won't let me link directly to video files but there are two over there that are worth a look-see. If you fish around there, you might find them.
One is George W. Bush's 15 minute live chat this morning with a number of our soldiers in Iraq. If Bush doesn't get rid of whoever organized this thing then it's official: It's impossible to screw up so badly in this White House as to get fired. The White House Chef could probably burn down the kitchen and not endanger his job, pension or Medal of Freedom.
The whole idea of the teleconference was wrongheaded from the start. Bush is terrible in ad-lib, chatty situations and no matter how tightly one scripts and rehearses a live, overseas remote, there are going to be moments that require a little quick thinking and improvisation. There were more than usual in this one due to technical screw-ups. I once did a TV show with a host who wasn't the swiftest in such situations and it wasn't a big deal to have cue cards poised to cover all contingencies. (First rule of Live TV: When things go obviously wrong, you admit it and don't insult the audience's intelligence by pretending it's how you meant for things to go.)
This "media event" was carefully rehearsed and loosely-scripted and someone — maybe the same someone who erred by suggesting the format in the first place — compounded the disaster. They allowed the media to see and tape the rehearsals where the troops were told what would be discussed in seeming spontaneity. I would love to hear the explanation of why they allowed this to be seen. It made Bush look like a marionette who walks in and does what his own handlers don't trust him to do without careful preparation. We all know that much of what we see on television that's represented as unplanned is meticulously prearranged. Most producers, however, know enough not to show the world just how prearranged.
How awful was it all? I felt sorry for George W. Bush. That's how awful it all was.
The other video worth a look is the press briefing that Scott McClellan engaged in later, denying to reporters who'd see the rehearsal that the event was rehearsed. I don't know why anyone with an ounce of self-respect would ever want to be a presidential press secretary. At some point in every administration, your boss is caught picking his nose, there's videotape of him picking his nose, and you're sent out to deny that he picked his nose and to suggest that there's something seriously wrong with a reporter who thinks so. For the last few years, the White House Press Corps has taken polite dictation and asked questions that don't even measure up to the softball standard. Wiffleball is more like it…or Nerf. I dunno if they're just lazy or if, as I suspect, there's some fear there of feeding the rage of those who scream "Liberal Media" every time there's something on the news they don't like. But every so often lately, there's been some Scott McClellan tap-dance that is so far from provable reality that even the guy from Fox News has to go, "Come on."
It's fascinating to watch McClellan at work. The only problem with the Harriet Miers nomination is not, as some of us thought, that a lot of prominent Conservative voices think she's not qualified or demonstrably committed to their worldview. It's that the press is refusing to talk about her experience and qualifications. Come on.