Maybe Helen Meant “Oui”?
January 29, 2007 at 7:51 pm
From today’s White House news briefing with press secretary Tony Snow — check out “Helen’s” use of the word “we” (bold added):
MR. SNOW: Helen.
Q What did the President think of the march on Washington?
MR. SNOW: I don’t think he really thought a lot about it. It’s nice to see Jane Fonda in front of the camera again. There are a number of people who were here making statements, and that’s perfectly appropriate. This is a vigorous democracy.
Q You said something earlier this morning, though. Would you like to repeat that?
MR. SNOW: It’s simply that there were predictions of a larger audience than showed up for the protest.
Q And you really counted heads?
MR. SNOW: No. Did you? Did you see 100,000?
Q Don’t you think we had a good turnout?
MR. SNOW: Honestly, I didn’t go there, Helen, so I’m not going to characterize.
Q How do you make a statement like that?
MR. SNOW: Well, because it’s pretty clear from the press accounts that nobody attached six figures to the number who appeared.
Kelly Logan said,
January 31, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
An excellent point - Her use of the word “we” has some implications, the two most likely being:
1.) She attended the rally as a supporter instead of as a reporter, in which case that fact probably shouldn’t be referenced in that way as a part of a White House press conference.
2.) She considers the rally a reflection of the American people and asked “Don’t you think we had a good turnout?” in the same way she would ask “Do you feel that our economy is recovering?”
In either case really, this gaffe is pretty overshadowed by the rest of the quote presented, that shows pretty clearly that when another half a million people stood up and spoke clearly and decisively on the Iraq war outside his door (and tens of thousands more joined them across the country), that President Bush doesn’t appear to have “really thought a lot about it.”
Another point of Snow’s worth noting is his confirmation of the consistent under-reporting of the number of activists in attendance by the mainstream media. Despite the obvious size of the gathering you could see filling the mall on CSPAN (something I can tell you from experience takes hundred*s* of thousands of people), news reports have continued to divide the numbers of activists by a factor of ten or even a hundred.
Hee hee - I just noticed the “Oui” title in this bit! :^)
And people say conservatives have no sense of irony! If you missed it, Mortman must be making a sly reference to how the media got us into the Iraq war by passing on convenient lies, in the same way that the French got us into Vietnam: Brilliant!