Focus on Bush (again)
Reported by Nancy - July 12, 2004 -
Brigitte Quinn spent most of the morning reminding viewers that Bush was about to give a "major policy speech". This was repeated at 10:37am, 10:46am, 10:54am, 11:02am, & 11:05am (all times EDT). In addition, Mike Emanuel filed a 2-minute report at 10:59am EDT reminding us of the same thing & including the standard video of Bush getting off a plane, waving & shaking hands.
The incessant drumbeat was interrupted only for such critical pieces of news as an interview (10:55am EDT) with a former "contestant" on "The Apprentice" & another speculative report from Stan Goldman (11:06am EDT) about possible future developments in the Scott Peterson trial. In a nod to Fox's own base, Steve Centanni filed a brief report (11:03am EDT) on the Senate debating a gay marriage amendment to the Constitution; he managed to work in several Fox-approved themes, using standard Fox ploys, such as saying that "polls show that most oppose gay marriage", that "Bush addressed this issue in his Saturday radio speech", & that "John Kerry opposes a Constitutional amendment".
Fox switched to live coverage of Bush's speech at 11:18am EDT, & stayed with it to the bitter end, at 11:50am EDT. Quinn was then joined by David Asman for the obligatory post-speech regurgitation posing as analysis. Asman was particularly good at this, re-using video from the speech at Oak Ridge to reiterate Bush's claim that Libya's Muammar Qaddafi "is cooperating because of Saddam Hussein's downfall".
At 11:52am EDT, Quinn interviewed Elaine Kamarck (former adviser to VP Al Gore) about Bush's speech & ran into trouble immediately. Kamarck said she thought the speech was "about as good as could be expected" but the issue in the current campaign is about whether policy choices were made wisely. Quinn fell back on the tried-&-true Fox tactic of interruption, telling Kamarck that the recently released Senate report put the blame "squarely on intelligence" agencies. When Kamarck began to point out that that's what the administration wants us to think, but in fact the report raises policy questions, Quinn interrupted again to assert that "Democrats agreed with" those policy choices. Kamarck turned the tables & interrupted Quinn to say that "there's a second wave coming" which will reveal quite different conclusions -- at which point Quinn terminated the interview as Kamarck was in mid-sentence.
Asman jumped in at 11:54am EDT to distract us from that bit of unpleasantness by announcing that protests at the upcoming national political conventions "could play right into the hands of terrorists" & he'd have a report on that a bit later.
Comment: If "Fear Factor" weren't already taken, I'd suggest they rename this show.
