News-Record.com

There is no question that Bush is the most fit young President we've ever had. The fact he's a bit of an adventurist (mountain biker), extremist (marathoner) and a health nut to boot gives him a special connection to younger folks.

There's no mistaking what your headline and characteriture is communicating: "He may not be smart and he might even be an idiot, but he's in great shape... and you can get there to!" Oversensitive? I don't think so.

I'm OK with the depiction of President Bush as the patient from the game Operation, but I definitely don't like the headline. Sure, if the word "even" had been inserted, the headline would have been worse, but the implication is still that there are other tests (academic, presumably) that the president can't pass.

There's no way the copy editor who wrote that headline would've used the same words if the president had been John Kerry or Bill Clinton. A hed like: "Health to the Chief: President aces annual physical exam" would've been much fairer.

And by "fairer," I mean "more fair." ;-)

As hard as it is for me to say it, I agree with Jason. There is certainly a tongue-in-cheek nature to the hed. And, I see your point that the Prez has himself admitted to not being the brightest kid in school.

It seems that news outlets have to be much more careful now. Those that like the current administration defend it ferociously and on ALL fronts. Those that dislike the administration, attack it in the same manner. Long gone are the days of neutral news reporting. Someone somewhere is going to think you're either a yellow-dog communist or a righty warhawk.

What I think is most interesting is that readers never made it past the hed before passing judgement on the article. It illustrtates not only the importance of a good headline, but what all news orgs have to do now - tell the ENTIRE story in quips and soundbites.

Yep, that headline is just another example of the press ridiculing the President.
Seldom reported is the fact that George Bush had better grades than John Kerry, or that George Bush earned an MBA from Harvard while Al Gore dropped out of divinity school. Come on, how do you flunk God?
But what else should we expect from the N&R?

Well, did Al Gore "drop out" or did he "flunk out"?

Was it Seminary or Divinity school? Are we clear on which Christian sect is Gore's, or are we just guessing and tossing out terms here?

Specifics do matter when you're tossing these things out while accusing other people of character assasination.

And, again, I'd love to see some documentation on this "Kerry's grades sucked" thing. I've been hearing people say this for the last two years at least and no one has ever been able to point me to any sort of source. If you can, I'd appreciate it. If you can't, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop saying it.

Joe,

Kerry's grades in college were released just recently, 10 months after the Presidential election. Of course, the mainstream press didn't cover the release or if they did it escaped me, however FOX News as well as the Drudge Report did.

As were Bush's, Kerry's grades were also gentleman C's.

Now we all understand why Kerry was so hesitant in releasing his grades prior to the election. After all it would have been almost impossible for the mainstream press to paint John Kerry as the "Intellectual Alternative" to the sitting President who was only able to make C's in college, thus was a doofus according to most of the press.

So there's your proof, of course, if I were you I'd go right to the source and call the Kerry organization and listen to their excuses as to the many reasons (too much time spent throwing his medals back at the govt., etc.) John failed to live up to his "potential" in college, finally conceding that yes, he barely squeaked through college with C's.

Though I'll have to give Kerry credit for one thing and that he has always lived by the maxim, "If you can't earn it, marry into it."

Joe Killian, here's some documentation:

On Kerry's grades:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-07-kerry-transcripts_x.htm?csp=34
Bush's grades were higher.

On Al Gore and Vanderbilt University Divinity School:
http://algoresupportcenter.com/aboutal.html
This bio also mentions Gore's 10-year marijuana smoking habit.

I read the Boston Globe piece about Kerry's grades being released and while they certainly didn't seem to be anything I'd want to see my kid bring home it seems the worst you could say about it was that Bush had a one-percentage point GPA lead before he went into his senior year, when all of his courses were pass-fail in a non-numeric grading system.

That hardly says to me that Bush has the upper hand - especially given the fact that Kerry was so highly involved with campus political organizations, internships and learning to fly at roughly the same time George Bush was gearing up for a long record of DUIs and arrests for disorderly conduct at football games.

And my complaint about Gore was not that he had never been to Divinity School - we all know he went. It's this characterization that he dropped out because he couldn't hack it or maybe even, as another post here said, he "flunked out." I think deciding you should be studying law and then transferring from the Vanderbilt Law School to finish your studies at Harvard hardly constitutes tapping out. I went from Communications to Poli/Sci and English -- but not because I was too stoned to concentrate on my first major.

It's more amusing than offensive to me that in this long thread attacking Robinson and the News and Record for trying to twist the truth to make Bush look foolish there are so many people presenting twisted facts or half-formed thoughts about Democratic politicians. The least-effective way to argue that the Bush/Operation thing was off-sides is to turn your venom to people who are no longer in office or have just lost elections but whom you still enjoy kicking for the hell of it.

ALL of these people were OVER-privileged. None of them ever had to try very hard. They were from wealthy families and were legacies at these elite eastern schools that produce senators and presidents. We all get that. Bush had the foresight to make his having been a rich kid who never did much of anything until about 15 years ago a punch-line from his first campaign on. And he still laughs at it. It was politically brilliant. I think, therefore, that a story that plays on this perception he himself has cultivated as political armor against such attacks shouldn't bring down this sort of heat from the right. The reference to Bush's own jokes about his academic performance is right there in the first column. I think it's pretty clear we're all laughing with him and not at him. And if I'd lead his life and ended up in the White House, I'd invite everyone and anyone who felt the urge to laugh with me.

You asked for proof and documentation that Bush had higher grades than Kerry, and I provided it. Now you admit that it WAS higher, and want to argue how much.
You asked whether it was divinity school or seminary that Gore attended. I gave you documentation that it was divinity school. Now you say, "...we all know he went."
Sheesh, do you ever admit you're wrong?
Al "Tennessee" Gore grew up in a penthouse near Washington, DC, while his father was a senator. A senator, I might add, that voted AGAINST the 1964 Voter Rights Act.
Can you provide any evidence that President Bush has a "long record" of DUI arrests? I hardly think ONE arrest qualifies for that, do you?
Gore, on the other hand, was a pot-head for 10 years...I'd call him a chronic substance abuser.
You admit to being stoned but still able to concentrate on your first major, but not as stoned as Gore. So where do you fit on the "long record" scale of marijuana abuse?

Joe- he fluked every course he took at Vandy. My brother in law investigated him. But regardless, the point is that neither Kerry or Gore are pictured by the press as dummies. Bush is.

I don't think Gore or Kerry should be lampooned as morons. I did not say that. This is a double standard by the N-R. We've stated facts. Admit that Bush should not be characterized as stupid....

John Robinson- you still think its okay to infer the President is stupid?

Have actually never done any illegal drugs -- as I said. I WASN'T too stoned to concentrate. In fact, most of my undergraduate career was spent busting people for drugs and alcohol as a Community Advisor and then the head of a dorm on my campus.

Al Gore doesn't have any arrests on his record for marijuana use, possession or sale. He's volunteered that he smoked it, as did many in his generation - including, apparently, George W. Bush, though as was revealed in a taped telephone call last year, he doesn't want to admit it because he's afraid it'll turn little kids on. I fail to see how Gore's admitted personal marijuana use (never while operating heavy machinery and for which he was never arrested) is so evil you can't help brining it's petty for anyone to concern themselves with Bush's DUI - a behavior that endangers innocent lives for the most selfish of reasons...because the driver can't be bothered to call a cab.

The "long record" to which I refered did include the DUI - which I don't think is a small thing in any way, especially for someone who wants to be president - but also two other arrests. One for vandalizing a house and stealing a Christmas wreath with a bunch of fraternity friends and another for "disorderly conduct" at a football game. Going through my mental rolodex I can only think of one person I know who's been arrested more than once - and you wouldn't want to have dinner with him. The president? Three times.

If we're taking score, though, it's worth mentioning Dick Cheney has two DUIs on his record. That's comforting.

It's part of the public record that Gore tried his hand at divinity school. People who don't know that aren't paying attention. What I take exception to is the suggestion - made by you and others - that his deciding against it and then going on to law at Harvard was in some way attributable to laziness, ignorance or an inability to pull himself away from his bong long enough to crack a book. It's especially ridiculous that you'd attack Kerry and Gore in a comment thread in which you're accusing a newspaper of attacking the president and scolding them for being malicious and counterproductive.

My point, in a nutshell: there are plenty of politicians who deserve to be ribbed for one thing or another. George Bush has cultivated an entire political persona of good-natured ribbing based on his past -- which is less than dignified by almost any definition. So why get bent out of shape when a story ribs him a bit while also saying he's in excellent health? Why lose it over a photo illustration?

Why don't newspapers rib Kerry and Gore this way, since if you dig deep enough you can find indignities in anyone's past? Because Bush won. To the victor go the spoils. No one's paying attention to Kerry or Gore's medical pronouncements. But, as Robinson says, look back through national newspapers during the Clinton era. It was like the poor chubby bastard had a giant bullseye on the seat of his pants. This is modern politics. Don't take it too seriously.

If the proof is indeed in the pudding, consider the number of business failures dubya has been through, he can not speak extemporaneously, he attended Yale business school as a legacy, he was a drunk for 20 -30 - years, he used cocain, he joined the Texas air guard as a dodge to evade service in Vietnam, he was AWOL from the Bama guard, he refused a direct order to take medical exams in the guard and was never punished. What we have for our president is a spoiled, elite, drunken frat boy who happened to have the right last name. BUSH is all he has going for him. He owes some big elite folks some big favors which he is repaying at the American citizen's expense. But - he isn't the stupid one - the people who voted him into office are the stupid ones.

If you neo-cons want to be mad at John Robinson be mad because he won't print the truth about dubya - why the N&R failed to print the British intel docs recently that showed intention to falsify intell reports to give dubya an excuse to invade Iraqnam. The N&R has consistantly given dubya a free ride. If they had printed the truth about dubyas drinking problems maybe some of you would have been smart enough not to vote for a drunk for president. Drinking is a Bush family value - but why didn't the N&R report buyas daughters drinking problems. The N&R took President Clinton's family to task on a daily basis. Why ????

Wow.

There you go, John. When you have both sides of the aisle seethingly angry at you I guess you know you're doing your job.

dang yella dawg! don't let the facts hit you on the way out... wrong about the guard, wrong about the memo, wrong about awol, wrong about Nam, wrong about Iraq.

Christspeak, don't put your words in my mouth. I've never said that I think it is OK to infer that the president is stupid. I've also never said that we have inferred that.

John, I asked you a question. I did not say you said it like that. I'm asking if you still think its alright to publish the headline like you did...

There you guys go throwing liberal lies out again and trying to discredit the president.
Joe Killian, please provide any evidence (not liberal lies) where President Bush admitted to using marijuana.
Yellodog, there is not one single shred of evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that George Bush ever used cocaine. If you have some, please contact every news service in the world, because you have an exclusive.
George Bush was charged with drunk driving exactly once, many years ago. At least he didn't kill a young woman in the Chappaquidick and run home and hide like one of your Democratic heroes did.
Mr. Robinson, when you use a headline that infers the President in stupid, you have, in fact, put your stamp of approval on that idea. If you didn't want that inferred, you should have used another headline. I think you knew exactly what you were doing.

I think you have to be looking pretty hard to infer that the newspaper thinks the president is stupid from that headline. Nothing that has been said here -- since it's a debate about his brains, Kerry's grades and Gore's seminary experience rather than the meaning of the words in the blurb -- changes my mind about publishing it. Heck, I DON'T think the president is stupid. Anyone who graduates from Yale is smart in my book.

I used to live a stone's throw from New Haven, so I wouldn't go quite that far.

But point taken.

As far as George W. Bush and drugs - I give him points, in a sense. Because while other candidates have flat out lied about or had to admit only under pressure that they've done drugs, Bush has consistently just refused to talk about it.

Documentation of the Bush phone call? Well, a simple Google search turns up coverage of the release of the tapes by George H. W. Walker former aide Doug Wead by publications and outlets as dispirate in political viewpoint as the New York Times, The Washington Times, The Washington Post,Newsweek, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, NPR, Rush Limbaugh, NBC, CBS, CNN and TIME.

But to filter out the "liberal lies," here's a piece from the FOX News story, with link:

"On the tapes, recorded over the course of the two years before Bush became the Republican presidential nominee, Bush discusses strategy for his presidential run and appears to acknowledge past drug use. He says he will refuse to answer questions about using LSD, cocaine and marijuana because "I don't want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago."

The White House said Bush did not dispute the content of the tapes. The president's aides brushed off repeated questions about them during his tour of Europe this week by saying Bush considered them casual conversations "with someone he thought was a friend."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148504,00.html

But, as John says, I think this is all beside the issue. But, maybe a good example of how both sides are so heated arguments can explode into completely seperate Bush/Anti-Bush arguments from beginnings as humble as the N&R headline, which was really benign and not worth arguing about.

JayCee, I actually agree with a comment you made on this post about the watermelon photos when you bemoaned "the United States of the Offended."

http://blog.news-record.com/staff/jrblog/archives/2005/08/more_than_1000.html

Hey, Killian, how come your blog gives me a "not found on this server" message?

Well, Mr. Robinson, I guess you do read our comments after all!
But I don't think we agree or see things in the same light on everything.

Have two blogs:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/joe_killian

and the Blogger one, which gets a lot less traffic somehow:

http://www.joekillian.blogspot.com

You may have linked the old address for the blogger one, which was www.joekillianblog.blogspot.

Someone who presumably shared my name had the joekillian by itself address but recently gave it up, so they switched my blog over for free without interrupting anything.

JR- you're probably right. I never did understand what grades had to do with anything...