Word: fleischer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...When I sat down to read Taking Heat, Fleischer's memoir of his White House years, I should have brought a cold compress. Fleischer spends much of the book knocking the press, as you might expect. Such criticism isn't the problem; he makes some good points and as a partisan booster of the President he is entitled, like all before him, to swing back at the press corps...
...rest of the book is a glowing portrait of the President. Perhaps all we should expect from the man who served with such distinction in one of the hardest public jobs in politics. But Fleischer witnessed sweeping history. Surely there is something to be gleaned from being so close to the center of such drama. We don't need secrets, just insight. No luck. Even the behind-the-scenes moments he recounts have an off the rack quality: Bush is strong, resolute and likes making decisions...
...metaphor from Fleischer's own beloved baseball, it's as if a guy who got to ride on the Yankee's bench for two World Series seasons emerged from the dugout to tell us that Derek Jeter can really hit and field. "After [the press conference] was over," Fleischer writes, "I joined the President in the residence and told him I thought he did great. He felt good too, as he reclined in his chair and lit a cigar...
...When criticizing the umpires though, Fleischer can really throw his back into the task. Make no mistake-to use a favorite White House cliche-he raises important issues about White House reporting. His central point is that the press is biased toward conflict. It is and should be. Policy, politics and the formation of new ideas take place in an atmosphere of conflict. But not all newsworthy events contain stir and angst. Getting the balance right is important. Fleischer's discussion of left-leaning bias is relevant but feels outdated in a world where Fox news and right-leaning bloggers...
...also an incomplete assessment. He offers the critique as a rumination on an important American institution, but Fleischer's not trying to give a full picture of the state of the White House press corps or American journalism. There is no thoughtful examination, for example, of whether reporters asked the right questions or enough of them in the run up to the war. Fleischer gripes about the press, but offers scant insight into how the Bush White House, one of the best message machines in modern politics, used video news releases, local media and direct appeals by the President...