"To define the problems and propose solutions"

"I have a duty as President to define the problems and propose solutions," declared GW at his press conference last night, disagreeing with the premise of a journalist's question re recent falling poll numbers.

TigerHawk heroically live blogs GW's press conference last night so you -- and Glenn Reynolds' hundreds of thousands of readers -- don't have to:

Terence Hunt, AP: Are you frustrated because a majority of Americans don't agree with your approach on Social Security and energy?

Bush: I'm not surprised that people do not want to face these tough problems that we have blown off for twenty years. But I have a duty as President to define the problems and propose solutions. The longer we wait, the more expensive the solution will be for the younger generation of Americans.

TigerHawk: I think Bush is pretty loose, and pretty effective in this. Yet another invitation to the Democrats to propose ideas -- he clearly is trying to define the Demos as not willing to do anything other than obstruct.

TigerHawk's "question of the night":

Is the proposal to means-test Social Security [in which benefits would grow faster for lower-income retirees than they would for wealthier ones] fundamentally serious, or is it meant to be so offensive to statist Democrats that they will trade away personal accounts in order to avoid means testing?

Let's hope so.  Means testing smells to us -- as it did to Mrs. TigerHawk -- like welfare. While the Democrats seem uninclined to concede personal accounts, right on cue the very thought of GW's "sliding scale benefit formula" had them flailing in horror:

"All the president did tonight was confirm that he will pay for his risky privatization scheme by cutting the benefits of middle-class seniors," said Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the top Democrats in Congress.

We tried watching but kept falling asleep, only to reawaken briefly during several replays of the very same moment we'd caught earlier. Thank you, Mr. TigerHawk for rewarding our slothfulness [Welfare for me but not for thee? -- ed], and -- as Lucianne says -- "Thank you, Mr. President for tackling the most boring and important subjects in political life."

Waking and sleeping, we were tuned in to FOXNews. They carried the press conference live and rebroadcast several times throughout the night, but did you know the MSM (do they still call it that?) almost didn't carry it at all [via WSJ Morning Brief]?:

When the White House told the broadcast networks about it with less than 24 hours notice, only ABC didn't balk at interrupting its prime-time lineup, Variety reports. The other three big networks were looking at the fact that Thursday was the first night of the May sweeps period -- when ratings are used to set future advertising rates. Industry insiders tell Variety that "NBC was the first net to cave" in to peer pressure, suggesting to the White House that if it moved the press conference to 8 p.m. from the original time of 8:30, it would likely cover the event. Yesterday afternoon, the administration did just that.

Who says this White House is inflexible?

Comments

[TigerHawk]

Heh. Bush made a crack about moving the time of the press conference because if he interfered with May sweeps it would hurt the economy, or something along those lines.

While he was, in general, much looser and more confident than I remember him ever being during his first term, his jokes did not go over so well -- the poor reporter he called "Stretch" ["you don't mind if I call you Stretch, do you?"] did not take it with the locker room jocularity that I am sure the President was shooting for.