How Bush gets objective news
By only listening to the political appointees who make up his staff.
I am deeply worried.
Bush said he insulates himself from the “opinions” that seep into news coverage by getting his news from his own aides. He said he scans headlines, but rarely reads news stories.
“I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m more interested in news,” the president said. “And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.”
(More on his Fox News interview in the wire report; link originally from billmon.)
Let’s ignore for the moment the issue of whether Bush doesn’t read newspapers widely because he doesn’t have the intellectual skills that would make that an easy job. That’s worrying in itself, and I think there’s some substance to that claim, but it’s not proven, and in any case it’s not the scariest bit about this statement. Nor, for that matter, is the prospect of him being surrounded by yes-men, or the question of how he hired them originally, or what he would do if he needed to replace some of his staff and how he would judge new appointees’ character and skills.
No, to me the scariest thing is this: Bush believes the most objective news sources are his staff, and therefore, by extrapolation, all other news sources are biased to some degree or another. Or, put more simply, Bush is on record as saying that his Administration is right and everyone else is wrong - axiomatically.
Actually, that’s not the scariest thing. What would be even scarier would be this: that Bush doesn’t believe this, but he thinks it’s useful, politically, for him to say it. That suggests a level of contempt of the American people’s intellectual calibre, and cynicism, which is positively frightening.