Friday, March 24, 2006

This report on President Bush at Yale may surprise you

The Yale Daily News' May 22, 2001, account of President Bush's commencement address the previous day may surprise you. It's not at all like the reporting about Bush we usually get from MSM. Here's part of it:

Facing a sea of yellow protest signs, Bush charmed his audience with his Texan drawl and self-deprecating humor. While many booed when Yale President Richard Levin awarded Bush a doctor of laws, Bush quelled any audible protest the moment his first words reverberated on Old Campus, wishing congratulations to all graduates, family and friends.

It is Yale tradition to allow only U.S. presidents to speak at Yale Commencement -- former Presidents John F. Kennedy and George H. W. Bush '48 spoke at past ceremonies -- but Bush joked that the stipulations have become even stricter recently.

"Now, you have to be a Yale graduate, you have to be president and you had to have lost the Yale vote to Ralph Nader," Bush said.

Recalling his undergraduate days at Yale, Bush jokingly talked about his courses, a Japanese Haiku class in particular, and his hours in the Yale library.

"One of my academic advisors was worried by my selection of such a specialized course. He said I should focus on English. I still hear that quite often," Bush said. "But my critics don't realize I don't make verbal gaffes. I'm speaking in the perfect forms and rhythms of ancient Haiku."

The president graduated in the same class as Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead (Brodhead is now President of Duke University. – JinC). With both showing a penchant for Sterling Memorial Library, and its comfortable couches, Bush said he and Brodhead had a mutual understanding.

"Dick wouldn't read aloud, and I wouldn't snore," Bush joked.
In the News' story Bush comes across as warm, at ease, informed and engaged with his audience.

What a contrast with the stories about Bush that we get on a daily basis from MSM reporters such as NBC's Dick Gregory, NYT’s Elizabeth Bumiller, and just about anyone at the real liberal talk radio network, NPR.

How to explain the contrast? Perhaps it has something to do with the News reporters and editors being students instead of MSM Washington news professionals. And maybe the students never took any agenda journalism courses.

Anyway, the News' story is here.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

He was rocking in West Virginia during his live town hall.

He's better w/o handlers.

-AC