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Coward-in-Chief. George Bush has announced that he will give a major national speech on Wednesday, in which he will respond to John Kerry's criticisms of the president. This appears to be the first time any president has tried to hold a major televised speech during the election season for such a purpose. During his term in office, Mr. Bush has given the fewest press conferences of any president in the televised era. John Kerry had previously offered Bush weekly debates... and George Bush refused. Is it fair to say that he'd rather use his power of office to dictate to us instead?-------------------
When I got a comment over at MetaFilter stating that the principal article I cited didn't say the "major speech" in question would be televised, I decided to pull my LJ post, so as to not potentially confuse people over what appeared to be a non-issue.
And, indeed, it looked like it was a non-issue... until FoxNews, CNN, and MSNBC gave George Bush 50 minutes of free, uniterrupted TV airtime this morning to smear John Kerry with no equal time for John Kerry and no rebuttal. (More details on this are in this article... and this one..)
Apparently, my initial concerns yesterday were real. The media heard "major speech" and they gave Bush his soapbox. They didn't know that Mr. Bush would misuse his office in order to make a campaign speech that is both unethical and appears to violate Federal Election Commission regulations.
I'm going to see what, if anything, is going to be done about this. It appears that at least one of the networks involved are willing to give Kerry some time too. If they are fair, all of them will give John Kerry 50 minutes of uninterrupted time to speak to the American people.
