No Bucks Stopping Here

By: Greg Mitchell Since President Bush's last widely-watched primetime press conference, nearly 13 months ago on the eve of the attack on Iraq, a lot has changed in his world but one thing last night remained in place: he continued to rely on an approved list of questioners, to be called on, apparently, in order. Criticism of this practice by some in the media last time did not have any effect.

Then again, the president refused to admit any mistakes, on any subject, so it was not likely that he would get off the dime on this one.

While the "news" from the news conference dominates the headlines (Bush will approve more troops for Iraq and the June 30 handover date remains firm) what was most striking was the reporters' insistence on putting the president on the spot in regards to taking at least partial responsibility for 9/11, or for erring on the question of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or for practically anything else -- and his refusal to do so.

There would be no bucks stopping here.

Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times asked the first question about taking some responsibility for 9/11. This was the same reporter who recently admitted that she and others had caved at the president's pre-Iraq invasion press conference. Bush admitted that he felt "incredibly grieved" when he meets with family members of 9/11 victims, said he wished we'd had a Homeland Security Department then, and reminded the audience, "We weren't on a war footing then," and that was it.

Later asked if he would apologize, as Richard Clarke had done, he shrugged and pinned all the blame on Osama bin Laden.

This response was not exactly shocking, but some reporters apparently felt that Bush would at least admit that he had made at least one mistake related to 9/11, or the Iraq war. They even helpfully listed a few possibilities, such as Bush saying that the postwar oil revenues from Iraq would foot the bill for the entire occupation. Still, he would not bite, first when asked if he would admit any mistake, and later when asked specifically about the period since 9/11. Here's the complete text of his latter response:

"I wish you'd given me this as a written question ahead of time so I could have planned for it. Uh ... [looks up, pauses, shakes head] ... John -- I'm sure historians will look back and say 'he could have done it better this way or that way' but ... [shakes head] ... I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference and all the pressure to come up with an answer but it hasn't yet. ..."

After saying that if he had to do it all over again he would still attack Afghanistan and invade Iraq despite not finding any WMDS -- and reminding us they might "still be there" -- he returned to the question at hand: "I don't want to sound like I haven't made any mistakes, but you just put me on the spot here and maybe I'm just not as quick on my feet in coming up with one."

Only Chris Matthews of MSNBC could follow this by offering, as his main reaction to the president's performance, that Bush had shown an unusual amount of "humility."

Elsewhere, Bush repeated that there had been no reports of bin Laden having any interest in flying airplanes into buildings. Given two chances by Mike Allen of The Washington Post to explain why he was insisting on appearing before the 9/11 Commission only if accompanied by Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush ignored the point and simply said it was "a good chance for both of us to answer questions."

When asked how he felt about the FBI admitting Tuesday that the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief (PDF) may have grossly exaggerated the number of agency field investigations on terrorism, one could only marvel at the irony of Bush, in light of the WMD non-findings, declaring that as president, "I expect to get valid information. I can't make valid decisions without valid information."