Daily Howler - March 28, 2005

GEISHA GIRL! Bumiller was afraid to question Bush pre-Iraq. But she isn’t afraid to give tongue baths

MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2005

GEISHA GIRL: In a must-read post from today’s early hours, Josh Marshall presents “more material on the never-ending decline of CNN.” But for an equally clownish bit of work, see Elisabeth Bumiller’s latest tongue-bath for Bush in today’s New York Times. The piece—her weekly “White House Letter”—is accompanied by five photos of “the frisky president,” and takes up half a page in the paper. Here’s the headline it carries:

NEW YORK TIMES HEADLINE: President Bush’s New Public Face: Confident, Comfortable and ‘Impishly Fun’ There we see it—the ludicrous MO of these “White House Letters.” First, Bumiller finds a White House aide who says the president is “impishly fun.” Then, the quote goes straight to a headline! Bumiller also fawns in her own voice, of course, piling a stack of silly images of the playful, frisky, comfortable, sly, sheepish commander-in-chief.