The Commander-in-Chief addressed the troops yesterday via a satellite link. Certain troops, that is:
Before the president spoke via a video link, his event planners handpicked 10 soldiers from the Army’s 42nd Infantry and one Iraqi soldier, told them what topics the president would ask about, and watched them briefly rehearse their presentations before going live.
The soldiers did not disappoint. Each one praised the president, the war and the progress in training Iraqi troops. Several spoke in a monotone voice, as if determined to remember and stay on script.
(See if you can spot what criteria were used to choose the President’s audience from the black-and-white-white-white image above.)
The story, based on an AP feed, was in this morning’s Washington Post; interestingly, it does not appear in the online edition. The Post reports that “The president’s delivery was choppy, as he gazed frequently at his notes and seemed several times to be groping for the right words.” And they characterize the address as “one of the stranger and most awkwardly staged publicity events of the Bush presidency”. I wouldn’t be nearly that generous.
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