Bush on "Meet the Press"

The media was buzzing tonight about Tim Russert scheduling Bush for the entire hour next Sunday on "Meet the Press."

You know what we'll learn from it? Nothing. It's the first time he's appeared like this before the American public and Tim's busy baking special cake for him to walk on.

Russert isn't having him in his studio, he's hosting in the Oval Office. So he's playing on the president's home court, and this automatically puts him at a disadvantage even though Timmy is likely swooning with anticipation. Tim isn't going to toss hardball questions at Mr. Bush unless the questions have been heavily vetted beforehand. I mean, Bush unscripted - as we know - isn't a pretty thing.

I suspect Timmy sold himself (meaning, give GE the ratings and I'll give you the questions beforehand), I suspect Timmy won't be demanding anywhere the exactness of response out of Mr. Bush he demanded out of Dean. And Timmy won't followup when he gets one of those responses that feels like you're going down a long, bumpy road in the dirty little secrets section of Texas being chaffeured by a serial killer.

All this is is a press op. The president is getting stung on a number of different things right now, and somebody decided we should see "the man" and not the smirking pretender. But all Mr. Bush is there to do is tell us again it doesn't matter if all Saddam had for WMD was a can of expired peas, that he's going to reduce the deficit by further reducing revenue, that the economy is just peachy (and it is if you're a bill collector, military contractor, spy, or GOP strategist, I expect), and that marriage (watch him to uncomfortably move his hands) should be between a man and a woman. And he'll stutter somewhere before or during that last part.

Then, for the next two days, we'll listen to the media tell us how brilliant Bush was and how Timmy asked him good questions but "here's what I would have asked".