posted on April 15, 2004 09:33:31 AM new
I article belows appears to be from Indiana, the Richmond area. Indiana is firmly republican and at least "was" Bush country.
Residents: Bush didn't say that much
Local reaction: News conference wasn't a priority for some
By Don Fasnacht
Staff writers
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If there was any local consensus about President Bush's news conference Tuesday night, it was that nothing new was said.
"It seems like he's single-minded," poet and professor Mary Fell said.
"The president is good at prepared speeches," political scientist Paul Kriese said, "but he's not good at the extemporaneous.
"We saw why the man doesn't have news conferences. He preaches, usually to the converted."
Chris Dickson, who has helped organize rallies supporting the U.S. troops in Iraq, is a person concerned about political policy.
"I'd hoped to listen, but I got tied up at the office late," Dickson said.
"I was hoping he'd show the kind of leadership we need from the White House right now."
Wayne County Veterans Affairs Office Jim Disney didn't have a chance to hear the president either. "We had a church meeting last night," Disney said.
But he shares Dickson's support of the president and the troops and had received an e-mail from Dickson by 9 a.m. today pointing out "Bush didn't start the war (on terrorism)."
Work and allergies and other concerns of life kept many people form sitting through the hour-long conference.
Brenda Mathews of Centerville follows national events carefully. She has a son in the military. But sniffling and sneezing Tuesday made an early bedtime more appealing than political rhetoric.
"This cold, or whatever it is, was more pressing than hearing what the president had to say," Mathews said.
It took true political mavens to set through the entire 60 minutes. What they heard generally reinforced opinions they already had.
"He's convinced God in on our side," Fell said. She was opposed to the war in Iraq before it began. She helped organize a Poets Against the War rally at IU East in February 2003.
"It's hard to spread freedom when people don't really want it," Fell said.
Kriese said basic ignorance of other cultures is at the root of our problems.
"He (the president) misunderstands the complete hold religion has on life in the Middle East," Kriese said. "We've made religion private in the west. That's not true there."
The ignorance causes the United States to make mistakes.
"There are problems in the Middle East, but we helped create them," Kriese said.
"It's the people who don't feel they have anything else to lose."
And Kriese lays the mistakes at the president's doorstep.
"He really is misplaced," Kriese said. "He's out of his league.
"He's incapable of taking responsibility. But then it's not his war."
Kriese said the nation was manipulated into the war by Vice President Dick Cheney, security adviser Condoleezza Rice and others in the administration.
Kriese said he saw nothing upbeat from what he heard Tuesday evening.
posted on April 15, 2004 11:36:48 AM new
reamond - You crack me up. Here's a map of the 2000 election and shows the red vs blue *counties* in Indiana and how they voted.
And you post one article, from one town in the state, and suggest on that premise alone that the whole state is going now not going to support Bush. LOL
