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Remember last month when President Bush was in Florida and he spoke at an event and afterwards told a man in a wheelchair "You look mighty comfortable"?
Well Mr. Observant topped himself this morning when he chided Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten about his sunglasses. (video via Crooks & Liars)
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Peter. Are you going to ask that question with shades on?Lots of laughter, but what's not so funny is Mr. Wallsten is afflicted with a rare hereditary disease called Stargardt's "which consists in progressive lost of cones in fovea of both eyes, leading to variable levels of central vision loss." So... um... yeah... he sorta prefers those "shades" Mr. Bush, and good luck with those approval ratings. By the way, Wallsten has been covering the President for quite some time, so his "look" shouldn't have been new to the Commander-in-Chief.Q: I can take them off.
THE PRESIDENT: I’m interested in the shade look, seriously.
Q: All right, I’ll keep it, then.
THE PRESIDENT: For the viewers, there’s no sun. (Laughter.)
Q: I guess it depends on your perspective. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Touche. (Laughter.)
If the President wants to make amends for his ignorance, he could always make his way over to Children's Hospital, where they are currently in the midst of separating two conjoined twins, Regina and Renata Salinas Fierros.
The operation, which started at the crack of dawn this morning, is supposed to find both of the little 10-month old girls separated at around 6pm, but the procedure won't be totally complete until early tomorrow morning.
The Times reports that over 80 doctors and nurses are working on the procedure, which will get tricky when the surgeons decide whether to let one of the twins have the entire large intestine, which they both currently share, or if there is enough of it to split it up for both of them.
As LAist was driving down Sunset Blvd. we saw the trucks of every major LA news station parked outside of Children's Hospital. If the President would like to make a surprise visit, we understand that the hospital is equipped with a handy helicopter landing facility on its roof.
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So what? Tell me, if you looked out into the crowd at an outside news conference and saw someone with sunglasses...outside....would you automatically think "gee, he must be blind because no one wears sunglasses outside". Must be a slow news day.
You're right, it would be a "so what" if the President hadn't been interviewed by him dozens of times and if the reporter wasn't the white house correspondent for the #1 paper in the second largest city in the USA. Bush either should have known, or did know and was being dicky.
Did you also know that President George W. Bush actually caused the Stargardt's disease?
Pwnd!
It's not that he is ingnorant of the fact that someone who is wearing shades may be blind - he has just been trained by his handlers to jump on any little thing to deflect attention from the serious questions. He sees "wheelchair" and mentions it; he sees someone in shades and uses them as a prop. He does it all the time during the Q&As. I guess TPTB assume that whatever faux pas may occur may be better explained than his attempting to answer a question with an intelligent reply.
Oh please! Bush personally called the reporter to apologize when he found out he was legally blind...and the reporter said he was not at all offended. Yet Tony seems to think he has the right to be offended FOR someone else even if the person who was actually involved wasn't.
Oh please yourself Rob.
I don't recall ever saying I was offended FOR anyone else. I just posted what happened and gave the President a way to get his foot out of his mouth.
If however you'd prefer me to just point and laugh at the President each time he does something ridiculous just let me know.
lol u stupid yanks no wnder the world hates you like we do your president is so dumb like all you other amerikkans lol