George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman's White House interview
that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE
journalist explains why the president made her blood boil
By Carole Coleman, The Sunday Times (London)
With just minutes to go to my interview with George W Bush, I was
escorted to the White House library, where a staff member gave
instructions on how to greet the president: "He'll be coming in the door
behind you, just stand up, turn around and extend your hand."
I placed my notes on the coffee table, someone attached a microphone to
my lapel, and I waited. The two chairs by the fireplace where the
president and I would sit were at least six feet apart; clearly I would
not be getting too close to him.
The room was well-lit, providing the kind of warm background conducive
to a fireside chat. Several people had crowded in behind me. I counted
five members of the White House film crew, there was a stenographer
sitting in the corner and three or four security staff. I was still
counting them when someone spoke. "He's coming."
I stood up, turned around to face the door and seconds later the
president strode towards me. Bush appeared shorter than on camera and he
looked stern and rather grey that day.
"Thanks for comin', Mr President" I said, sticking out my hand. I had
borrowed this greeting directly from him. When Bush made a speech at a
rally or town hall, he always began by saying "Thanks for comin'" in his
man-of-the-people manner. If he detected the humour in my greeting, he
didn't let on. He took my hand with a firm grip and, bringing his face
right up close to mine, stared me straight in the eyes for several
seconds, as though drinking in every detail of my face. He sat down and
an aide attached a microphone to his jacket.
Nobody said a word. "We don't address the president unless he speaks
first," a member of the film crew had told me earlier.
The resulting silence seemed odd and discomforting, so I broke it. "How
has your day been, Mr President?" Without looking up at me, he continued
to straighten his tie and replied in a strong Texan drawl, "Very busy."
This was followed by an even more disconcerting silence that, compounded
by the six feet separating us, made it difficult to establish any rap****t.
"Will Mrs Bush be seeing any of our beautiful country?" I tried again,
attempting to warm things up by adding that I had heard that the
taoiseach would be keeping him too busy for sightseeing on his
forthcoming trip to Ireland.
"He's putting me to work, is he? Have you not interviewed Laura?" "No, I
haven't met your wife." I suggested that he put in a good word for me.
He chuckled. By now he seemed settled and the crew looked ready, but
still nobody spoke. I was beginning to worry that the clock may have
already started on my 10 minutes.
"Are we all ready to go then?" I asked, looking around the room. The
next voice I heard was the president's. "I think we have a spunky one
here," he said, to nobody in particular.
MC, a White House press officer whom I've decided not to identify, had
phoned me three days earlier to say that President Bush would do an
interview with RTE. "Good news," she had said. "It goes this Thursday at
4.20pm. You will have 10 minutes with the president and Turkish
television will talk to him just before you."
My initial excitement was dampened only by the timing, much later than I
had hoped. The interview would take place just three hours before I was
to fly back to Ireland to cover his arrival at the EU summit at
Dromoland Castle in Clare and just 15 minutes before the start of RTE's
Prime Time programme on which the interview would be broadcast. It would
be practically impossible to have the president on air in time for this.
"That's fabulous," I gushed, "but is there any way I could go before the
Turks?" I had previously explained about the Prime Time programme, so MC
knew the situation. "I'll look into it," she offered.
The interview sounded like quite a production. We wouldn't be able to
just saunter in there with a camera. It would be filmed by a White House
crew, which would then hand over the tapes to me to be copied and
returned the same day.
MC asked me for a list of questions and topics, which she said was
required for policy purposes in case I should want to ask something that
the president needed to be briefed on. The request did not seem odd to
me then. The drill had been exactly the same for an interview I had
conducted six months earlier with the then secretary of state, Colin
Powell.
"What would you ask the president of the United States?" I enquired of
everyone I met in the following days. Ideas had already been scribbled
on scattered notepads in my bedroom, on scraps of paper in my handbag
and on my desk, but once the date was confirmed, I mined suggestions
from my peers in RTE and from foreign policy analysts. I grilled my
friends in Wa****ngton and even pestered cab drivers. After turning
everything over in my head, I settled on a list of 10 questions.
Securing a time swap with Turkish television ensured that I saw the
president 10 minutes earlier, but there was still less than half an hour
to bring the taped interview to the production place four blocks away in
time for Prime Time.
Still, with the arrangements starting to fall into place, the sense of
chaos receded and I returned to the questions, which by now were
perpetually dancing around my head, even in my sleep. Re****ters often
begin a big interview by asking a soft question -- to let the subject
warm up before getting into the substance of the topic at hand. This was
how I had initially intended to begin with Bush, but as I mentally
rehearsed the likely scenario, I felt that too much time could be
consumed by his first probable answer, praising Ireland and looking
forward to his visit. We could, I had calculated, be into the third
minute before even getting to the controversial topics. I decided to
ditch the cordial introduction.
The majority of the Irish public, as far as I could tell, was angry with
Bush and did not want to hear a cosy fireside chat in the middle of the
most disputed war since Vietnam. Instead of the kid-glove start, I would
get down to business.
*
On Thursday June 24, Wa****ngton DC was bathed in a moist 90-degree heat,
the type that makes you perspire all over after you have walked only two
blocks. Stephanie and I arrived at the northwest gate of the White House
that afternoon, and were directed to the Old Executive Office building,
Vice President Dick Cheney's headquarters, and were introduced to MC,
whom I had spoken to only by phone. An elegant and confident woman, she
was the cut of CJ, the feisty White House press secretary on The West
Wing television drama.
A younger male sidekick named Colby stood close by nodding at everything
she said and interjecting with a few comments of his own every now and
then. Colby suggested that I ask the president about the yellow suit the
taoiseach had worn the previous week at the G8 Summit on Sea Island in
Georgia. I laughed loudly and then stopped to study his face for signs
that he was joking -- but he didn't appear to be. "The president has a
good comment on that," he said.
The taoiseach's suit had been a shade of cream, according to the Irish
embassy. But alongside the other more conservatively dressed leaders, it
had appeared as a bright yellow, leaving our Bertie looking more like
the lead singer in a band than the official representative of the
European Union. It was amusing at the time, but I was not about to raise
a yellow suit with the president. "Really?" I asked politely. But a
little red flag went up inside my head.
Then MC announced that she had some news for me. "There may be another
interview in the pipeline for you," she said.
"Me?"
"We're not supposed to tell you this yet, but we are trying to set up an
interview with the first lady." She indicated that the White House had
already been in contact with RTE to make arrangements for the interview
at Dromoland Castle, where the president and Mrs Bush would be staying.
As an admirer of Laura Bush's cool grace and sharp intellect, I had
requested interviews with her several times previously without any
reply. Now the first lady of the United States was being handed to me on
a plate. I could not believe my luck.
"Of course, it's not certain yet," MC added. And then her sidekick
dropped his second bombshell. "We'll see how you get on with the
president first."
I'm sure I continued smiling, but I was stunned. What I understood from
this was that if I pleased the White House with my questioning of the
president, I would get to interview the first lady. Were they trying to
ensure a soft ride for the president, or was I the new flavour of the
month with the first family?
"I'm going to give the president his final briefing. Are there any
further questions you want to pass on to him?" MC asked.
"No," I said, "just tell him I want to chat."
Stephanie and I locked eyes and headed for the ladies' powder room,
where we prayed. Mr President," I began. "You will arrive in Ireland in
less than 24 hours' time. While our political leaders will welcome you,
unfortunately the majority of our people will not. They are annoyed
about the war in Iraq and about Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what
Irish people think?"
The president was reclining in his seat and had a half-smile on his
face, a smile I had often seen when he had to deal with something he
would rather not.
"Listen. I hope the Irish people understand the great values of our
country. And if they think that a few soldiers represent the entirety of
America, they don't really understand America then . . . We are a
compassionate country. We're a strong country, and we'll defend
ourselves. But we help people. And we've helped the Irish and we'll
continue to do so. We've got a good relation****p with Ireland."
"And they are angry over Iraq as well and particularly the continuing
death toll there," I added, moving him on to the war that had claimed
100 Iraqi lives that very day. He continued to smile, but just barely.
"Well, I can understand that. People don't like war. But what they
should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there
that had destroyed lives and put them in mass graves and torture rooms .
.. . Look, Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against
his own people, against the neighbourhood. He was a brutal dictator who
posed a threat that the United Nations voted unanimously to say, Mr
Saddam Hussein . . ."
Having noted the tone of my questions, the president had now sat forward
in his chair and had become animated, gesturing with his hands for
emphasis. But as I listened to the history of Saddam Hussein and the
weapons inspectors and the UN resolutions, my heart was sinking. He was
resorting to the type of meandering stock answer I had heard scores of
times and had hoped to avoid. Going back over this old ground could take
two or three minutes and allow him to keep talking without dealing with
the current state of the war. It was a filibuster of sorts. If I didn't
challenge him, the interview would be a wasted op****tunity.
"But, Mr President, you didn't find any weapons," I interjected.
"Let me finish, let me finish. May I finish?"
With his hand raised, he requested that I stop speaking. He paused and
looked me straight in the eye to make sure I had got the message. He
wanted to continue, so I backed off and he went on. "The United Nations
said, 'Disarm or face serious consequences'. That's what the United
Nations said. And guess what? He didn't disarm. He didn't disclose his
arms. And therefore he faced serious consequences. But we have found a
capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make
weapons . . ."
I was now beginning to feel shut out of this event. He had the floor and
he wasn't letting me dance. My blood was boiling to such a point that I
felt like slapping him. But I was dealing with the president of the
United States; and he was too far away anyway. I suppose I had been
naive to think that he was making himself available to me so I could
spar with him or plumb the depths of his thought processes. Sitting
there, I knew that I was nobody special and that this was just another
op****tunity for the president to repeat his mantra. He seemed irked to
be faced with someone who wasn't nodding gravely at him as he was
speaking. "But Mr President," I interrupted again, "the world is a more
dangerous place today. I don't know whether you can see that or not."
"Why do you say that?"
"There are terrorist bombings every single day. It's now a daily event.
It wasn't like that two years ago."
"What was it like on September 11 2001? It was a . . . there was
relative calm, we . . ."
"But it's your response to Iraq that's considered . . ."
"Let me finish. Let me finish. Please. You ask the questions and I'll
answer them, if you don't mind."
His hand was raised again as if to indicate that he was not going to
tolerate this. Again, I felt I had no choice but to keep quiet.
"On September 11 2001, we were attacked in an unprovoked fa****on.
Everybody thought the world was calm. There have been bombings since
then -- not because of my response to Iraq. There were bombings in
Madrid, there were bombings in Istanbul. There were bombings in Bali.
There were killings in Pakistan."
He seemed to be finished, so I took a deep breath and tried once again.
So far, facial expressions were defining this interview as much as
anything that was said, so I focused on looking as if I was genuinely
trying to fathom him.
"Indeed, Mr President, and I think Irish people understand that. But I
think there is a feeling that the world has become a more dangerous
place because you have taken the focus off Al-Qaeda and diverted into
Iraq. Do you not see that the world is a more dangerous place? I saw
four of your soldiers lying dead on the television the other day, a
picture of four soldiers just lying there without their flak jackets."
"Listen, nobody cares more about death than I do . . ." "Is there a
point or place . . ."
"Let me finish. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if
you don't mind."
By now he was getting used to the rhythm of this interview and didn't
seem quite so taken aback by my attempt to take control of it. "Nobody
cares more about death than I do. I care a lot about it. But I do
believe the world is a safer place and becoming a safer place. I know
that a free Iraq is going to be a necessary part of changing the world."
The president seemed to be talking more openly now and from the heart
rather than from a script. The history lesson on Saddam was over.
"Listen, people join terrorist organisations because there's no hope and
there's no chance to raise their families in a peaceful world where
there is not freedom. And so the idea is to promote freedom and at the
same time protect our security. And I do believe the world is becoming a
better place, absolutely."
I could not tell how much time had elapsed, maybe five or six minutes,
so I moved quickly on to the question I most wanted to ask George Bush
in person.
"Mr President, you are a man who has a great faith in God. I've heard
you say many times that you strive to serve somebody greater than
yourself."
"Right."
"Do you believe that the hand of God is guiding you in this war on
terror?"
This question had been on my mind ever since September 11, when Bush
began to invoke God in his speeches. He spoke as if he believed that his
job of stewarding America through the attacks and beyond was somehow
preordained, that he had been chosen for this role. He closed his eyes
as he began to answer.
"Listen, I think that God . . . that my relation****p with God is a very
personal relation****p. And I turn to the Good Lord for strength. I turn
to the Good Lord for guidance. I turn to the Good Lord for forgiveness.
But the God I know is not one that . . . the God I know is one that
promotes peace and freedom. But I get great sustenance from my personal
relation****p."
He sat forward again. "That doesn't make me think I'm a better person
than you are, by the way. Because one of the great admonitions in the
Good Book is, 'Don't try to take a speck out of your eye if I've got a
log in my own'."
I suspected that he was also telling me that I should not judge him.
I switched to Ireland again and to the controversy then raging over the
Irish government's decision to allow the use of Shannon Air****t for the
trans****t of soldiers and weapons to the Gulf.
"You are going to meet Bertie Ahern when you arrive at Shannon Air****t
tomorrow. I guess he went out on a limb for you, presumably because of
the great friend****p between our two countries. Can you look him in the
eye when you get there and say, 'It will be worth it, it will work out'?"
"Absolutely. I wouldn't be doing this, I wouldn't have made the decision
I did if I didn't think the world would be better."
I felt that the President had now become personally involved in this
interview, even quoting a Bible passage, so I made one more stab at
trying to get inside his head.
"Why is it that others don't understand what you are about?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. History will judge what I'm about."
I could not remember my next question. My mind had gone completely
blank. The president had not removed me from his gaze since we had begun
and I wanted to keep up the eye contact.
If I diverted to my notes on the table beside me, he would know he had
flustered me. For what seemed like an eternity, but probably no more
than two seconds, I stared at him, searching his eyes for inspiration.
It finally came.
"Can I just turn to the Middle East?"
"Sure."
He talked about his personal commitment to solving that conflict. As he
did so, I could see one of the White House crew signalling for me to
wrap up the interview, but the president was in full flight.
"Like Iraq, the Palestinian and the Israeli issue is going to require
good security measures," he said.
Now out of time, I was fully aware that another question was pu****ng it,
but I would never be here again and I had spent four years covering an
administration that appeared to favour Israel at every turn.
"And perhaps a bit more even-handedness from America?" I asked, though
it came out more as a comment.
The president did not see the look of horror on the faces of his staff
as he began to defend his stance. "I'm the first president to have
called for a Palestinian state. That to me sounds like a reasonable and
balanced approach. I will not allow terrorists determine the fate, as
best I can, of people who want to be free."
Hands were signalling furiously now for me to end the interview.
"Mr President, thank you very much."
"You're welcome," he replied, still half-smiling and half-frowning.
It was over. I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by
a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same colour as my
suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some im****tant issues --
probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.
I was removing my microphone when he addressed me.
"Is that how you do it in Ireland -- interrupting people all the time?"
I froze. He was not happy with me and was letting me know it.
"Yes," I stuttered, determined to maintain my own half-smile.
I was aching to get out of there for a breath of air when I remembered
that I had earlier discussed with staff the possibility of having my
picture taken with the president. I had been told that, when the
interview was over, I could stand up with him and the White House
photographer would snap a picture. Not wanting to waste the op****tunity,
I stood up and asked him to join me.
"Oh, she wants the photograph now," he said from his still-seated
position. He rose, stood beside me and put an arm around my shoulder.
Taking his cue, I put an arm up around his shoulder and we both grinned
for the cameras.
In my haste to leave I almost forgot the tapes and had to be reminded by
the film crew to take them. I and my assistants bolted out to the
street. We ran, high heels and all, across Lafayette Park. Running
through rush-hour traffic, I thought that this had to be about as crazy
as a journalist's job gets.
I had just been admonished by the president of the United States and now
I was turning cartwheels in order to get the interview on air. As I
dashed past a waste bin, I had a fleeting urge to throw in the tapes and
run home instead.
At the studio I handed over the tapes. My phone rang. It was MC, and her
voice was cold.
"We just want to say how disappointed we are in the way you conducted
the interview," she said.
"How is that?" I asked.
"You talked over the president, not letting him finish his answers."
"Oh, I was just moving him on," I said, explaining that I wanted some
new insight from him, not two-year-old answers.
"He did give you plenty of new stuff."
She estimated that I had interrupted the president eight times and added
that I had upset him. I was upset too, I told her. The line started to
break up; I was in a basement with a bad phone signal. I took her number
and agreed to call her back. I dialled the White House number and she
was on the line again.
"I'm here with Colby," she indicated.
"Right."
"You were given an op****tunity to interview the leader of the free world
and you blew it," she began.
I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming. I had naively
believed the American president was referred to as the "leader of the
free world" only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by
outsiders, and not among his closest staff.
"You were more vicious than any of the White House press corps or even
some of them up on Capitol Hill . . .The president leads the interview,"
she said.
"I don't agree," I replied, my initial worry now turning to frustration.
"It's the journalist's job to lead the interview."
It was suggested that perhaps I could edit the tapes to take out the
interruptions, but I made it clear that this would not be possible.
As the conversation progressed, I learnt that I might find it difficult
to secure further co-operation from the White House. A man's voice then
came on the line. Colby, I assumed. "And, it goes without saying, you
can forget about the interview with Laura Bush."
Clearly the White House had thought they would be dealing with an Irish
"colleen" bowled over by the op****tunity to interview the Bushes. If
anyone there had done their research on RTE's interviewing techniques,
they might have known better.
MC also indicated that she would be contacting the Irish Embassy in
Wa****ngton -- in other words, an official complaint from Wa****ngton to
Dublin.
"I don't know how we are going to repair this relation****p, but have a
safe trip back to Ireland," MC concluded. I told her I had not meant to
upset her since she had been more than helpful to me. The conversation
ended.
By the time I got to the control room, the Prime Time broadcast had just
started. It was at the point of the first confrontation with the "leader
of the free world" and those gathered around the monitors were glued to
it. "Well done," someone said. "This is great."
I thought about the interview again as I climbed up the steps to RTE's
live camera position at Dromoland Castle to account for myself on the
6pm news next day. By now the White House had vented its anger to the
Irish embassy in Wa****ngton. To make matters worse for the
administration, the interview had made its way onto American television
and CNN was replaying it around the world and by the end of the day it
had been aired in Baghdad.
Had I been fair? Should I just have been more deferential to George
Bush? I felt that I had simply done my job and shuddered at the thought
of the backlash I would surely have faced in Ireland had I not
challenged the president on matters that had changed the way America was
viewed around the world.
Afterwards I bumped straight into the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who was
waiting to go on air.
"Howya," he said, winking.
"I hope this hasn't caused you too much hassle, taoiseach," I blurted.
"Arrah, don't worry at all; you haven't caused me one bit of hassle," he
smiled wryly.
I don't know what he said to the president, who re****tedly referred to
the interview immediately upon arrival, but if the taoiseach was annoyed
with me or with RTE, he didn't show it.
When I returned to my little world on the street called M in Wa****ngton,
I felt a tad more conspicuous than when I'd left for Ireland. Google was
returning more than 100,000 results on the subject of the 12-minute
interview. The vast majority of bloggers felt it was time a re****ter had
challenged Bush.
At the White House, the fact that I had been asked to submit questions
prior to the interview generated enquiries from the American press
corps. "Any time a re****ter sits down with the president they are
welcome to ask him whatever questions they want to ask," Scott
McClellan, the White House press secretary, told the CBS correspondent
Bill Plante.
"Yes, but that's beside the point," replied Plante.
Under repeated questioning, McClellan conceded that other staff members
might have asked for questions. "Certainly there will be staff-level
discussion, talking about what issues re****ters may want to bring up in
some of these interviews. I mean that happens all the time."
I had not been prevented from asking any of my questions. The only
topics I had been warned away from were the Bush daughters Jenna and
Barbara, regular fodder for the tabloids, and Michael Moore -- neither
of which was on my list.
Moore did notice RTE's interview with the president and in the weeks
that followed urged American journalists to follow the example of "that
Irish woman".
"In the end, doesn't it always take the Irish to speak up?" he said.
"She's my hero. Where are the Carole Colemans in the US press?"
(c) Carole Coleman 2005
This article is extracted from the opening chapter of Alleluia America!
by Carole Coleman, to be published by The Liffey Press on October 14 at
O14.95.
Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Reprinted from The Sunday Times (London):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2766-1817008,00.html
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