Buddy, Can You Spare Me Some Cred?

MEDIA NOTES: An NPR Interview with President Bush 012907

NPR’s Juan Williams interviewed George Bush yesterday in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. NPR’s forward promotion billed it as the President’s first interview since the State of the Union Address (whoo-ah!), and it sounded just as staged. Williams asked appropriately tough questions, and Bush replied with surprising alacrity. There was none of the fumbling and petulance usually heard when the President is caught off guard by a probing question. I wonder whether Williams had to submit the questions in advance and agree to no follow-ups. It sounded a lot more collegial (if one can say that about Bush) than the scorched earth tone heard on the BBC’s The Interview by interrogators like Carrie Gracie… which is why she is likely never to get the chance to grill W. on the BBC.

In case the audio stream isn’t enough to satisfy your needs, NPR also is offering an MP3 download and full transcript of the interview. That enabled me to verify several howlers that I may have misheard while trying to settle my blood pressure. For example, the President did say that nuclear power is a renewable source of energy. And when he called the opposition the “Democrat Party” in the State of the Union speech, well, “the idea that somehow I was trying to needle the Democrats, it's just – gosh, it's probably Texas. Who knows what it is. But I'm not that good at pronouncing words anyway, Juan.”

Ever the student of rhetoric and social register, though, what fascinated me in this interview was not its content (what content?) but the etiquette of its close:

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. President, I want [to] say thank you from National Public Radio.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Juan, thank you, buddy. Glad you're here.

MR. WILLIAMS: I appreciate it, sir.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes sir.

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you again.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Camera's off? (Chuckles.)

Thanks, buddy? What do you say to POTUS when he calls you buddy and it sounds as breezy and patronizing as “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job!” Sure, bub?

Williams evidently needed to repeat the niceties with a citizen-to-President “sir” prompting a President-to-citizen “sir” in exchange. Now that’s democrat(ic).