Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends (or, Prez Bush Visits Wichita)
Carla Eckels reports for NPR
I didn't have the "credentials" to go to any part of Prez B's visit to Wichita today. He went to Boeing, thanked the Boeing employees for making such a "comfortable!" airplane. Then, he went to the new Boys & Girls Club at 25th and Grove. Somewhere in-between, he did a Republican Fundraising event for Sen. Pat Roberts. It cost $500 to attend, and a photograph + handshake with Mr. Prez cost only $4,600, The Eagle reported (or the AP, I forget which. It could very well be the Eagle printing stuff from AP, or the AP taking submissions from The Eagle.)
To attend the Boys & Girls club event as press, you had to be selected in the "Press Pool." The President's Peeps picked one media outlet per type of media outlet, so KFDI radio, KAKE television, and The Eagle got admitted there. They also got to stand closer to the President at Boeing. Carla had to plug her mic into a "mock box" and stand with the rest of the news people a couple hundred feet away.
There were protestors, but nobody took any pictures of them that I could tell. Neither KAKE nor The Eagle interviewed them, though KAKE did show a little footage. Carla couldn't reach the protestors; she said the journalists were blocked off from them at Boeing.
So, even though I disagree with 999/1,000 decisions the man makes, and even though the sight of that smug grin he always wears turns my stomach into meal worms, I wanted to see George W. Bush. I thought it would be an exercise in patience, or at least ground me in the fact that he's a human like everyone else. If nothing else, I wanted to wear my new suit.
I did get to hear Carla's recording, right after she got back, though. That was a little surreal and cool.
I didn't have the "credentials" to go to any part of Prez B's visit to Wichita today. He went to Boeing, thanked the Boeing employees for making such a "comfortable!" airplane. Then, he went to the new Boys & Girls Club at 25th and Grove. Somewhere in-between, he did a Republican Fundraising event for Sen. Pat Roberts. It cost $500 to attend, and a photograph + handshake with Mr. Prez cost only $4,600, The Eagle reported (or the AP, I forget which. It could very well be the Eagle printing stuff from AP, or the AP taking submissions from The Eagle.)
To attend the Boys & Girls club event as press, you had to be selected in the "Press Pool." The President's Peeps picked one media outlet per type of media outlet, so KFDI radio, KAKE television, and The Eagle got admitted there. They also got to stand closer to the President at Boeing. Carla had to plug her mic into a "mock box" and stand with the rest of the news people a couple hundred feet away.
There were protestors, but nobody took any pictures of them that I could tell. Neither KAKE nor The Eagle interviewed them, though KAKE did show a little footage. Carla couldn't reach the protestors; she said the journalists were blocked off from them at Boeing.
So, even though I disagree with 999/1,000 decisions the man makes, and even though the sight of that smug grin he always wears turns my stomach into meal worms, I wanted to see George W. Bush. I thought it would be an exercise in patience, or at least ground me in the fact that he's a human like everyone else. If nothing else, I wanted to wear my new suit.
I did get to hear Carla's recording, right after she got back, though. That was a little surreal and cool.