What else could he be getting at in this column?
What does it say about the president of the United States that he won’t go anywhere near ordinary citizens any more? And that he’ll only speak to captive audiences?
President Bush’s safety zone these days doesn’t appear to extend very far beyond military bases, other federal installations and Republican fundraisers….[snip]
The last speech Bush gave that was not explicitly controlled by the White House was in downtown Norfolk on Oct. 28. It wasn’t exactly a random group. About half the crowd was in uniform, and more than 70 military members sat on risers on the stage behind him. But some tickets were available to the public through the local Chamber of Commerce.
The result: Bush got heckled. As Tamara Dietrich wrote in a column for the Hampton Roads Daily Press: “[A] man stood up in Chrysler Hall, yanked open his shirt to expose his ‘Dump Bush’ T-shirt in full view of shocked members of Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network seated nearby and cried, ‘War is terrorism! Torture is terrorism!’ before he was hustled out by security people.
So why should Bush give people the opportunity to heckle him? Is Froomkin’s idea of accountable leadership a President who is always having to shout down the mob?