I-CON INFO EXCHANGE

I promised Pat a long time ago to tell this story:

Last winter, there was an event in Orlando with Neal Boortz and Jamie Dupree (a Washington reporter who works for WSB radio in Atlanta). I was in the audience, and they sat on a stage in front discussing politics. It was a lot of fun. At one point Neal mentioned the meeting that the radio talk show hosts had with the President (the one Tammy was angry about because it was behind closed doors). Neal relayed to us that the meeting was supposed to be off the record, and then said, “Oh, what the hell” and started telling us about it! He talked about a few things inside the White House, how certain parts are not as elegant as you might think, etc. He recalled how the President let them all in and showed them around the Oval Office.

Then he said President Bush took them to a hallway off the office, that Neal said he knew to be “the Lewinsky hallway,” although I’m sure he didn’t say that at the time. The talk show hosts were somewhat nonplussed about being crowded by the President into this dark little hallway, especially when they noticed the pictures on the walls. Neal described photos of “five or six” very rough, horrible looking men. As they all observed these creepy pictures, President Bush proudly stated, “These are my Throat-cutters. They were the first ones on the ground in Afghanistan.”

He then lead them out of the dark little hall and showed them a glass box with a sword in it. “The [he named the Army unit] presented me with this. This was on Saddam Hussein when they found that son of a bitch in a hole.”

After the tour, the President sat with them and took questions. One of Neal’s questions was, “Does our government have a real life version of Jack Bauer?” The President’s answer was Yes.

So I think we can gather from all this, the true reason this meeting was off the record. Neal confirms that the President in person is much more the man we want him to be than the one we see on TV. Too bad he can’t communicate that the way Reagan did or that he is somehow ashamed of showing the public his real nature, even though we'd probably love it. (Although the media would have conniption fits if they heard some of those quotes.) Apparently, these hosts weren’t receiving marching orders, just an eye opening.