Paul, Tony Snow was asked this same question about the president's speech a few weeks ago.
Q: Why the release early, Tony Snow, of the partial quotes, and the briefings? Doesnt that drain audience and interest from a presidential address?
TS: No, actually, I think what it does is it gives you a press corps that has something to chew over. One of the things we were doing, and by the way, we always release excerpts before a speech, always, that is for big speeches. We do it for major addresses, state of the unions, so thats kind of par for the course. A lot of early details leaked out, but they were leaked out in kind of a vacuum. And when members of the press yesterday got briefings about what was going to be in it, and how the pieces fit together, I think it set the stage for a lot better, fairer and more comprehensive coverage than we would have gotten otherwise. I mean, otherwise, it would have been Bush admits mistakes, wants more troops. And thats all it would have been. And instead, you had people with the opportunity to think about the economic pieces, about the strategic pieces, including Iran and Syria, it gave them an opportunity to take a close look at the Baghdad security plan, the increased role for the Iraqis, and the significantly increased responsibilities. And frankly, in a country where fewer than half of the people saw the Presidents speech, its important to make sure that the people who are doing the primary reporting on it have an opportunity to get their arms around a pretty big, complex policy, than to do so in a way that they could transmit it without hammering us.
Brian On Jan 23, 2007, at 8:05 PM, Paul Stone wrote:
WHY does the Whitehouse release the text of the state of the union address? They are telling us what he is going to say 10 minutes before he is going to say it. Are we too retarded to listen to it and see for ourselves what he is going to say? They are ALREADY colouring the shade of the speech before it's been given. Just ridiculous!!! The "pregame" notion has been taken to an all time extreme.
