December 10, 2004
PREZ MEETS BLOGGERS
Andrew Sullivan reports:
The bad news is that Omar and Ali, the intrepid Iraqi bloggers, couldn't make our coffee date this afternoon. The good news is that they blew me off for the president of the United States. I think Wolfowitz got them into the Oval Office. Yay.
UPDATE. And correction; apparently Omar and Mohammed, not Ali, met the President: "They said that the meeting lasted about a half hour, and the President was very interested in hearing the thoughts and opinions of Iraqi citizens first hand. He wasn’t aware until then of the good things that Spirit of America has been doing over there to help the Iraqi people and assist in their obtaining democracy. Omar joked that he got to meet POTUS and they didn’t even search his pockets beforehand."
Posted by Tim Blair at December 10, 2004 01:53 PMBush needs to meet our Habib as well. That would broaden his education.
Posted by: superboot at December 10, 2004 at 01:57 PMThey blew Andrew Sullivan off? I hope they used protection.
Posted by: George at December 10, 2004 at 02:19 PMHe could give the President his recipe for Brussel sprouts.
Posted by: gubbaboy at December 10, 2004 at 02:21 PMReport on the Spirit of America event in NYC. Plus links to other reports from NYC and DC.
Posted by: Yehudit at December 10, 2004 at 02:32 PMJeez, I can't imagine anybody snubbing someone as important as Andrew Sullivan for the leader of the free world. I'm sure they'll regret it someday.
Posted by: Sean M. at December 10, 2004 at 04:32 PMBah! Foreigners have blog-meets over coffee?! Anybody in Australia knows that "blog-meet" is synonymous with "binge drinking"!
Posted by: Marty at December 10, 2004 at 07:06 PMI'm glad that Iraqi bloggers are being recognized in high places. I'm very thankful for the reports they have given to us. They are an antidote for all the negative drivel fed to us by our media. The bloggers let us know what progress is being made in Iraq.
The Iraqi bloggers have helped 'The Iraqis' become flesh and blood people rather than just a collective, anonymous, group of people we read about. It was on one of the Iraqi blogs that the full force of the horror they lived with under Saddam hit me.
It's one thing to read about what Saddam did to his people. It's quite another to read about those atrocities by people who had to live there and survive.
Posted by: Chris Josephson at December 10, 2004 at 07:31 PMMarty : A Blog-meet is merely a classical Symposium.
(Ah, the benefits of a Classical education...)
Just wondering: did the MSM cover this? Any print or broadcast reports? Any profiles of the brothers? Or were they dismissed as pajama-clad amateurs, unworthy of any serious attention? Enquiring minds want to know ...
Posted by: Brown Line at December 10, 2004 at 11:12 PMTim, this makes my day!
In that I love Bush, Ali and Omar, I can't think of a better get-together...and the Pajamahadeen are indirectly legimitimized by the White House, too (except for Sullivan's Daily Dish, of course)!
Brown Line - I think you can reliably call Andrew Sullivan a cardholder in the MSM, but we take the point. If there had been protests on the Mall, we'd hear about that first (and for a week), with the bloggers' visit relegated to one mention after the jump (and no follow-ups).
Still, let's not kvetch. The meeting is huge, and the administration is getting the info it needs on the war; as an added bonus, it highlights the growing importance and respectability of the bloggers - they have the ear of the president, and the world. If the MSM want to sulk in the corner, they can jolly well miss the party.
Posted by: Nightfly at December 11, 2004 at 02:38 AMIt worries me that Bush is getting info on Iraq from some no count bloggers when he could get a full headsup from the NYT, CBS, Reuters, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, etc. Why not someone trusted like Rather or Jennings, or Joe Wilson or Richard Clarke instead of Omar and Ali? Go ITM!
Posted by: EddieP at December 11, 2004 at 05:53 AMBush can't be reading blogs - "My Pet Goat" is the limit of his reading ability!
Posted by: Andjam at December 12, 2004 at 08:35 AM