Our President-Live Blogging today's news conference

Right now I am listening to WBUR's broadcast of the president's news conference concerning North Korea and Iraq.
I try to listen objectively to his addresses to the nation but it is hard. I am always left with the image of a comedian who is just not very good but insists on trying to keep the audience's attention. I don't know that this is better than the typical image I have of him, which is as the teenage son who tries really hard to do adult things but ultimately needs his dad, usually in the form of Mike Brady, to bail him out.

Apparently we are working really hard in Iraq and while the news broadcasts are terrible, we have to stay the course. As to North Korea, while we are not pleased with what they have done, [nuclear testing] we will work with them diplomatically to resolve the issue.

Now we have come to the portion of the news conference that is always good for a chuckle-
the Q & A. Random reporter asks wreally hahd question and the president fumbles for an answer and falls back on stuttering and hyperbole to answer it. He often sounds like a naughty boy caught in a lie.

This reporter just asked a very specific question about whether or not we should acknolwedge as former Secretary of State James Baker has, that we need to change tactics.
From the president, we get:
-we are constanting changing tactics
-the goal is to create a stable country
-the stakes are high
-apparently the Clinton administration dropped the ball
-we are constanting changing tactics
-we cannot leave before the job is done
-the stakes are high
-this is the way it is in the 21st century
-we are constanting changing tactics
-we want to solve this diplomatically
-the stakes are high

A lot of his answers to the subsquent questions are answered generally along those lines and all of the complements on the reporters' suits simply will not abate their tough questions.

On that note, back to Classical music on 89.7FM...

This was my first attempt at live blogging a press conference. I imagine that I will get better with time and perhaps with another president.