Never defend yourself in public against things that you haven’t been accused of; you’ll simply raise more questions than you forestall. President Bush gave a classic demonstration of this faux pas near the end of his last news conference. (http://tinyurl.com/79uqck)
Here’s a transcript of the moment. It came when a reporter asked the President about when President-elect Obama would feel the full weight of the office. The President was calm talking about the Oval Office and Obama’s family. But then the bitterness came out when he suddenly went on a rant about self-pity:
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that's a great question. He'll — he will feel the effects the minute he walks in the Oval Office. At least, that's when I felt. I don't know when he's going — he may feel it the minute he's — gets sworn in. And the minute I got sworn in, I started thinking about the speech. (Laughter.) And so — but he's a better speech-maker than me, so he'll be able to — he'll be able to — I don't know how he's going to feel. All I know is he's going to feel it. There will be a moment when he feels it.
I have never felt isolated and I don't think he will. One reason he won't feel isolated is because he's got a fabulous family and he cares a lot about his family. That's evident from my discussions with him. He'll be — he's a 45-second commute away from a great wife and two little girls that love him dearly.
I believe this — the phrase "burdens of the office" is overstated. You know, it's kind of like, why me? Oh, the burdens, you know. Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch? It's just — it's pathetic, isn't it, self-pity. And I don't believe that President-Elect Obama will be full of self-pity. He will find — you know, your — the people that don't like you, the critics, they're pretty predictable. Sometimes the biggest disappointments will come from your so-called friends. And there will be disappointments, I promise you. He'll be disappointed. On the other hand, the job is so exciting and so profound that the disappointments will be clearly, you know, a minor irritant compared to the –
At this point a reporter mercifully broke in with another question, and the moment passed.
The transcript doesn’t do justice to the oddness of the moment, because it’s all in the body language. Watch the video. Bush’s anger suddenly leaks through, as he bashes self-pity. But no one had asked him about it, and so we wonder why he’s suddenly attacking that emotion. Is it something he’s wrestling with himself? We don’t know, but it’s the most memorable part of the news conference, and a great reminder not to defend yourself against attacks that haven’t yet come your way.
I agree – really noticed what an uncomfortable moment that was and how much it said about him. Made him seem like a bratty teen! But maybe he was feeling defensive about Frank Rich’s NYTimes column (Jan4)- see paragraph below?
“The crowning personality tic revealed by Bush’s final propaganda push is his bottomless capacity for self-pity. “I was a wartime president, and war is very exhausting,” he told C-Span. “The president ends up carrying a lot of people’s grief in his soul,” he told Gibson. And so when he visits military hospitals, “it’s always been a healing experience,” he told The Wall Street Journal. But, incredibly enough, it’s his own healing he is concerned about, not that of the grievously wounded men and women he sent to war on false pretenses. It’s “the comforter in chief” who “gets comforted,” he explained, by “the character of the American people.” The American people are surely relieved to hear it.”