O'Connor: The Senior Conservative by Dick O'Connor
 

Please, Mr. President!

888WebToday  January 3, 2002  Dick O'Connor
 

Please discontinue the daily press conferences with the White House Press Corps.  You are walking around in a nest of rattlesnakes without your protective cowboy boots.  Ninety percent or more of the reporters you are addressing hate you and what you stand for.  They will never be cajoled into a halfway neutral position, and are breathlessly waiting for you to make one mistake.  They are Daschleites, and resent the fact that Al Gore is not briefing them.

You can make statements that you have prepared in advance for these conferences and refuse to take questions.  You can have your Pentagon spokesmen fill in the latest knowledge of the whereabouts of bin Laden and mullah Omar.  Don't expose yourself to this nest of vipers that want to destroy you and your popularity.  You can reach the American public in other ways, as Reagan did.

As to your remark that you would be "mad as heck" if you found that the Secret Service agent was removed from a flight because of his Arab-American ethnicity. Stop and think a minute.  We, your loyal supporters would be "mad as heck" if you were assassinated by this man.  Why would the Secret Service assign a man with such obvious characteristics to guard you is incomprehensible.  Of course he was removed because of his ethnicity!  If you or I were the pilot of such a plane, and were directly responsible for 185 innocent lives, we might make the same decision.  I know that as a pilot I would, and I think that you, as a pilot, might do the same.

If this man is of the Islamic faith, he should not be assigned to protect you.  He can be very useful in some other area, where the opportunity to destroy the United States is not so easy.  You are not afraid, and that is to be respected.  At the same time, don't be foolish.  If this man is a Muslim, remember a high percentage of this faith wants to see the end of Western Civilization.  The pilot who refused to carry him on the flight may have saved you life.

Back to the White House Press Corps, the story of Daniel from the Bible applies here.  Daniel walked freely among the lions because his heart was pure.  Your heart is also pure, but you are walking in a viper den, not facing lions.  You are a larger-than-life target in the public relations war, and the Media is not your friend.
 
 

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