The Bush Interview Circuit

By Sean Kerrigan
Thursday, November 11, 2010

Just a few quick thoughts on President Bush's recent book tour.

It's pretty clear that Bush generally doesn't enjoy the kind of public forum that he's forced to be in right now while promoting his new book. I suspect that this is probably the last time we will ever get to see him comment on his administration's successes and failures. So whatever revelations we gleam from these interviews will probably be the last ones we'll get for a long time.

We probably won't see any more big interviews, unless Hanukkah comes early for Stewart. Still, assessing what we've seen so far has been interesting. I've watched the interviews with Sean Hannity, Oprah, Matt Lauer and Bill O'Reilly. Unless you find the opinions of Kanye West to be of special interest, you'll probably agree that Lauer and Hannity were the most tame. Oprah was a little tougher, visibly putting Bush on edge as the interview progressed.  There is also an interview with Rush Limbaugh which I haven't heard yet.  From what I've seen so far though, the most probing interview of this tour, and probably the most probing interview with Bush in recent memory, is the O'Reilly interview.

Say what you will about the guy, he knows how to interrogate. Oprah and Lauer asked all the right questions, but O'Reilly insisted, and phrased his questions in a way that encouraged Bush to give the viewer a little bit more information, enough to infer what he was really thinking. I think the subtleties make that interview the one most worth watching.