Madonna - Oprah - President Bush - Iraq - Television - Report

Madonna - Oprah - President Bush - Iraq - Television - Report - New York Times.

The president and the pop star went on television yesterday looking more like victims of circumstances beyond their control than visionaries.

Madonna went on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to assure a skeptical public that she didn’t snatch an African baby on a fashionably philanthropic whim. President Bush held a news conference to assure a skeptical public that he is inflexible in his willingness to be flexible in managing the Iraq war.

“Our goals are unchanging,” Mr. Bush said. “We are flexible in our methods to achieving those goals.”

Both showed viewers an unfamiliar side of themselves. The president, whose political identity is founded on an image of unwavering cowboy resolve, looked uncertain and chastened behind the lectern, at one moment staring downward and gnawing his lip in a rare tableau of weary anxiety.

The singer known for saucy aplomb was as prim and cautious as a politician, even if her clipped duty-free British diction undercut some of the poignancy of her appeal.

“I’m disappointed because it discourages other people from doing the same thing,” Madonna told Ms. Winfrey via satellite from London. “I feel the media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa, period, not just the orphans of Malawi.”

She said she learned that she was at the center of a global scandal only when she returned home. “I don’t read newspapers or watch television, but all of my friends have let me know what everybody’s talking about and what’s going on in the news,” Madonna said. “So it really didn’t hit me until I got back to England. It’s pretty shocking.”

Comments

[Rockytop]

It's a good thing you're pretty.

[Chad]

Don’t for get the headline “Face the Nation: Demure Madonna and Anxious President”. Why did the NYT compare and contrast Madonna’s plight with the President’s? They are in NO WAY similar. I guess it was because they both appeared on TV yesterday and took their plight to the people. Strange article, especially for the NYT.