February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The protests, the official told reporters at the back of the plane as it flew President Bush to the NATO Summit in Turkey, were “not necessarily indicative of all that much.”
The official added: “I’m a veteran myself of some protests, and I figured anything less than 100,000 people [in attendance] is — well, I just remember what some real protests are like.”
He obviously did not take into account the population difference between the United States (239 million people) and Ireland (4 million).
He continued to play down the protests of the Bush visit, even as an American reporter on board noted that the White House press pool — members of the broadcast and print media who accompany the U.S. president everywhere he goes — was delayed in getting to the press availability at Dromoland because protesters blocked their way.
“There are going to be protests under just about any circumstances,” the official noted.
But adding another dig at the thousands of Irish people who had come out to show their disfavor with President Bush, primarily over the war in Iraq, he said: “Some protests have more interest and more validity than others.”
He briefed members of the press aboard the presidential aircraft with the understanding that he would not be directly identified except as a senior White House official.