Who’s the Opposing Party?

This Associated Press report on President Bush’s news conference earlier today quotes the President on various issues, including the Amnesty International report. What struck me, though, was this sentence at the end of the article:

Though he did not mention tax cuts in his opening argument, Bush said he still wants Congress to make his first-term cuts permanent. He also pledged not to give up on Social Security reform, despite intense opposition on Capitol Hill.

Opening argument? What a weird way to describe the President’s statement to the press, as if it were the beginning of a trial, and the President one of the lawyers. I can’t help wondering whether it’s a Freudian slip; I suspect that many reporters do, indeed, view their relationship with the Bush administration in those terms. He and they represent adverse parties; they cross-examine the President and then deliver their own closing argument when they write their stories. Or maybe I’m just a little paranoid.

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