Reply #23: whos in the room........

[bluedog]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/28/1043534058515.html




Bush works hard to be word perfect
By Elisabeth Bumiller in Washington
January 29 2003




snip

Mr Bush also had a private lunch with Vice-President Dick Cheney, then met a group of newspaper and magazine columnists to preview his speech.

As the expectations continued to build, White House officials cast Mr Bush as the relaxed centre of the storm. He was only making small revisions to the speech, they said.

White House speechwriters had left space in the text for a reaction to the report on the United Nations weapons inspections, but it was unclear how much of that space had been used. Officials said they had been given some advance notice of the thrust of Dr Blix's report.

"We had a generalised sense," said Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary.
.

White House officials said the audience for the rehearsals on Monday included Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; Andrew H. Card jnr, the White House chief of staff; Dan Bartlett, the communications director; and Michael Gerson, the chief White House speechwriter.more......