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The President as Average Joe
President Bush, at a naturalization ceremony, has made more public appearances recently without a script or a prescreened audience.
(By Charles Dharapak -- Associated Press)
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"Yes," Bush said. "Sorry to interrupt you. Just testing your concentration."
Still, if the image of the president in spandex proved distracting, the relaxed approach left some reassessing their view of him. The Freedom House audience consisted of many Democrats, yet the buzz afterward was strikingly positive.
"They were surprised that they were impressed," said Thomas O. Melia, Freedom House's deputy executive director, who has his own Democratic pedigree. "Across the board, whether they supported him or not, I think everybody went out of the room more favorably disposed toward him and his policies."
Melia said the interaction with the audience accomplished more than the canned speech: "He came across better in the back-and-forth with the questioners because it shows he's thinking on his feet, not just reading from a text."
While thinking on his feet, Bush often plays the rube. When Melia got up last week, the president cut him off before his question. "You're going to ask me if I read the book," Bush said.
"I gave the president a copy of our annual report, 'Freedom in the World,' before he took the stage," Melia explained to the audience.
The president gave his instant review: "Little print, no pictures."
Melia did not miss a beat and compared it to another book Bush likes to cite. "It's the bible of freedom," Melia said.
When the crowd laughed, Bush protested, " I'm the funny guy."
