Press conferences that are just absurd.

What is this odd friendly environment that is
always present at the U.S. administration press conferences ? In any decent democracy you will generally see journalists asking the tough questions. Generally, their aim generally is to ask questions that will challenge the speaker. That is why they are paid, and that is why people tune in general. But at the White House, press conferences are being re-defined; The press is at best submissive. Journalists ask Bush about his opinions, his hopes, and for what he have to say for the "critics" if of course he feels like. In fact, at any point in time Bush is allowed to discard questions and facts. In a recent press conference he disregarded the last estimation of the death toll of Iraqis. No one pressed the issue, no one denfended the credibility of this estimation that comes from academic research at one of the finest institutions in the U.S., no one did. No one even cared to mention the flagrant inconsistency of the foreign policies in Irak, Iran and North Korea when this issue was discussed. In fact the toughest questions, as someone already mentionned on NPR, were asked by the president himself. For example he asked himself a follow up question to a question that was related to the U.S. policy toward North Korea:

"I'll ask myself a follow-up. If that's the case, why did you use military action in Iraq? And the reason why is because we tried the diplomacy. Matter of fact, we tried resolution after resolution after resolution. All these situations are -- each of them different and require a different response, a different effort to try to solve this peacefully. And we'll continue to do so."
They tried diplomacy in Iraq, all right. A ludicrous statement that recieved no comment.

George went on saying :
"And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I am amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- that there's a level of violence that they tolerate. And it's now time for the Iraqi government to work hard to bring security in neighborhoods so people can feel at peace. "

Which Iraqi people you are talking about. The one that wants you to pull out as soon as possible ? ( as you can see from the polls that were in the mainstream press the last few weeks).
Obviously if you read Bush's press conference you can see that although he is still having problem formulating a clear sentence, he seems much more comfortable in adventuring to new territories, throwing all sort of sensless new rhetorics, without a fear of a harsh critic from the media, at least at the press conference.

I think the reason these press conferences became so useless has to do at least partially with the nature of the job of these White House journalists. I assume that their jobs and reputations are made to be risky so that submission is the only road to another press conference and hopefully, down the line, a one-to-one interview with, say, the secretary of defense.