....about the 'free' Afghan reporters being denied permission to attend the press conference in the US because Karzai was worried they might defect? It's a real knee-slapper: (From Debra Pickett of the Chicago Sun-Times)
"The first question dealt with the military's treatment of Afghan prisoners of war. It was full of facts and details and built-in follow-ups, so you could tell the reporter asking it would probably never get called on again. And, after this rocky start, Bush decided to let the American reporters cool their heels for a while.
"Somebody from the Afghan press?" he asked next.
There was an awkward silence, which Karzai gamely tried to fill in by asking, "Anybody from the Afghan press? Do we have an Afghan press?"
Then he spotted the single reporter his government had permitted to travel outside Afghanistan.
"Oh, here he is," Karzai said, as the room filled with the not-quite-warm laughter of people who suspect they might actually be the butt of a joke but aren't sure.
It turned out, National Public Radio journalist David Greene reported later, there were nine other Afghan reporters who were to have followed Karzai on his U.S. visit but, at the last minute, the Karzai government decided to withhold their travel permits for fear the journalists might try to escape their troubled homeland.
Bush seemed genuinely surprised that the Afghan reporters weren't there -- American journalists had been asked to fill in their empty seats -- so it seems that Karzai forgot to mention to his good friend that the whole free press thing has a slightly different meaning in the burgeoning democracy that is Afghanistan.
I imagine they had a pretty good laugh about that one.
And I bet Bush was jealous."Hat tip to Anne.
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