Michael Milken’s 10th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles hosted some of the media’s top executive honchos, including News Corp overlord Rupert Murdoch, who was in a talkative mood. Following are a few choice quotes.

Stating the obvious, Murdoch accurately critiques our President’s prowess at incoherence:
“I’m a supporter of President Bush, but I do believe he is a bad, inadequate communicator. He seems to freeze whenever a television camera appears.”

But this doesn’t dim the glow of his schoolboy crush:
“…whereas he is the most persuasive and strong and articulate person when you meet him. This is really a problem.”

Addressing fellow maven, Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch commiserates their isolation in the media world and seems confused as to why everybody else doesn’t worship Bush as much as they do:
“Apart from your newspaper and mine (the New York Post), there’s a sort of monolithic attack on (Bush) every day of the year. People want to destroy him.”

Murdoch suspects that the animosity towards Bush is rooted in religious persecution (America is notoriously anti-Christian) and or resentment for having perverted democracy. It certainly couldn’t be for waging a disasterous and unnecessary war and presiding over the most corrupt administration in history:
“They don’t like him, whether it’s because of his religious conviction or whatever, or the outcome of the 2000 election. He has a history of things there which seem to have built up the situation where, in Washington today, the atmosphere is absolutely toxic.”

But there is some good news:
“You can’t really expect anything to be achieved in the next 18 months (of his presidency). That is a very serious, sad problem of this country.”