Free Republic

By Washington standards, Mr. Bush is a misfit. He's different. He barely socializes at all and on weekends and holidays makes a beeline for Camp David or his ranch in Crawford, Texas. He'd rather invite Christian musician Michael W. Smith and his wife to the White House for dinner than eat out. If Mr. Bush really wanted to soothe establishment types, he'd invite them to state dinners at the White House, after which their names would be in the paper. But he's held fewer state dinners than any president in memory. Mr. Bush is also a seriously religious man in...

As President Bush plans his second term, he should take a bold internal step: Fire the White House press office.It is hard to argue with success. The president was reelected more comfortably than even his supporters expected. Still, he suffered enormous headaches all year and surely will endure more migraines if he keeps the media team that has so ill-served him.Bush's press officers surely are diligent patriots who do the very best they can. That's the problem. It is hard to identify a recent chief executive who struggled so hard to communicate. True, Bush is no Ronald Reagan. But that...

Measured another way, Bush won 53% of the 538 electoral college votes available this year. Of all the chief executives reelected since the 12th Amendment separated the vote for president and vice president — a group that stretches back to Thomas Jefferson in 1804 — only Wilson (at 52%) won a smaller share of the available electoral college votes. In the end, for all his gains, Bush carried just two states that he lost last time. Another trend explains why all of this might matter to more than just historians: Throughout American history, the reelection of a president has usually...

Second Term, Second Chance Saturday, November 06, 2004 By Radley Balko President Bush is now the first president since his father in 1988 to win the majority of the popular vote. Both houses of Congress are now under Republican control. With this decisive victory, Bush no longer has to fight the “selected, not elected” rhetoric of 2000, nor does he have to worry about a divided Senate or his own re-election. So what should a second Bush term look like? The president's own campaign promises would be a good place to start. During the campaign, President Bush said he’d like...

Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush is making an unprecedented request to use up to $1 million budgeted for a possible presidential transition to train top officials who would join his administration if he should win a second term. The proposal, which will require Congress' approval, is the first time a president has sought to use public transition funds to prepare officials to enter a re-elected administration, White House officials and others say. Critics say the money should come from existing agency budgets, especially as Bush is proposing to curb spending for many programs because of soaring federal deficits. The White...