In other words, Bush needs to dance to the pipers of his enemies, the DNC and the MSM, who manufacture and then breathlessly report administration scandals on a near hourly basis.
Look, the White House press office, the RNC, the relevant agency spokespersons, and frequently Bush himself--all regularly respond to these sorts of charges through interviews, press conferences, speeches, town-hall Q&As, background, news releases, etc. Their responses are fact-based and, most often, clearly refute the scandal allegations du jour. The MSM by and large simply chooses to ignore, distort, or bury these responses and the inconvenient facts they contain so as to continue the perpetual motion of their scandal manufacturing machine, thereby creating public perception problems for the White House.
While it's often true that the WH press office minus Ari has produced some groan-inducing stumble bum efforts, they sure as heck aren't responsible for the irresponsibility of the press, who willfully and spitefully choose to ignore their moral and ethical responsibilities to fairly and fully report the relevant facts of a given story.
Given that this willful misreporting and distortion seems to be a fact of life, Bush has decided not to expend his administration's short time in office engaged in a constant battle to "win" the news cycle of the day. Clinton's White House fought tooth and nail for eight years to win the 24-hr news cycle. And in the end to what end? Clinton won a thousand Pyrrhic victories while failing to accomplish much of any real longstanding substance. Worse, he fundamentally neglected to fulfill the sworn obligations of the office to which he was elected.
Bush came to office determined to avoid wasting precious time putting out media-generated scandal fires and instead focus his administration on achieving his agenda. In the magnified frenzy of misleading headlines, top-of-the-hour news reports, and instant conventional Beltway wisdom it often seems as though Bush is taking fatal blows. And that is no doubt especially dispiriting to those of us who support Bush or the larger goals of the party. Our view is often myopic, though, while Bush's is long term. He has wagered that history will be his judge, not today's MSM or the yapping-punditocracy's ephemeral opinions. It's tempting to react with high profile WH PR efforts to smack back at each and every one of the constant stream of MSM distortions, but ultimately that's a knee-jerk leap for fool's gold and Bush is no fool.
In other words, Bush should let public opinion of him and the GOP be shaped by a lying media.
We disagree on what needs to be done 100%.
The MSM does regularly ignore refutations from the White House, so it's up to US to get this word out when it comes up in conversations with friends, water cooler chats, etc. Be prepared to refute those who spread the lies, even inadvertently because they might have heard it on the news. Be ready to explain what DE-classified means; that when the President ALLOWS the release of info, that means it's DEclassified, it does NOT mean he is releasing classified data.