Posted on 09/15/2002 9:34:11 PM PDT by Pokey78
The president's speech to the United Nations was perfectly straightforward. His remarks at Ellis Island were also fine: I especially liked the way, in contrast to certain predecessors who shall remain nameless, his salute to the American spirit wasn't all about him. But the anniversary has passed, Year Two has begun, and those of who are partial to George W. Bush have nevertheless had to get used yet again to the old familiar pattern. Anyone who followed the guy during the 2000 campaign will recognize it.
He stacked up more money and a bigger poll lead than anyone had ever seen in a competitive race--and then he didn't bother campaigning in New Hampshire. So he lost the primary.
But he clawed his way back and won the nomination--and then he pretty much disappeared from sight to spend the summer working on his new ranch house back in Texas. So by Labor Day, Al Gore was ahead in the polls.
But he roused himself and eked out a small lead in the run-up to November--and then, in the wake of a damaging last-minute leak about an old DWI conviction, he flew back home and took the final weekend of the campaign off.
But he just about squeaked through on Election Day, even though his disinclination to rebut the drunk story almost certainly cost him the popular vote and a couple of close states.
This is the way George W. Bush does things, and his rendezvous with history on Sept. 11--the day that ''changed the world''--did not, in the end, change the Bush modus operandi. A few weeks after the attacks, he had the highest approval ratings of any president in history. But he didn't do anything with them. And, in political terms, he might as well have spent this summer playing golf and watching the director's cut of Austin Powers.
On Election Day in November, without Saddam's scalp on his bedpost, Bush will be right back where he was on Sept. 10, 2001: the 50 percent president, his approval ratings in the 50s, his ''negatives'' high, the half of the country that didn't vote for him feeling no warmer toward him than if the day that ''changed the world'' had never happened. The 90 percent poll numbers were always going to come down. It was just a question of where they stabilized, and what Bush would manage to accomplish while they were up in the stratosphere. By that measure, he squandered his opportunity.
The first casualty was his domestic agenda. Even as the USAF was strafing Tora Bora, Vermont's wily Sen. Pat Leahy continued to stall the president's judicial nominations; Ted Kennedy gutted the Bush education bill, and their fellow Democrats obstructed plans for oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. At that moment, with his poll numbers in the 80s, it would have been so easy for Bush to do to Leahy what Clinton did to Gingrich.
The president could have said that, with so many suspected terrorists and their accomplices in custody, we can't afford vacancies and backlogs in our courthouses and my good frien' Pat needs to stop playin' politics with the federal judiciary. He could have said that wartime is no time for Congress to put preserving the integrity of Alaska's most pristine mosquito habitat over the energy needs of America. Sept. 11 is not just an event, hermetically sealed from everything before and after, but a context: Everything that's wrong with the eco-zealots, with the teachers' unions, with the big-government bureaucracies can be seen in their responses to that day. Bush should have struck in their hour of weakness; instead, he gave them all a pass: The time-servers and turf-protectors in the FBI, CIA and the other hotshot acronyms that failed America on 9/11 are all still in their jobs.
Perhaps the president's greatest mistake was his failure to take on the enervating Oprahfied therapeutic culture that, in the weeks after Sept. 11, looked momentarily vulnerable. There were two kinds of responses to that awful day. You could go with ''C'mon, guys, let's roll!'' the words of Todd Beamer as he and the brave passengers of Flight 93 took on their Islamist hijackers. Or you could go with ''healing'' and ''closure'' and the rest of the awful inert language of emotional narcissism. Had Bush taken it upon himself to talk up the virtues of courage and self-reliance demonstrated on Flight 93, he would have done a service not just to his nation but to his party, for a touchy-feely culture inevitably trends Democratic.
But he ducked the rhetorical challenge. And so, to mark the anniversary of Sept. 11, the teachers union encouraged us to stand around in a ''healing circle,'' so that America's children can master the consolations of victimhood rather than the righteous anger of the unjustly attacked. Same for the grown-ups: On TV, Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung and the rest of the all-star sob sisters were out in force with full supporting saccharine piano accompaniment. The elites decided America's anger needed to be managed. It was a very Sept. 10 commemoration of Sept. 11. As the law professor Eugene Volokh put it to his own students, ''Wake up and smell the burning bodies.'' Despite the flags and the more robust country songs, Bush has allowed the culture to lapse back into its default mode of psychobabbling self-absorption.
In the end, even Bush's magnificent moral clarity faded away into a Colin Powellite blur. Long after it became clear that 3,000 Americans were killed by Saudi citizens with Saudi money direct from members of the Saudi royal family, Bush was still inviting Saudi princes to the Crawford ranch and insisting that the kingdom was a ''staunch friend'' in the war against terror. This is not just ridiculous but offensive. Even if it's merely ''rope-a-dope'' and behind the scenes all kinds of plans are being made, the public evasions diminish the president's authority. Symbolism matters. The White House is for business, the privilege of kicking loose at the ranch ought to be reserved for real friends. Yet Australia's John Howard, whose boys fought alongside the United States in Afghanistan, didn't get an invite to Crawford, and the fellows who bankrolled al-Qaida did.
In January, naming Iraq as part of the ''axis of evil,'' Bush declared that ''time is running out." Eight months later, time had run back in again. ''I'm a patient man,'' the president says every couple of days now. By May, the American people were back to ticking ''education'' as the most pressing issue facing the nation. Four months ago, I wrote that if war with Iraq isn't under way by the first anniversary of Sept. 11, George W. Bush might as well nickname himself President Juan Term. Since then, the evaporation of the Bush presidency has only accelerated. George W. Bush's modesty is endearing. But even a modest man needs to use the bully pulpit once in a while.
What's up with Steyn? This article proves, he is out of touch with reality and his ignorance of American politics is astounding!
If the neo-conservatives would set aside their go-nowhere, big tent agenda and get behind a winner like Paul, with some help from FR, IMO, it could happen.
I don’t know when people will wake up to the fact that GW is NOT a politician
Wow! How many hugs for Ted Kennedy, literal or symbolic, did it take to convince you of that.
Or did "Islam is a religion of peace" finally nail it for you?
You haver SO skewered these guys, they could be mistaken for pincushions!!!
However, I remain puzzled by why we have had no recess appointments. The only thing I can conclude is that a recess appointment stops the use of this as an issue for the elections.
There is a reason why I am here and Karl Rove earns a large salary, I think. Ha!
But, my original point stands, which is that Steyn is uninformed in saying that the President has not been talking about this and other issues, and also that he wasn't campaigning much at certain times during the election.
Also, there is one other thing that Steyn and a lot of people fail to realize: President Bush actually believes in his idea of a new tone in Washington, and he is going to operate in the way he thinks things should be done, whether we are impatient with it or not.
Put me down as not agreeing with Steyn on everything, but I can sure see where he's coming from. Let's call it constructive criticism.
I totally admit that he has some strengths. We'll leave it at that.
Totally disagree with this. If Bush were to make another speech, outlining "the case against Sadaam", every network would carry it live.
The networks did blow off a couple of Clinton speeches, but I don't believe they've ever done that with Bush, and I'm certain they haven't done it since 9/11.
Again, in my view, it's not the quantity of the speeches but the quality. IMHO he does the speeches in various cities across the country,to let the heartland know he's concerned about the people who live there, which is fine, but he's also protecting himself from the tough questions from the Washington media. Can't be afraid of the vipers!!!
And I think he is concerned, given some of his past performances.
He should have more confidence, in himself and in the American people. (Go George!)
But the only way we're going to "get to know his heart" is to hear him speak extemporaneously. And that, in his own view, is his biggest weakness. I don't think so. I think most people in the country understand his problem in this area, and he should joke about it more.
Contrary to popular belief,(especially on FR) not every single journalist is a heathen or worse.Bush knows this, too, and he knows how to cultivate journalists. Whatever his reasons, he's not doing it. And I think he should and could do a better job in this department. Again, the value of propaganda shouldn't be underestimated. Karen Hughes is an expert --and she should be dragged back to Washington from Texas, again imho.
However, if he wanted to give a speech on the case against Leahy and the Judiciary Committee, no takers would be found on any network but Fox.
The networks are ALREADY skipping many of his speeches. I know, because I watch them on Fox and they show up NOWHERE else...not even on C-SPAN.
The speeches in the Heartland are not to "dodge the vipers" but for COVERAGE!!!
Well, yes, I said that. And unless things have changed radically in the last few months (and maybe they have, but I haven't noticed it) CNN usually carries whatever presidential speeches FOX does, along with MSNBC, or at least a portion of them. That, I guess, is what I'm referring to as the "networks."
And I would have to challenge your assertion that Bush takes questions from the Washington press corps every day. Ari takes questions most days, but not Bush. Unless, of course, there's a total blackout on Bush's remarks,(newspapers and TV) which I doubt. I haven't been watching as much daytime TV as I did before, but I do read the threads and check the White House website regularly.
The networks I am talking about are the ones that are NON-cable and which most working people depend upon for their news: CBS, ABC, and NBC. I don't care if CNN and MSNBC have coverage (which isn't as often as Fox, by the way) they are not viewed by very many people.
Let me explain this again. The President takes questions from the press at least 3 times a week, sometimes more than that. Press briefings are archived on the White House web site, if you don't believe me. He takes questions from Ron Fournier of the AP, who is not exactly a big conservative.
The problem is that there is NO coverage of his speeches on the non-cable networks. The speeches in the Heartland are to get coverage in those venues, and to get word-of-mouth out. The speeches are NOT to dodge the press in DC. He could answer questions all day long and they still wouldn't show him on the nightly news.
I hope this clarifies my position. Your comment ignores the importance of coverage to the parts of America that do not have access to cable, satellite, and/or daytime viewing, and you yourself admit you haven't been watching daytime TV that much, THEN you say that he hasn't been on!!
You're a unique sort of twit. I was discussing a Homeland Security veto with another poster, you inserted yourself into the discussion absent a clue and then you take umbrage at my informing you of what we were discussing. LOL, actually twit doesn't do justice to you but it'll do for now.
I agree. This is always their goal with any Republican. They have no concerns but their own power and money, which, of course, gives them more power. Bush has been doing a good job overall.....and I do think much more is going on behind the scenes than we will ever be aware....your comments are valid; unfortunately, there is also truth to Steyn's essay. And if Bush's camp reads these kinds of articles of criticism, this is good....especially when it comes from one who historically admires Bush on many counts. Even better if they read our comments, the "little guys," who want success for Bush and usually have much praise for what he is doing.
Some friendly suggestions:
Get your blood pressure checked.
Try to pay more attention to what you're trying to respond to.
Work on elevating your level of discourse above Jr. High.
BTW, does the 07 in your name refer to your IQ, your age, or the grade level you managed to achieve?
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