Posted on 11/05/2005 5:36:08 AM PST by AliVeritas
PRESIDENT BUSH DIDN'T TAKE THE HINT. Clean house, find fresh blood, replace senior White House staff--and this will assure success in the final three years of your presidency, Bush was told. When he didn't respond, those offering the president advice in public got specific. Get rid of Karl Rove, the key presidential adviser, and things will get better. Bush ignored that recommendation, too. Then Rove himself was addressed. Your peers in the White House are turning against you and debating whether you should be fired, the Washington Post informed him on the front page. Besides, you're not only hurting the president by staying, you're making it harder for the press secretary, Scott McClellan, to do his job. Rove, the symbol of Bush intransigence, stayed put.
There's a classic pattern here. It's Washington's way of taming a president, getting him to knuckle under. And it's always offered as if the Washington political establishment--a center-left conglomerate of officials of previous administrations, the permanent bureaucracy, lobbyists, consultants, old party hacks, and the media--had the president's best interests at heart.
The establishment is most influential when a president or other political leader is at a low point (as Bush surely is). In op-eds, news stories, speeches, and TV appearances, establishment figures outline a recovery plan. In Bush's case, it's this: Apologize publicly for your White House sins, especially the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame; soften your policies, particularly in Iraq; start cooperating with Democrats; and fire Rove. Do this and good times will roll again.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Thank you for saying that--he seems far too timid and inept for the position he holds.
Just a thought, but wouldn't it be great if Ann Coulter could be talked into being the press secretary for even a year. What a message that would send!! Just the idea of that would send the WH press corps into apoplexy!!! She wouldn't even have to say anything.
Actually, I wish they could clone Rumsfield--we need at least two of him, one to hold his current position, and another for press secretary. Rumsfield knows how to handle the media!
That would at least distinguish his from his father's administration.
The only way to break throught the nedia filter is to go quite extreme, however, lest your battles be squelched by the monolithic Washington Press Corps. Bush needs a significantly more aggressive style.
I've met a few that could handle that job over the years!
The problem is the definition of "conservative." For some reason, everyone thinks they are more conservative than anyone else--and what better way to point that out, than to criticize other conservatives?
"Acid tongue?" Could you be speaking about Ann Coulter? Yessss, she could do the job, I do believe!
When he first replaced Ari, I thought it was nerves and over time he'd get better. But nope, those DNC shills in the WH press corp eat him up every day.
Its embarrassing to watch him. Last week I though he was going to cry. He was whining and whining about the "trust he built" with the WH 'journalists'.
LOL... he might be a smart person, but not necessarily good in staying on the massage and creating sound-bites at the same time. Ari was the master on this.
I would rather clean bathrooms than speak publicly, but I can still tell the difference between an effective speaker and an inept one--McLellan seems quite inept to me. He looks almost as uncomfortable as I would be if I had to stand there behind that podium. We really need better.
I'd hire her in a heartbeat, if only to make sure she was on my side!
"David Rodham Gergen. I wish he'd hack up that big booger that's hanging down the back of his throat and get it over with."
That would be a "loogie", a booger wouold be found in a different orifice.
People that claim to be unbiased have a way of gaining trust and confidentiality of both sides. Then, I think they sell out one side because they really always have had a loyalty, whether they acknowledge it or not. In my life, I have had occasions to trust and confide in people who are networkers (busybodies) and after the dust settles, I have been left wondering if what I said was used against me. I am too old to learn this lesson but then at least I think I have learned the lesson. Gergen is a democrat and media prostitute and needs to be left alone.
Okay, we all seem to be in agreement on this. Now, who has the president's ear and can convince him to make this most important change. The opportunity to send a strong message is overwhelming.
ROFL!! A distinction without a difference. When you snuff a booger from your nose to the back of your throat does it then become a "loogie"?
DITTO that.
She was Victoria Clarke - she took no BS from those idiots
(I thought her toughness was rather sexy)
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