You have to know a President is losing political capital rapidly when he finds himself at a public press conference– as Bush did yesterday— having to answer a question about whether he has been losing political capital.
The loss of political capital was alleged in this article in yesterday’s WaPo, by Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei. They wrote:
- Two days after winning reelection last fall, President Bush declared that he had earned plenty of “political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” Six months later, according to Republicans and Democrats alike, his bank account has been significantly drained.
In the past week alone, the Republican-led House defied his veto threat and passed legislation promoting stem cell research; Senate Democrats blocked confirmation, at least temporarily, of his choice for U.N. ambassador; and a rump group of GOP senators abandoned the president in his battle to win floor votes for all of his judicial nominees.
With his approval ratings in public opinion polls at the lowest level of his presidency, Bush has been stymied so far in his campaign to restructure Social Security. On the international front, violence has surged again in Iraq in recent weeks, dispelling much of the optimism generated by the purple-stained-finger elections back in January, while allies such as Egypt and Uzbekistan have complicated his campaign to spread democracy…
In Tuesday’s press conference, Bush demonstrated how deeply he is “out of it” by responding to a question on Iraq with a disquisition on the Taliban. (?)
He also responded to a question about Amnesty International’s claim that the administration has established a “new gulag” around the world by dismissing it as “absurd.”
It took Dana Milbank, in today’s WaPo to add in this significant detail:
- “It’s just an absurd allegation,” he said with a chuckle.
Somehow, that “chuckle” really, really upset me.
Does Bush totally lack the ability to see that, whether you challenge the reports of torture and ill-treatment so carefully compiled by Amnesty and other rights groups or not, these issues are ones of deadly seriousness?
Especially for the leader of a world power that claims to be bringing democracy and “freedom” to all the peoples of the world?
Milbank’s piece– which is titled “Spelling nuance with a W”– doesn’t appear to be up on the WaPo’s website yet.
His thesis there is that the blustery, black-and-white worldview W displayed during his first term in office has been replaced by something more closely approaching nuance.
Bill and I agreed, after reading the article, that ‘evasion” would be a better term for it…
**Does Bush totally lack the ability to see that … these issues are ones of deadly seriousness?
Sorry, Helena, but he does lack that ability; it is one of the most consistent features of his presidency. “Issues” is code for “obstacles”, which any bold and forthright leader treats only with disdain, signalling his ultimate victory over them.
That crude logic of leadership shows through even in all those carefully orchestrated puff pieces, where it’s spun as something positive, an indicator of his plain-talking ‘authenticity’ and pseudo-folksy humor.
Seriousness is unwelcome, after all. It smacks of thinking too much, rather that going out and aggressively doing. It is an American value to prioritize active competence over symbolic competence. All that thinking, it is feared, could lead to (gasp!) liberalism, which is just one midnight muse’s hairsbreadth from communism, deconstrucionism, cultural relativism, homosexuality and godlessness.
But as you know, that authenticity carries alot of weight with those American voters who want someone to dumb it all down for them. I don’t mean that as an insult, just a statement of what I see as a sad fact. The world is a complex place, and complexity is a serious stressor to the human intellect. Complexity and anxiety are kissing cousins. If by virtue of birth, education or other endowment you aren’t constitutionally equipped to deal with it, it’s better to take a pill and let your troubles melt away …
Still, I find it vaguely encouraging when those same (also nuance-challenged) people can spot that a situation is too complex for the alleged solutions, and superficial cant, being offered in response. Finally, I see those people beginning to stir.
They’re more likely to be making the trip toward nuance than W is, Millbank notwithstanding.
This is a snobbish version of ethnic prejudice. It replaces real understanding with a parody. Parody is fine, but using it as understanding is just lazy.
Chuckling can be a way of being derisive. A way of dismissing something one disagrees with. You’re basically criticizing W for not being good at making sound bites. Hardly a “Serious” criticism.
Helena,
The “chuckle upset you?” Well this is a son-of-a-bitch that, during an interview with Tucker Carlson, mocked a woman’s plea to not have the death sentence imposed upon her down in Texas.
Bush: “she said..pppplease….don’t kill me” in a voice trying to sound like a female pleading for her life. The bastard is capable of anything. Here is more on the story..
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008967.html
Perhaps Warren will find Helena’s original remark more “serious”:
Does Bush totally lack the ability to see that, whether you challenge the reports of torture and ill-treatment so carefully compiled by Amnesty and other rights groups or not, these issues are ones of deadly seriousness?
Warren, congratulations on spotting my derisive parody. I’m glad you think it’s fine, but don’t understand why a line in a five-paragraph post is supposed to represent my ‘understanding’.
As far as my ethnic prejudice, I guess you would be claiming that I am a self-loathing American, or something like that. Here, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. The other conclusion would be that you are simply calling me a racist for daring to criticize my own president (or perhaps other American voters, which I will get to in a minute). Which would be more or less in keeping with White House policy, so you are safe on precedent.
If you want a detailed criticism, in this forum or any other, I am happy to give you tens of thousands of words, which I could borrow from my published writings or lectures about what is wrong with the Iraq policy, and before that, the vague policy on GWOT. That should assuage your worries about my laziness, or lack of willingness to engage sufficiently to ‘understand’.
If you meant my jibe at American attitudes, I can argue extensively there as well. I don’t subscribe to the simplistic ‘red state/blue state’ analysis, and I don’t unconsciously hate all evangelical Christians or conservatives. But the parody I wrote does represent some common themes I have seen in every presidential election I have voted in since 1980; in fact, the experssion of those views has become its own parody since then.
Finally: Let’s be clear about what I am criticizing W for, which has nothing to do with sound bites. I AM being derisive, and it is not because I ‘disagree’ with W, it is because he has greatly endangered my country, sold out everything that I fought for (yes, I am a combat veteran), and leads an apparatus that has sought to cynically overturn every institution in the political structure to retain their power to dismantle most everything that is worth anything in the government, including the military. And long before 9/11, he showed himself to be an utterly cynical liar, cheat and hypocrite who, despite leaning heavily on his so-called moral clarity, shows no consistent morality at all. Given all that, I think that we (he and I, at least) are beyond gentlemen’s agreements to disagree; having heaped derision on those like me, having lied to the American public again and again and again, he deserves nothing else.
Amen, Wind.
For reality-based people who need a little mental exercise, it’s fun to examine Bush’s press conference and try to count the errors, distortions, fabrications and sheer fantasies he manages to pack into just about every line. I keep losing count.
One very important segment of the reality-based community is mid-level field commanders in the U.S. military. These people can’t pretend that things are going just swell over there, because if they do, they’re dead. Fortunately, they are starting to speak out.
Peace to all.
Sorry my second link didn’t work for some reason. Here is another link to the same June 1 Knight Ridder story.
John C – I know! It’s like trying to do combinatorials in your head (sorry, math geek) isn’t it?
I’m just as disturbed by the relentless cant in all of this. It’s surreal, vaguely Soviet in its tenor. I wonder how many people can spot this as a sure-fire, non-partisan way of knowing that you are flat-out being lied to? That such bald-faced lies are an insult to the intelligence not only of those liberals you scorn but of the simple folk that voted for you …?
Thanks for the link to the Knight-Ridder story about military officers speaking out, also. It’s a positive trend, even if it is more than two years too late to make the decisive difference …
Guys, I get the same impression listening to our glorious leader, EL President Blair, here in the UK, though I would concede he’s not as shameless at it as Bush. But, it is clear that this politics as perception-management isn’t just a US-only phenomenon, and on too many issues the media is too lazy or time-starved (or share the same agenda?) to offer much of a rebuttal to government spin (a less sinister word for propaganda?).
“these issues are ones of deadly seriousness?”
Surely you were being tongue-in-cheeck. It may be constitutionally impossible for someone with Bush’s set of attributes to rise to the level of seriousness required. Unless, as we say, someone hits him over the head with a 2 X 4, multiple times preferably, to get his attention. Even then, I doubt it. I am not joking.
Bush is a classic sociopath, and exhibits strong sadistic tendencies.
Not to mention, symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.
Oh yes – how could I overlook narcissistic personality disorder.
And while we are on psychological profiles:
Bush:
Narcissistic, sociopath, sadistic tendencies, prefers self-serving fantasies to reality, surrounds himself with people who will tell him what he wants to hear.
Saddam:
Narcissistic, sociopath, megalomaniac, sadistic, prefers self-serving fantasies to reality, surrounds himself with people who are afraid not to tell him what he wants to hear.
I can not understand till now some one Lied 237 times with his administration and we still discussing is he fit his presidency or not?
Where is your democracy then? How he got his 2nd term in presidency?
I think what you write and what these guys write either they dreaming or they are out of this world.
“237 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq that were made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice. These statements were made in 125 separate appearances, consisting of 40 speeches, 26 press conferences and briefings, 53 interviews, 4 written statements, and 2 congressional testimonies. Most of the statements in the database were misleading because they expressed certainty where none existed or failed to acknowledge the doubts of intelligence officials. Ten of the statements were simply false.”
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108_2/pdfs_inves/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.pdf