Posted on 12/02/2005 4:19:48 AM PST by conservativecorner
George Bush may be the feistiest president since Teddy Roosevelt. Dubya looks like the kind of guy who'd get in your face real fast if he weren't wound so tight behind that presidential reserve. So why, until this week, has he allowed himself to get beaten to a pulp on the Iraq war?
One of the great mysteries of public life has been the absence of an organized Bush effort to defend the war. To the extent there has been bad news and worse spin about the war's course, both the Bush White House and Defense Department have been pretty much willing to take it in the neck. Prior to this week's Annapolis speech and the release of a 38-page "Iraq national strategy," senior staffers at both the White House and Defense have privately vented frustration and even bitterness at the absence or incompetence of what is known as the war's "public diplomacy." Similarly, there's been no real effort to build a homefront to support the troops.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
bump
Bush is in many ways adverse to controversy, and he doesn't give his enemies a lot to take shots at. The paradigm for this is any racial controversy. Bush has avoided them like the plague, again not an altogether foolish approach. That explains the quick abandonments of Lott and Bill Bennett. This was signaled before the 2000 race when Bush engineered the quiet removal of a civil war plaque from the Texas Supreme Court building. In fact, it was done in the middle of the night, on a weekend.
So is Bush a turtle or just a strategic genius? Grudgingly (because I prefer a more frequent fighter) I think he's a master. He knows that when he finally speaks as president, people will listen. Maybe more so because he was quiet. And he has an uncanny ability to let the democrats self destruct.
I don't think Bush is a man for the faint hearted. He's a tough, calculating strategist and he doesn't open his mouth until it will do him (and his policies) the most good and the least harm.
In contrast to Bill Clinton who was more like a dead leaf that flapped and fluttered at nearly every socio-political wind, President Bush is more of 100-year old Red Oak in his GOD-directed steadfastness.
In the 2004 campaign Karl Rove sent Mr. Bush into an undiscovered America of right-leaning exurbs and edge cities such as Clermont County, east of Cincinnati. This is the real Bush base. The president should revisit it, to explain in person what he told the Middies at Annapolis--why he has taken them to Iraq and why we intend to see this through to an honorable victory.I agree with this. Bush should campaign, as if for re-election. Not so much to bolster Republicans in 2006 (though that too) but to fight the second front of the Iraq war, which his here, at home, against the leftist enemy.
Our president must personally lead the fight against the left in this country. He must fight on the beaches. He must fight on the landing grounds. He must fight in the fields, and in the streets. He must fight in the hills. He must never surrender.
And we must be at his side, fighting those domestic enemies, every step of the way.
A soldier, currently serving in Baghdad, thinks that Americans should listen to President Bush and says: However, when you discover you have cancer the treatment is always the same - attack it at the source. You don’t wait for it to spread. And when is the last time you heard a doctor putting a limited timetable on cancer therapy? I can picture it in my mind. “Mr. Smith, we have seen some progress with your tumor. It’s shrinking. But we need to move on now. The timetable for treating you has passed. Good luck.”
That approach has the same effect in Medicine that it has in Politics. It's no good appeasing a tumor; and if you enable it by encouraging its growth....well, you can imagine the consequences. That is why I wouldn't recommend Drs. Kerry, Reid, Pelosi -- or anyone trained at the Democratic Party School of International Medicine. Their alternative medical strategy when treating a potentially lethal disease--instead of aggressive or radical therapy--is wishing; hoping for the best; and/or pretending that a miracle will happen and that everything will magically turn out all right. It represents a form of political faith healing.
I agree to a certain extent - well, entirely about your analysis of his method and personality - but I think he needs to be a little more outspoken for the sake of his supporters, if not himself.
The constant drumbeat of lies and opposition from the Dems and the press can be very disheartening to his supporters (us), and I think he is beginning to realize this and is attempting to be more visible, even though it goes against his nature and normal way of doing things.
Or ... perhaps (as is suggested in this article) the President's advisors need to get off the damn stick and advise him that he needs to enter the fray before the enemy Democrat Party bury him, his B/S "Compasionate Conservatism", and what remains of Conservative's everywhere.
It's about respect either you have it or you don't.You can earn it but you can't fake it.Many world leaders lack respect and they are weaker for it.The pres as a pinata 24/7 is not my idea of someone that his enemies respect.Sqashing a few bugs can make your enemies take notice that your someone not to be messed with.
While I tend to want to agree with Mr. Henniger he misses something very important about President Bush as do most of the public. He even points it out in a round about way in his own article. The President leads by example. The President has been in front of these audiences not because their safe & keen to hear his message, but because he is doing his job of supporting the troops. He is acting like their coach at halftime when they've just been booed off the field.
Too bad the base (us the booing fan and team cheerleader) isn't wanting to follow his lead. We're more willing to fight against the other teams reporters telling us we're so bad, rather than rallying the fans and players to re-energize the morale of the troops. The President doesn't do this, his focus is with the rest of the team. But, he is missing one key component from his team, a few sexy cheerleaders.
Coach President needs to talk to Coach Cheerleader and tell him/her to rally the fans for the team. We are winning in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the larger ME; we have a country that is prosperous and able to rebound after tragedy, we have thousands of more people working, we still have millions of people who want to come live here everyday to our dream no matter what the rest of the world is saying we need a cheerleader coach to rally the fans for the good of the United States of America.
Find a way to stop our guys from dying in Iraq everyday=+50 approval rating
All of these PR woes have come since Karen Hughes left the WH.
Bring her back.
"I don't think Bush is a man for the faint hearted. He's a tough, calculating strategist and he doesn't open his mouth until it will do him (and his policies) the most good and the least harm."
Wonder if he'll do the Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament after he leaves office.
I am really glad to see Bush turn the corner on this, and frankly, I think the rest of the party needs to follow suit. For too long, I have been critical of all of our so-called leaders in DC (and Columbus) bending over and taking it up the chute from the Democrats.
Not to be picky, but I don't think Bush went to Clermont County for a rally. I know that he visited the Maupin family there, the parents of the only soldier listed as "missing" in Iraq.
Ironically, he visited Butler County at possibly the largest rally of the campaign, and Warren County which is where the photo of Ashley Faulkner and he was taken. This was the basis for the "Progress for America" ad, which was an absolute tear-jerker. Butler and Warren are the two other Ohio counties which surround Hamilton County where Cincinnati is.
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