By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 29, 2005
8:06 AM
Why have Bush's numbers reached the lowest point of his presidency?
Everyone's got a theory, just as everyone is now floating a theory on whether he helped himself at last night's rarity of a prime-time press conference.
One thing is clear: the 47 percent president (according to ABC/WP) hasn't gotten off to a rip-roaring start for someone who took his second oath of office just 3-1/2 months ago.
A popular view, endorsed by David Broder , is overreaching. Bush used much of his capital pushing a divisive Social Security plan that seems to be going nowhere fast. He's still pushing big tax cuts despite a scary deficit. He rammed through a bankruptcy bill and tort-law measure to pander to his business base. And he went along with the GOP charge to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case, which proved to be quite unpopular with the country. Oh, and Iraq is still a mess.
Another theory is that Bush is being dragged down by Tom DeLay, who just got a lift on Air Force One, and what's playing in the press as a constant flow of ethics allegations against DeLay. And with Bill Frist speaking to Christian conservatives about the blocking of judicial nominees deemed "people of faith," the Democrats might be getting some traction by painting the GOP as the party of religious extremists. Not to mention that about two-thirds of the country is opposed to the Cheney/Frist plan to blow up the filibuster.
All of the above may be true, but political prognosticators sometimes forget that average folks don't follow every twist and turn of Beltway infighting. So keep in mind: Gas prices have been rising. The stock market has been in a swoon. The economy is not exactly inspiring confidence. All that has got to be hurting Bush. When people feel economic anxiety-- and see that their leaders appear more obsessed with one brain-damaged woman, parliamentary procedures and fiddling with their retirement money--that's when you suffer in the polls.
At first CBS and Fox were going to blow off the presser on the first night of sweeps, but backed off when the White House agreed to move up the start time from 8:30 to 8.
Let's start with the hard news, such as it was:
"President Bush, seeking support from Democrats and moderate Republicans for an overhaul of Social Security, said tonight that he favored changing the pension system to enable benefits for low-income workers to grow faster than those for wealthy retirees," says the Los Angeles Times .
Now tell me if you see a pattern. The Boston Globe : "President Bush, in a prime-time effort to reverse the perception that his Social Security plan is faltering. . . . "
The Philadelphia Inquirer : "President Bush acted to jump-start his moribund effort to overhaul Social Security last night. . . . "
The Wall Street Journal: "President Bush, struggling to give life to his initiative to revamp Social Security. . . . "
Washington Post : "President Bush made a huge gamble last night in a bid to restore momentum to his flagging proposal to restructure Social Security -- and to his presidency."
What did Bush accomplish? Not much, says the New York Times :
"With his presidency at best becalmed - and at worst beset - just 99 days into his second term, President Bush seized the prime-time power of an East Room news conference for only the fourth time in his tenure in an effort to show that he could still do what he has always done in the face of storms around him: make his own weather.
"But even after his hourlong encounter with reporters was over on Thursday night, the atmosphere remained unsettled. The changes he suggested to help keep Social Security solvent seemed unlikely to unfreeze the stalemate on Capitol Hill over revising the system. He acknowledged that he had no easy fix for high gasoline prices, nor any firm timetable for bringing American troops home from Iraq.
"And his robust defense of John R. Bolton, his nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, did not remove the questions about Mr. Bolton's handling of information or his treatment of subordinates."
The Baltimore Sun says this could be the beginning of the end:
"Last night may have been the moment his plan to add private retirement accounts for younger workers finally started taking off. Or it may have marked the beginning of his exit strategy. . . .
"While outlining, for the first time, a set of principles that addresses the program's projected funding shortfall, Bush also signaled strongly that he's prepared to blame Congress if nothing happens."
Ron Brownstein 's take in the LAT: "After devoting most of his energy this year to his proposal to restructure Social Security, Bush opened the session by expressing concern about rising gas prices. That responded to fears among some congressional Republicans that the party appeared out of touch with the kitchen-table concerns of most Americans while focusing in recent weeks on such issues as judicial appointments, the legal struggle over Terri Schiavo and even the long-term health of Social Security."
Salon's Farhad Manjoo contrasts Bush's standing with his reelection:
"Six months later, Bush is the dog that didn't bite. He approaches the end of the first 100 days of his second term with approval ratings that fall below those of all other reelected presidents in the modern era. Americans aren't happy with the direction in which the country is heading. They don't like the economy, and they don't like the war. They also don't like Bush's plans for the nation. If it isn't already dead, Bush's signature domestic-policy effort, the plan to privatize Social Security, is in a persistent vegetative state; hated by Democrats, independents and even Republicans, only divine intervention can save it."
Manjoo does give Bush this: "It's not entirely accurate to say that the polls show the country as recently turning against Bush.
"What's truer is that the country never really liked him."
What's even truer is that the country (by a slight majority) liked him better than Kerry.
Here's one poster on Ankle Biting Pundits : "One thing I always hate in these press conferences is the ridiculous questions asked by the press. Could they be any more negative and loaded?? 'Now that you're killing our servicemen, do you feel the war was justified??'"
Andrew Sullivan , responding to some comments by Glenn Reynolds, says: "I don't think and have never said that we're in the grips of a 'theocracy.' We live in a constitutional democracy. Iranians live in a theocracy, and I am aware of the difference. But one element of our politics - one that happens to have a veto on Republican social policy - does hold that religion should dictate politics, and that opposition to a certain politics is tantamount to anti-religious bigotry. They're very candid about that, as we saw last Sunday. As Bill Donahue put it: 'The people on the secularist left say we think you're a threat. You know what? They are right.' Very senior Republicans echo the line that there is a filibuster against 'people of faith.'
"This isn't just about gays, although we've felt the sting of the movement more acutely than most. It's about science, stem cell research, the teaching of evolution, free access to medical prescriptions, the legality of living wills, abortion rights, censorship of cable and network television, and so on. The Schiavo case woke a lot of people up. I was already an insomniac on these issues. Maybe I'd be more effective a blogger if I pretended that none of this was troubling, or avoided the gay issue and focused on others. But I'm genuinely troubled by all of it, and by what is happening to the conservative tradition. I'd like to think that a qualified doctor like Bill Frist could say on television that tears cannot transmit HIV. But he could not - because the sectarian base he needs to run for president would not allow it. I'm sorry but that's nuts."
National Review's Larry Kudlow has a cow over Democratic foot-dragging:
"After blocking the judicial nominees, the Democrats will attempt to obstruct all pro-growth, pro-business legislation that makes it to the Senate. On the energy bill, they could attempt to filibuster any legislated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). They could hold up the budget because they don't want to extend the president's tax cuts on capital gains and dividends. If a good asbestos bill comes around, they could obstruct that too. CAFTA and other free-trade opening measures could also be stopped.
"It's already more than judges. Democratic Sen. Max Baucus has a hold on all Treasury Department nominations, including one deputy secretary, two undersecretaries, and three assistant secretaries. One of these assistant positions oversees terrorist money flows. Why is Baucus doing this? Because he doesn't agree with U.S. policy on Cuba. Instead of filling some important posts in an important government department, he's aiding the Castro-Chavez axis.
"Make no mistake about it: The Democratic strategy is to attempt to encroach on presidential authority in every single area. Why do you think John Bolton is having such a tough time being affirmed for the U.N.? Judges, Treasury, Bolton -- they're all linked."
If Kudlow complained about Republicans encroaching on presidential authority during the Clinton years, I don't have any memory of it.
In American Prospect, Terence Samuel sees the Democrats not as obstructionists but as born-again fighters:
"Suddenly the Democratic Party wants to duke it out on everything, from Tom DeLay to John Bolton to everything in between. Despite the beating that Bolton is taking at the hands of Democrats, there remains a better than even chance that he will be confirmed as ambassador to the United Nations -- as long as White House officials continue to fight for him. The bottom line is not matter how much Democrats frag Bolton in the next weeks; the only way his nomination dies is if Republicans abandon him and defy their president.
"It is possible to imagine that Bolton's interpersonal-skills disorders might cost him support among independent GOP senators. But it is nearly impossible to see how the White House could lose this fight over charges that, when you add them up, amount to the fact that Bolton is a hard-driving, ideological mega-jerk who likes to get his way even if it means running people into the ground to get it. How do these qualities become a sufficient disqualifier giving GOP senators enough cover to go against their president?
"They don't!
"For Democrats, however, it does not matter: The Bolton nomination is already paying dividends, and may continue to do so even if they lose. With little reason to think they could win, they've put up a fight and have refused to back off. They've come off looking organized and determined. And if they manage to win this fight, they may also begin to appear effective.
"That's the shocker. All of a sudden, Democrats are shooting to kill."
Peggy Noonan , meanwhile, scoffs at the notion that Bolton is unfit:
"The case of John Bolton is about politics (unhousebroken conservatives must be stopped), payback (you tick me off, I'll pick you off) and personality. People who have worked with him allege he is heavy-handed, curmudgeonly and not necessarily lovably so.
"I don't know him, but I suspect there's some truth in it. Do the charges disqualify him to serve as American ambassador to the United Nations? If reports of his behavior are true--he is tough, pushes too hard, sends pressuring e-mails and may or may not have berated a coworker as he threw paper balls at her hotel door--the answer is no.
"Bad temper is a bad thing, but in government it's a flaw with a long provenance. Bob Dole once slammed a phone down so hard it is said to have splintered. Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos tells us, used to go into 'purple rages.' There is a past and possibly future presidential candidate who would regularly phone one of his staffers at home and ream that person out by screaming base obscenities. (I was impressed to learn the staffer felt free to respond in kind, and did.)
"Harry S. Truman, as president, once threatened in writing to kick the testicles of a journalist (a music reviewer who had been nasty about the talents of Truman's daughter). Lyndon Johnson would physically crowd people and squeeze their arms painfully as he tried to get them to do what he wanted; in his case arm-twisting was really arm-twisting. Richard Nixon . . . physically pushed and humiliated his press secretary, Ron Zeigler."
One difference is that all those presidents, personality warts and all, had to run for election, while senators are the only ones in a position to raise such questions about Bolton.
When it comes to junking the filibuster, Powerline makes the argument that was then, this is now:
"Free Republic has posted the text of the still-timely January 1, 1995 New York Times editorial: Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Here is the Times's 1995 teaching:
" The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. In the last season of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him.
"For years Senate filibusters--when they weren't conjuring up romantic images of Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Smith, passing out from exhaustion on the Senate floor--consisted mainly of negative feats of endurance. Senator Sam Ervin once spoke for 22 hours straight. Outrage over these tactics and their ability to bring Senate business to a halt led to the current so-called two-track system, whereby a senator can hold up one piece of legislation while other business goes on as usua . . .
"Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which senators held passionate convictions, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, dooming any measure that cannot command the 60 required votes ."
Now here's a NYT editorial from Mar. 6, 2005:
" The White House's insistence on choosing only far-right judicial nominees has already damaged the federal courts. Now it threatens to do grave harm to the Senate. If Republicans fulfill their threat to overturn the historic role of the filibuster in order to ram the Bush administration's nominees through, they will be inviting all-out warfare and perhaps an effective shutdown of Congress. . . .
"The Democrats' weapon of choice has been the filibuster, a time-honored Senate procedure that prevents a bare majority of senators from running roughshod."
Yes, Howell Raines was running the page in '95 and Gail Collins runs it now, but still.
Finally, Michael Jackson's ex-wife may have boosted him with her trial testimony, but she didn't make much of an impression on New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser :
"Michael Jackson sure knows how to pick a wife. She must be highly fertile, dumber than sewage, and possess the self-esteem of a housefly. If possible, that lady should be certifiably cuckoo.
"That is the only way to describe Deborah Rowe Jackson -- yes, the long-discarded woman who twice rented out her womb to the King of Freaks still insists on using the last name Jackson, as she waits, pathetically, for him to return to her.
"Debbie finished testifying yesterday, allegedly on behalf of prosecutors who are trying to put away Jacko for molesting boys. Instead, the obese, foulmouthed brood mare used her moment in the spotlight to make a public ploy to win back Jacko's affections. Or just his attention."
I think Debbie would object to obese.
