White House Watch: Scoffing at lame-duck talk
Despite persistent suggestions in the media that President Bush has become a lame duck because of his mediocre polls, top administration officials suggest that recent legislative victories indicate he may turn out to be one of the most effective second-term presidents in recent history.
"It's so phony it's laughable," said a top administration official of the reports. In fact, some aides are comparing Bush's second term to Ronald Reagan's foreign policy-focused second term, even claiming that the president will have a larger legacy if he gets to pick two new Supreme Court justices and a chief judge as expected.
To pump up insiders depressed by news reports of the president's poor polling, some insiders have reprinted a Washington Post story from May 26, 1985, that suggests Reagan was washed up just six months into his term. The story says: "But despite his landslide reelection to a second term only six months ago, as Reagan prepares to make tax simplification his new top priority, he finds himself a considerably less imposing force in the Capitol than he was four years ago." Critics have made similar suggestions about Bush, but insiders cite his recent judicial victories, the surprising Senate passage of CAFTA, the likely passage of the energy bill, and expectations that after a heated fight he will win approval of his Supreme Court nominee or nominees.
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