Facing The Music
It started with the New Orleans blues. Now it's sounding like a real dirge
White House officials billed it as a spontaneous give-and-take between the commander in chief and the troops in Iraq. But last week's long-distance videoconference came off as an overchoreographed piece of political stagecraft designed to put the best possible face on the war. In a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse of West Wing legerdemain, the supposedly private rehearsal of the exchange was inadvertently transmitted to newsrooms nationwide just before the "real" event, which was carried live on cable. After their coaching session with Defense Department official Allison Barber, one soldier after another dutifully praised the war effort and described how much the Iraqi military has improved recently.
Related News
White House Week: The GOP's sleeper issue
Whispers: Maybe Souter's the male Harriet Miers
The episode was widely ridiculed as a PR stunt gone awry and, more broadly, seen as another blow to the image of competence that was once a pillar of the Bush White House. The criticism couldn't have come at a worse time for a president struggling to hold his party together and boost his approval ratings. Instead, he came across, as he did after Hurricane Katrina, as the leader of the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Even Laura Bush was recruited for damage control in still another troubling episode--the rising furor surrounding the president's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. The usually noncontroversial first lady remarked that some of Miers's opponents could be guilty of sexism. But Mrs. Bush's comments on NBC's Today show seemed to backfire, as those opponents howled that the first lady was off base in questioning their motives.
All in all, Bush's presidency is in more trouble than ever. Only 38 percent of Americans say he is doing a good job, a new low, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press; 59 percent, according to an NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll, say the country is on the "wrong track."
More ominous for Bush, fissures are opening up within the Republican Party. The Pew poll found that 47 percent of Republicans, once united behind nearly everything Bush did, now say his policies have made the deficit worse, and many are expressing doubts about the Iraq war. Another explosive issue--immigration--will probably break into the open by early next year.
Most urgent, though, conservative leaders are deeply divided over Miers. The White House legal counsel has never been a judge, has virtually no experience in constitutional law, and has written almost nothing that would provide her senatorial inquisitors insights into her legal philosophy. Among her doubters: various Republican senators and a batch of conservative activists and commentators ranging from Gary Bauer and William Kristol to Patrick Buchanan and George Will. Hoping to shore up support on the right, Bush stuck his foot into another swamp when he defended the use of Miers's evangelical Christianity as a rallying point for conservatives. "They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions," Bush told reporters. "And part of Harriet Miers's life is her religion." Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in what was interpreted as a signal to conservatives, told MSNBC he believes Miers is "pro-life" (although he offered no evidence).
advertisement
