Welcome to Katalusis for progressive views on politics, religion, environmental issues,
and popular culture. (Photo of the Mississippi River
from the University Club in St. Paul, MN.)
In yesterday’s post at Katalusis, I mentioned how Barack Obama is steadily morphing into George W. Bush. Neither Bush, nor Obama was qualified for the presidency and both men attempted to compensate for their deficiencies by picking high profile advisors. Lacking the experience and gravitas necessary to overrule the likes of Rove, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, the likable Bush made one serious mistake after another during his eight-year tenure.
As the Obama spin machine has it, their even more likable guy’s supreme confidence enabled him to appoint strong advisors when it was apparent he was trying to shore up his areas of weakness. Anyone who watched the debates in the Democratic primary knew that Hillary Clinton ran circles around Obama on foreign policy issues, but it’s not Secretary of State Clinton who is now leading our new president astray.
His advisors on the economic front aren't helping much in this worldwide financial crisis. But in foreign policy, it looks like the generals are intimidating Obama on security matters such as prolonging the Iraq War and releasing the torture photos. And don’t expect Obama to stand tall in dealing with the tough be-medalled guys anytime soon.
I am told that General Odierno's objections to the timing of the release of a new round of photos of detainees being abused in Iraq were decisive to President Obama's decision Wednesday to reverse himself and decide against the release of those photos.
I am surprised by Obama's reversal. I wasn't so taken aback in February when he went along with his generals and abandoned his campaign promise to withdraw a brigade a month from Iraq this year, and instead endorsed a plan that kept troop levels there pretty steady this year. But to get rolled twice -- well, he must think he is running up some pretty big chits with them. I know he is trying to do the right thing but at some point he is going to have to say, My way or the highway.
Has anyone else noticed that Obama has begun to emulate Dubya’s – “In Texas we call that walking” – swagger?
An article titled Obama Uses Poll, Focus Groups to Sell Stimulus Plan to Congress, by Bloomberg’s Lorraine Woellert and Hans Nichols, confirms one of my worst fears about the incoming Obama Administration.
Woellert and Nichols write:
“President-elect Barack Obama’s top political aides are transplanting their campaign tactics to the policy arena, using data from polls and focus groups to shape the debate over a stimulus plan that may cost at least $775 billion.
“David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political adviser, along with campaign media adviser Jim Margolis, are encouraging lawmakers to use the word “recovery” instead of recession, and “investment” instead of “infrastructure.” Those recommendations came from focus-group research indicating that such framing would make the package more appealing to voters.
‘“The Obama camp is trying to build support for the stimulus proposals, which have encountered resistance from lawmakers of both parties over size and cost. Republicans have employed similar tactics in past policy debates, notably when they labeled the estate tax as the “death” tax in arguing for its repeal.”’
In previous posts, I’ve highlighted commonalities of President Bush and President-elect Obama.Now it appears that 11 days before he takes office, Obama is already following in the footsteps of his predecessor by confusing campaigning with governing; arguably one of the major reasons for the Bush Administration’s many failures.
With Karl Rove, his chief campaign strategist at his side in the White House, President Bush never learned the difference between campaigning and governing.
(You may remember that my concern for the president-elect’s kinship with Dubyaheightened with the announcement that Obama was taking Rove’s counterpart, David Axelrod, along with him to the White House.)
Here’s a flashback to the early days of Bush’s second term:
On May 20, 2005, the Washington Post’s Peter Baker wrote:
‘“The obligatory campaign-style signs were hung behind the stage, the familiar hand-selected "conversation participants" seated next to him. The friendly, invitation-only audience cheered with appropriate enthusiasm. And when President Bush took the microphone, he spun out more or less the same speech he has given dozens of times before.
“On the 78th day of a 60-day road show, the president's nationwide Social Security tour, even to some of his own aides, has the feel of a past-its-prime Broadway production that has been held over while other, newer shows steal the spotlight.
‘“I'm just beginning this debate," Bush said in an appearance at the Milwaukee Art Museum, his 32nd Social Security event this year. "I'm going to spend whatever time it takes to continue traveling this country and make it absolutely clear to the people, we've got a problem.”’
The rest is history. Bush’s Social Security initiative failed.
In the Bloomberg piece, Woellert and Nichols quote Dick Morris, pollster for the Clinton Administration:
“We polled everything, every policy initiative, everything you can think of,” Morris said. “It’s become pretty standard.”
‘“By contrast, President George W. Bush “didn’t really poll policy, he polled the presentation.”’
As to whether Obama would follow the Clinton or Bush model, Woellert and Nichols report that Morris said, “My guess is that Obama will {be} more like Clinton than Bush.”
That would be the same Clinton that Obama and team denigrated throughout the Democratic primary.
But for the sake of America’s suffering people, let’s hope that however Axelrod, et al, decide to frame it, the much-needed stimulus plan, appropriately reviewed and amended by Congress, will be passed in a timely fashion.
So who cares about Karl Rove’s opinions anyway? I ask myself, as he heads on down the road where President Bush has promised soon to follow. I’m hooked, though, and Rove’s stuff about Hillary’s “negatives” prompts a quick search of archived NewsHour transcripts at PBS from the 2000 and 2004 campaigns.
Those were the days, you’ll remember, when pollsters and pundits pointed to Bush’s moral character and the indisputable fact that Americans liked him: “He’s the kind of guy you could enjoy sitting down with in a bar and swilling a beer or two,” his supporters were given to boast.
Replying to a question from Margaret Warner in 2000, pollster John Zogby opined: “Well, I think basically if you go back to 1988, that's the classic example. Dukakis never really built up his likeability, therefore it was easy to knock him down. But America likes George W. Bush. They seem to like what they see. And at the same time, they don't like Al Gore very much.”
In the transcript of a David Brooks and Mark Shields analysis from the 2004 campaign, Shields detects change in the air: “I’d add one more thing: George Bush’s likeability edge, which I think everybody acknowledges over John Kerry, and his congeniality and just his naturalness were bigger assets in 2000 than they are in 2004.”
Shields continued: “I think Andy Kohut {pollster} was absolutely right. This is not a popularity contest. He {Kerry} cannot be unlikable, but he’s not going to out charm George Bush.”
Whatever. In 2004 the American electorate allowed charm to trump substance once again by electing Bush to a second term.
August 2007: Charm has worn out its welcome in the White House. An article from CNN online the other day discusses poll results revealing American skepticism of the upcoming Petraeus report on the war in Iraq. The article quotes Polling Director Keating Holland: "It does seem to indicate that anyone associated with the Bush administration may be a less than credible messenger for the message that there is progress being made in Iraq.”
In the end, choosing charm over substance in electing a president appears not to have served our nation well. Hopefully, the majority in our electorate will take the time in the 2008 campaign to evaluate the candidates on the basis of more serious qualities, such as knowledge, wisdom, experience, and genuine compassion ― think Katrina.
Which brings me back to Hillary Clinton. I doubt that anyone will ever describe her as enthusiastically as they did George W. Bush as someone they’d enjoy having a beer with. But, hey, let’s give Hillary a break: Dubya has a lot more experience as a barfly than she does.
