Mike Allen writes up a piece on Josh Bolten for Time Magazine. It almost reads like a parody. But it’s as serious as a heart attack. The Republicans understand the stakes in November.
If we don’t keep Congress, there won’t be a legacy,” said a presidential adviser. “The legacy will be investigations and fights over Executive privilege” with newly empowered Democrats.
So the White House is now on a survival footing, and Bolten is essentially planning a six-month campaign that will not only prevent a Republican hemorrhage in the fall but might even produce accomplishments for Bush in his lame-duck years.
Another way of putting this would be to say that the administration is aware that they are running a criminal enterprise that commits illegal espionage, violates our treaties, and loots billions of dollars from our treasury. And they are aware that the only thing standing between them and a jail cell is majorities in both houses of Congress. Unfortunately for them, their plan is comically inept.
Friends and colleagues of Bolten told TIME about an informal, five-point “recovery plan” for Bush that is aimed at pushing him up slightly in opinion polls and reassuring Republican activists, whose disaffection could cost him dearly in November.
That’s right…it’s actually called a “recovery plan”. Maybe they haven’t thought about how that sounds when the President is an alcoholic. The moronic and insulting plan is below the fold.
First they will appeal to the latent racism of the Republican base.
1 DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed-up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). “It’ll be more guys with guns and badges,” said a proponent of the plan. “Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV.” Bush has long insisted he wants a guest-worker program paired with stricter border enforcement, but House Republicans have balked at temporary legalization for immigrants, so the President’s ambition of using the issue to make the party more welcoming to Hispanics may have to wait.
After Bush gets done parading around the border in an ATV, he’ll give more cash away to the rich.
2 MAKE WALL STREET HAPPY. In an effort to curry favor with dispirited Bush backers in the investment world, the Administration will focus on two tax measures already in the legislative pipeline–extensions of the rate cuts for stock dividends and capital gains. “We need all these financial TV shows to be talking about how great the economy is, and that only happens when their guests from Wall Street talk about it,” said a presidential adviser. “This is very popular with investors, and a lot of Republicans are investors.”
If you didn’t know it before, now you do. A lot of investors are Republicans. Bolten plans to keep it that way. And then they plan on taking credit for it. Be be warned, the following paragraph contains gut-busting ironic comedy.
3 BRAG MORE. White House officials who track coverage of Bush in media markets around the country said he garnered his best publicity in months from a tour to promote enrollment in Medicare’s new prescription-drug plan. So they are planning a more focused and consistent effort to talk about the program’s successes after months of press reports on start-up difficulties. Bolten’s plan also calls for more happy talk about the economy. With gas prices a heavy drain on Bush’s popularity, his aides want to trumpet the lofty stock market and stable inflation and interest rates. They also plan to highlight any glimmer of success in Iraq, especially the formation of a new government, in an effort to balance the negative impression voters get from continued signs of an incubating civil war.
Done laughing? They actually did say that the best publicity Bush has received in months was over the Medicare D(istaster) program and that they plan on hyping any glimmer of hope in Iraq. That’s a winning plan. And since it doesn’t have a prayer of being effective, the next bullet point takes on added importance.
4 RECLAIM SECURITY CREDIBILITY. This is the riskiest, and potentially most consequential, element of the plan, keyed to the vow by Iran to continue its nuclear program despite the opposition of several major world powers. Presidential advisers believe that by putting pressure on Iran, Bush may be able to rehabilitate himself on national security, a core strength that has been compromised by a discouraging outlook in Iraq. “In the face of the Iranian menace, the Democrats will lose,” said a Republican frequently consulted by the White House. However, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll this April 8-11, found that 54% of respondents did not trust Bush to “make the right decision about whether we should go to war with Iran.”
Four down and one to go. First they appeal to racist fears, then they give gobs of cash to the rich, then they brag about giving gobs of cash to the rich, then they nuke Iran. And if that doesn’t work, then they will hire Tony Snow of Fox News to be their Press Secretary.
5 COURT THE PRESS. Bolten is extremely guarded around reporters, but he knows them and, unlike some of his colleagues, is not scared of them. Administration officials said he believes the White House can work more astutely with journalists to make its case to the public, and he recognizes that the President has paid a price for the inclination of some on his staff to treat them dismissively or high-handedly. His first move, working with counselor Dan Bartlett, was to offer the press secretary job to Tony Snow of Fox News radio and television, a former newspaper editorial writer and onetime host of Fox News Sunday who served George H.W. Bush as speechwriting director. Snow, a father of three and a sax player, is the bona fide outsider that Republican allies have long prescribed for Bushworld and would bring irreverence to a place that hasn’t seen a lot of fun lately. “White Houses are weird places,” he told a 2004 panel on White House speechwriting. Snow had his colon removed after he was found to have cancer last year, but his doctors have approved the possibility of his taking the grueling post.
I’m sorry about Tony Snow’s health problems, but I don’t think he can salvage this administration in light of points one through four. The more I see of this administration the less I can understand how they have managed to get elected in the first place. Nothing in this five-point plan has any hope of stopping the bleeding. Well, nothing except that part about nuking Iran. That would at least change the subject from incompetence and criminality to a discussion on the Book of Revelation.
