George W. Bush

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the pandering Presidential politics of Clinton, McCain and Obama. McCain pandered on the gas tax and Hillary and Barack pandered on trade.  read more »

The Return of History and the End of Dreams

 

By Robert Kagan

Alfred A. Knopf, 115 pages, $19.95

Consider the natural history of the Detroit muscle car: The Mustang began life in 1963 as a stripped-down roadster in the European tradition. As the culture and market matured, Ford responded each year with ad hoc modifications and additions, so that by 1972, the same basic car had become a 3,300-pound, 375-horsepower V-8 behemoth.  read more »

“It’s not the best time in the world to be a White House correspondent,” said Bill Plante on the sultry afternoon of Saturday, April 26. This was at Tammy Haddad’s annual pre-White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner lawn party. The blooming wisteria was strangling the woods that surround her house.

These nearly-over final four years of George W. Bush are Mr. Plante’s third second-term presidency in his years as CBS White House correspondent. “I guess he could still drop a bomb somewhere—there are people who think he means to do it,” Mr. Plante said.  read more »

Tomorrow night marks the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, D.C. Members of the press corps (including some Media Mob contributors who are already on their way—note low posting rate today!) will have a chance to clink glasses with the president and his cabinet and remind themselves that despite five years of war, an economy some are already calling a Depression, and a painful slog of an election season, it's all in good fun. L'chaim! To us!

This year's event will be emceed by CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson, whom the W.H.C.A.'s president (and ABC News correspondent), Ann Compton, is really excited about: "Craig Ferguson is a fresh take on late night TV. As a new citizen, a first-time uncommitted voter and someone who has looked at American politics from the outside, I am looking forward to his unique take on our system."

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In his ceaseless effort to maintain his record as the worst President on the environment since the creation of the EPA in 1970, President George W. Bush has somehow managed to outdo himself with his latest Rose Garden pronouncement on climate change. He has decided that we should continue to increase emissions of greenhouse gasses, but at a slower rate of growth than today and in 2025 we should finally stop the growth of these dangerous emissions.

You can tell the President’s team must have lost some of its spin doctors, because this latest effort in environmental public relations had no snappy title. Earlier in his administration we saw the “Healthy Forest” initiative that was a thinly disguised attack on the nation’s wilderness; and the “Clear Skies” program that was a clumsy and ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the nation’s air pollution controls. Now, I propose we call this latest endeavor the “Floating Cities Initiative” because that is what we are going to need to survive this pathetic excuse for a policy on an issue as significant as global climate change.  read more »

As reported, Hillary Clinton is calling for George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.

Nancy Pelosi, who has taken an active role in the fight over remaining uncommitted superdelegates, made the same public demand earlier this month.

The statement just released by the Clinton campaign:  read more »

BUSH'S LAW: THE REMAKING OF AMERICAN JUSTICE
By Eric Lichtblau
Pantheon Books, 334 pages, $26.95

Back in another world, my undergraduate days in the early 1980’s, a roommate of mine loved the tidbit (gleaned from my Washington childhood) that if you uttered certain words on a long-distance call, a transcript might end up on the desk of some spy catcher at the National Security Agency. “Hey, Pete, got those I … C … B … M’s for me today?” became a sort of punch line. “The briefcase with cash will be in the phone booth!”

I doubt college kids today are playing the same sort of game, just as the rest of us know better than to joke about explosives in front of T.S.A. inspectors. You might actually get yourself in trouble.  read more »

Postcard From the Edge: The New York Times' Baghdad Bureau blog features a heartfelt essay by Mudhafer al-Husaini, a young Iraqi employee of the paper, entitled My Generation, in which al-Husaini tells of college life immediately following the fall of Baghdad: "Four years which were supposed to be my prettiest years ever, because you don’t get such a chance twice in Iraq, became my worst."

The Sound of Silence: In The Guardian, writer Nicholas Lezard profiles the legendary Moxon Garbutt, a writer whose alleged raison d’être "was to leave no trace of himself behind, except his influence—and even that to be ambiguous and tentative." For some strange reason, all the commenters on the site think a famous writer who never wrote a word is an April Fool's prank. Lezard jumps into the fray to declare "Moxon Garbutt is as real as you or I. I can't think why everyone assumes this is an April Fool." He would've been more convincing if he said nothing at all.

Speaking of Fools...: Didja hear the one about the Tribune Company changing it's name to ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc.? We're laughin' all the way to our buyouts. (WSJ via Romenesko)

Featuring a Cast of Over 4,000: ABC News' Marcus Baram reports that Oliver Stone's W—about a humble, self-made man who remade the world in his humble image—begins shooting this month with Josh Brolin as George W. Bush. Hey, wait, is it a comedy in the spirit of Dr. Strangelove? "In one scene, Bush practices his parachute landing in the White House pool but forgets to properly release the harness and sinks to the bottom. In another scene, Rumsfeld doodles a drawing of Condoleeza Rice standing on a piano with a globe spinning on her finger."

The most puzzling aspect of John McCain’s political persona is his habitual attraction to George W. Bush’s bad ideas. Their shared enthusiasm for invading Iraq and then escalating the war is why “McSame” will soon become the new shorthand for the Arizona Republican, replacing “maverick”—but that isn’t the only reason. He doesn’t just endorse the disastrous foreign policy initiatives; he loves the failed domestic policy schemes, too.

Specifically Mr.  read more »

Today, in the New York Times, Richard Perez-Pena notes that five years into the war in Iraq, "it would be hard to tell from a quick look at television news, newspapers and the Internet" that the country remains at war.

Tonight and tomorrow night on PBS, the producers at Frontline will do their part to thrust the subject back into the national spotlight.  read more »

MONDAY

Don’t call it a comeback. Britney Spears dusts herself off and puts on some glasses (prop?) to play an amorous receptionist on How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:30 p.m.). Sadly, between her custody battles, mental breakdowns, and her ill-chosen affair with a paparazzo, the cameo amounts to the only good press the fallen pop star has received in some time. (With that kind of drama, it’s clear why she—and her people—chose for her to be on a sitcom.) Her appearance will likely boost the show’s already strong ratings—it had its second-strongest numbers ever last week for its first new episode after the strike-induced hiatus—introducing the show to a larger swath of America and perhaps finally making it a legitimate inheritor of the Friends mantle.  read more »

Barack Obama delivered yet another lengthy speech today, this one on Iraq and national security, this morning in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Here are his remarks--titled "The World Beyond Iraq"--as prepared for delivery:

Just before America’s entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress: “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war,” he said. “...But the right is more precious than peace.” Wilson’s words captured two awesome responsibilities that test any Commander-in-Chief – to never hesitate to defend America, but to never go to war unless you must. War is sometimes necessary, but it has grave consequences, and the judgment to go to war can never be undone.  read more »

 

Today is apparently the 35th anniversary of the day John McCain was released from a Vietnam P.O.W. camp, and his campaign has released this Web video in honor of the occasion.

Notably, he hints at the role of a manifest destiny in his ambitions, with the spot's last line echoing language used by the current president to describe his path to the White House.  read more »

 As Ralph Nader becomes the Harold Stassen of the 21st century and a running joke to everyone except Al Gore, we sometimes forget that a generation ago (When Stassen was our perennial candidate for President), Nader was a founder of the consumer and environmental movement. How does someone evolve from one of the most credible policy advocates in the country, to a punch line on late night television?

When you buckle your seatbelts and when your air bag deploys—saving your life—you should thank Ralph Nader. The Clean Air Act, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act are at least partially due to Nader’s skill as an advocate in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

I mention the history because Nader did not build his reputation as a consumer and environmental advocate by pushing symbolism at the expense of results. He must know that his popularity is trending down.  read more »

A couple of observations about one of the big Clinton talking points after yesterday’s Ohio win: the notion that you can't win in the fall without winning the big swing states that Hillary Clinton is winning in the primaries.

("We need a Democratic candidate who can win battleground states like Ohio!" she said last night.)  read more »

The 2008 presidential election here in the United States is very important to the French. How important? “Too important," said Douglas Herbert, business editor with the TV news station France 24, "to be left to the American electorate to decide.”

In this, France is not alone. Across Europe, journalists and editors interviewed by The Observer say, people are coming down with the 2008 fever.  read more »

In this clip, Chris Rock introduces Barack Obama—the candidate for “progressive people that are not scared,” Mr. Rock says, who “want to be on the right side of history, because you’ll be real embarrassed if he won and you wasn’t down with it.” The comedian adds that the “smart” senator from Illinois, who he has met a few times, “is a change, and it’s time for a change.” After all, a new regime is needed, in the funnyman’s words, because “anything would be better than [George] Bush. You know, Bush, my god, it’s just…You knew he didn’t care. In a way, Bush’s presidency has been a success, because he hasn’t let us down. It was everything we thought it was going to be and worse. It was like a horror movie—man, that really scared me!” Mr. Rock says to loud applause, before drawing a distinction between the way the president handled Hurricane Katrina (no time for the black people drowning) and the wildfires in L.A. (pour Katrina water on the white people who are burning).

The McCain campaign just announced that Jeb Bush, older brother of George W. and former Governor of Florida, is endorsing John McCain.

Although his family is hardly at its most popular, the elder Bush brother's endorsement makes a statement about the Republican establishment rallying around McCain. George W. has been encouraging Republicans to support McCain and called the Senator a "true conservative," he has stopped short of an endorsement.

Jeb confirmed that he wrote a check to McCain's campaign over the weekend.

Release after the jump.  read more »

MONDAY

It’s George Bush’s final State of the Union (All Networks, 9 p.m.). Incidentally, the one year when the networks are scrambling for programming and therefore probably welcome the intrusion is the one year where no one could care less. The failing economy, Iraq, and his legacy will more than likely be on the agenda. Watch and wait for the presidential candidates to trip over themselves trying to respond first.

Speaking of wastes of time, it can’t replace an actual new episode, but Gossip Girl Revealed (CW, 8 p.m.) should satisfy your weekly fix for the posh adolescents. In the show’s new time slot, it promises plenty of bonus features—commentary, deleted scenes, profiles—and a re-airing of the pilot. Sadly, this is meant as an introduction to the uninitiated and harkens the beginning of repeats. Oh, they’re too young to die!  read more »

WALTERBORO, S.C.—At a panel and Q&A session this afternoon, one attendee asked Bill Clinton about how accessible Hillary would be as President. After speaking to the topic, he digressed, and challenged the Bush administration’s rationale for warrantless wiretaps.

“After 9/11, I think most people thought we may need a stronger President to deal with the terrorist threat, but a stronger presidency does not mean an unaccountable presidency,” Clinton said.  read more »

President Bush had planned to endorse an ad campaign today against prescription drug abuse, but the event was postponed in the wake of actor Heath Ledger's death, the AP reports.  read more »

As the bromides and bunkum of primary season lurch into caucus-eve overdrive in Iowa, the rest of the world has upstaged the election-addled news cycle. A new Osama bin Laden video, a Colombian hostage crisis and—most of all—the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto have made weary onlookers newly aware that there will be a long, grave to-do list awaiting whichever candidate prevails in the cartoonish 2008 presidential race.

Bhutto’s death marks the most sobering setback for the U.S.  read more »

Hillary Clinton’s campaign just sent out a press release announcing that, for the sixth straight year, she is the most admired woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll of Americans.

The press release does not mention that the same poll found George W. Bush to be the most admired man, in front of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Barack Obama, according to this Gallup video report of the poll.

Press release after the jump.  read more »

Back in 2000, John McCain made could make what seemed like an extraordinarily powerful argument to Republican primary voters: Nominate me and we are guaranteed to win in the fall.

The numbers backed him up. Toward the end of the ’00 primary season, polls showed McCain leading Al Gore by more than 20 points. George W. Bush, McCain’s G.O.P. rival, was ahead of Gore by just four points.

But Republicans sided with Bush anyway. And now, Democrats may be poised to do something similar.

(Continued after the jump)  read more »

Even when George W. Bush tells the truth, he cannot quite bring himself to tell the whole truth. Although the White House released a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, indicating that the Iranians shut down their program more than four years ago, the president treated those conclusions as a vindication more than an embarrassment.

With the usual propagandists at Fox News Channel and elsewhere filtering the N.I.E. to cover up their mistakes, it is worth reproducing a few of the new report’s most salient quotes. “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” said the N.I.E. text, reflecting a strong consensus among the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies. “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005 [when the intelligence community prepared its last N.I.E. on this subject]. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.”  read more »

For George W. Bush, “the speech was the thing,” writes Michael Gerson. “He used major speeches to push his own policy processes for new ideas; to clarify his thinking as he edited; to announce his commitments in serious detail; and to drive the news of the day.”

Like much of the fawning insider anecdotage collected in Mr. Gerson’s new book—indeed, like the book’s sonorous title—this sounds at first like an agreeable virtue, until you start to consider just what the writer is actually saying. What, for example, does it mean to “push … policy processes” in the hope of fleshing out new ideas? Shouldn’t the ideas be in place before policy processes are pushed, so that the pushers have a basic sense of what they’re up to? Shouldn’t the time for clear thinking come before a chief executive edits, not as he careens through the text with his blue pencil?  read more »

Here's Adolfo Carrion at the Stonewall Democratic Club last night, leading a discussion about President Bush that drew laughs from the crowd when a woman suggested that the president is a "drunk, drug addict."

Carrion jokes, "She said it, not me."

Steve Kornacki draws parallels between the Clinton campaign and Walter Mondale’s in 1984.

Also from the Observer, Niall Stanage reports on Chuck Hagel at the Council of Foreign Relations, where he spoke about the current president, his willingness to consider running on a Democratic ticket, and his (apparently high) opinion of Hillary Clinton.

Tuesday’s meeting in Annapolis—not to be confused with a summit or conference—indicates once again that adult supervision never did gain control of the second Bush White House.  read more »

The most important question, “Is human rights more important than American national security?”, did not create a stir. But Obama answered it best.  read more »

Rumors of a return to trans-Atlantic harmony are premature for the moment.  read more »

The White House has of late turned its attention to an unlikely candidate: the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  read more »

It can often to seem to rank-and-file Democrats as if the Republicans are still in charge of Congress: Nearly a year after their party picked up 31 House and six Senate seats, the war in Iraq still rages, with tens of thousands of more troops deployed now than then. This failure to force even a beginning to the end of the war accounts for the painfully poor poll standing of the Democratic-led Congress, with the party faithful even more restless and frustrated than independent voters.  read more »

Meet Tim Crotty and Lila Moosad, vacationing educators from Australia who spent a small part of their afternoon enjoying the weather in City Hall Park. Today is only the first full day of their weeklong trip in America, but they’ve already formed opinions about the president elections here.

Crotty's take: “If somebody like Giuliani was the candidate for the Republican Party, it would be a nice change from the sort of people they’ve had over the last decade or two.”

Crotty goes on to say Giuliani would be pretty popular where he comes from. Or at least, “More popular than your current president."

Here's a clip from yesterday’s press conference where I asked former Republican Mike Bloomberg about greeting current Republican George W. Bush later in the day.

“Their relationship with me is not partisan,” the mayor said. “I guarantee you President Bush will be charming and nice.”

I'll post a pool report of the meeting as soon as I can get one.

Here are eight states where Democrats could pick off Republican senators as a result.  read more »

Mr. Giuliani could be buoyed in the primary by the contrast between him and an administration so bereft of administrative competence.  read more »

What is most notable about President Bush’s decision to nominate Michael Mukasey for Attorney General is how tightly his hands were tied. This is not the selection the president would have made if he had a solid approval rating and if his party still controlled the Senate.  read more »

Governor Bill Richardson has found the day's most creative way to attack the Bush administration.

In an email his campaign just sent out to reporters titled "Governor Bill Richardson Statement on New England Pat