Inside the Bunker

by DemFromCT

What does the faith-based WH do when confronted with reality?

Inside the White House, the staff is exhausted and the mood is defiant. Republicans are clamoring for a new chief of staff, the West Wing just cut its losses on a deal that would have given a Dubai company control of some terminal operations at six American ports and President Bush's approval rating is at record lows.

But senior staff members insist that Mr. Bush is in good spirits, that calls from his party to inject new blood to the White House make him ever more stubborn to keep the old and that he has become so inured to outside criticism that he increasingly tunes it out. There is no sense of crisis, they say, even over rebellious Republicans in Congress, because the White House has been in almost constant crisis since Sept. 11, 2001, and Mr. Bush has never had much regard for Congress anyway.

"You know, people say to me, my buddies in Texas, 'How do you handle all this stuff?' " Mr. Bush said at a gathering of newspaper editors Friday in Washington. "You know, it's just after a while you get used to it."

You get used to handling it poorly. And when your standards are so low, what's another disaster?

Despite their revolt over the Dubai ports deal, Republicans say they remain loyal to President George W. Bush. But there are signs many may distance themselves from him as the 2006 congressional elections near.

"I'm sure some members already have, and I imagine there will be others," said a Republican senator who asked not to be named.

"Republicans are determined that they aren't going to lose these elections because they're seen as too close to Bush," said a former Republican leadership aide. "In the past six years, Congress has taken its cues from the White House. I think you will see that change."

Hey, as the Times points out, what, me worry?

As Mr. Bush struggles yet again to change public opinion on Iraq, Republicans say there is no escaping the truth that the White House has careened from crisis to crisis in the second term and that the president has yet to develop a coherent agenda. Every development, they say, from Vice President Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a fellow hunter to the arrest on Thursday of Mr. Bush's former domestic policy adviser, Claude A. Allen, on theft charges, underscores a White House that is seeming to lose its once-vaunted discipline and control.

The list of things that are going to get better before November are... hmmm. Short list. Not Iraq. Not the economy. Not Katrina clean-up. More from the Times:

"It's always the same story," said an administration official who no longer works in the White House but who would evaluate its problems only on the condition of anonymity. "They have a plan — an elaborate plan of the president's message, day by day. But there's something in the system that has a hard time coping with the unexpected," said the official, citing Hurricane Katrina, and the dispute over Harriet E. Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court, and now the port issue.

Well, of course they have a hard time coping. This Administration still thinks they can make their own reality. The claim to have an"acute situational awareness" of what's going on. Yeah, right. But if you wanted to know why Bush is even as high as the mid -30's in the polls, Froomkin has the explanation:

In yesterday's column, I asked you readers to weigh in on the assertion by an unnamed White House aide in this Jim Hoagland column that the war on terror requires an unfettered president, and that the American public "understands and supports that unpleasant reality, whatever the media and intellectuals say."

I asked: Is that an accurate analysis of the situation on the ground? Is there a silent majority out there that understands and supports the need for a strongman in the White House? Is this White House -- so often accused of making up its own reality -- in this case actually more in touch with the "unpleasant reality" of post-9/11 America than the media and intellectuals?

...

But there were a lot of interesting points made -- many of which you don't hear very often inside the Beltway -- about why some Americans do indeed seem ready to support Bush pretty much no matter how much executive power he asserts.

In the broadest strokes, you described a segment of the population less concerned about Washington obsessions like policy and the separation of powers -- and more influenced by Bush's Christianity, fear of terrorism, and an aversion to questioning authority.

The "questioning authority" thing was well covered by DHinMI in February. So understand that in the bunker, fantasy always seems like reality - and there's always some toadie willing and able to reinforce the illusion. That's true in the WH, in Congress, and in the artificial bubbles Bush moves through. Reality won't set in until 2008, unless a Dem Congress forces the issue in 2006.

Comments

[Redshift]

he has become so inured to outside criticism that he increasingly tunes it out.

How do you "increase" from 100% tuning out? Maybe he's gone from firing anyone who tells him something he doesn't like to letting them tell him and ignoring them? Seriously, I'm trying to imagine what these "sources" could be trying to say -- the impression I've always had is that he's never paid any attention to anyone who disagrees with him, except to get peeved at them. The only chance anyone has to influence his thinking is to get in before he's made up his mind.

"Even more stubborn" is about the only phrase in that section that seems to carry any meaning other than "he's acting the way he always has, but we're trying to make it sound like something new."

[howard]

as bush's approval ratings drop to nearly the level "enjoyed," if i may use the word, by nixon, we are reminded that yes, there is indeed a good number of americans who will accept absolutely any crap that the president does under any circumstances. this is not surprising, of course: no nation is free from the temptations of authoritarianism, and i'd say that the world is, in many ways, a more complex place than it was in 1973-74, making those temptations ever more attractive.

but fortunately, we're not talking about a majority of americans here, and there are no circumstances i can imagine under which a majority ever again approves of bush.

[Ed N Sted]

I also think the Claude Allen affair is much more serious than I've seen acknowledged thus far.

While it's obvious many conservatives, including George Bush, had a serious error in judgement with respect to Claude Allen's character, there is a much more serious side to this that warrants further investigation.

It is highly unlikely that these are the first crimes committed by Allen. People who would participate in a theft like this from Target generally have character flaws that run deep and started long ago.

The question that needs to be asked and answered at this point is: What other crimes has Mr. Allen committed and did any crimes involve a misuse of his position either at Health and Human Services or in the Office of the President?

If this man would steal from Target, I suggest he would likely have no moral compunction to prevent him from stealing from the American taxpayer.

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