A Few Questions

[Brad]

This is from Peggy Noonan, well known conservative columnist at opinionjournal.com. I agree with these sentiments. I consider myself a conservative, but have lately left the Republican party for similar reasons. While I agree with many of the decisions the President has made, I also disagree with many. And where, at one point I thought I understood why he did what he did, I am no longer so sure - I don't see a consistent philosophy guiding his actions. Bush is not alone either. I don't hear many elected Republicans making the case. That bothers me, if for no other reason than I think that is the main job of our elected leaders. Not merely to make decisions, but to explain and justify them to the rest of us.

I still think there are 2 possibilities for Bush.

1. He goes down in history as one of our great Presidents. Hard to imagine, I know, but many if not most of the "greats" were incredibly unpopular in their own time. For all the failings and missed opportunities, and for all the division and controversy, history may well judge him to have gotten the most crucial issue of his era right. Everything else may seem pretty trivial through the lense of time.

2. He is remembered, or forgotten, as one of our most ineffectual leaders. You could make a case that, in our time, Bill Clinton carries a lot of similarites to Franklin Pierce, and Bush is like Buchanan, even if he fancies himself a Lincoln. The problems that finally led to the Civil War were already brewing during both of these administrations and were either ignored, mishandled, or exacerbated. Buchanan tried to deal with them, but for the most part dealt badly, and in the end his presidency just kind of petered out. President Bush also has tried to grab several bulls by the horns during his administration - immigration, taxes, terrorism, education, the Supreme Court - but at this point it's hard to point out an area where he has been overwhelmingly successful. And I think the main reason for this is his utter inability to communicate. Again, I'm speaking as one who has supported a lot of the things this President has done. But you have to admit that, with George Bush, if you don't already agree with him, he's not going to be able to get you there. That's a tremendous fault in a President. There have been other Presidents who weren't particularly verbose who did a great job, and I don't mean that he needs to be on TV every day or every week defending himself and answering every question the press might have for him. But there ought to be a guiding philosophy that his administration and his party can constantly come back to and tie the various policies and decisions to.

But again, Lincoln himself was seen as no great communicator by his peers and we regard him as brilliant today. Maybe the philosophy of our current President will become more clear with time as well.

Anyway, here's that article:

A Few Questions
Why does the president call the secretary of state "Condi"? And what exactly is his philosophy?

Thursday, July 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Why does President Bush refer in public to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as "Condi"? Did Dwight Eisenhower call his Secretary of State "Johnny"? Did Jimmy Carter call his "Eddie," or Bill Clinton call his "Maddy," or Richard Nixon call his "Willie" or "Hank"? What are the implications of such informality?

I know it is small, but in a way such things are never small. To me it seems a part of the rhetorical childishness of the age, the faux egalitarianism of the era. It reminds me of how people in the administration and Congress--every politician, in fact--always refer to mothers as moms: We must help working moms." You're not allowed to say "mother" or "father" in politics anymore, it's all mom and dad and the kids. This is the buzzy soft-speak of a peaceless era; it is an attempt to try to establish in sound what you can't establish in fact.


When Secretary Rice arrived in Lebanon the other day, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora greeted her with kisses on both cheeks. They seemed as if they had a personal relationship unstressed by the current war. They seemed like mature and friendly comrades greeting each other after an absence. This of course was all done for spin. I don't mean it was insincere. It may have been fully sincere on both parts. But it was also spin, both parties agreeing to produce a picture that told a story. The purpose was to show the world that these adults, operating in a good faith implicit in the affection shown, can handle a tense situation, are friends, and can effectively work together. The world isn't ending.

I know it is spin. You know it too. And yet it worked for me. I found it a relief. I believed both Ms. Rice and Mr. Saniora were well-meaning friends who can help see the world through the mess. I was being spun, knowing I was being spun, and aware that I'd been spun successfully. There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully--that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.



At a speech I gave in Washington recently the Q-and-A was lively, and somehow moving. We spoke of politics, of George W. Bush and the latest Mideast fighting and the personalities of presidents, and then someone asked me about working for Ronald Reagan. I told a story about an instance in which he'd edited my work with particular sensitivity to the fact that I was new and trying. Afterwards a member of the audience walked up to me and said, "For me you can't talk about Reagan enough. I loved that man." I hear that a lot these days.


Republicans hearken back to Reagan for two big reasons. The first is that they agreed with what he did. The second is that they believe he was a very fine man. This is not now how they feel about Mr. Bush, at least if my interactions with strangers and party members the past year are a judge. They think Mr. Bush is a good man--that he's got guts and resolve, that he can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. But they are no longer confident about what he does. They're no longer fully comfortable in their judgment of his policies and actions, or the root thoughts behind them. It gives Reagan an even rosier glow, for he was the last national political figure to fully win their minds and hearts.

William F. Buckley this week said words that, if you follow his columns, were not surprising. And yet coming from the man who co-fathered the modern conservative movement, carrying the intellectual heft as Reagan carried the political heft, the observation that President Bush is not, philosophically, a conservative, had the power to make one sit up and take notice.

I have had reservations in this area since Mr. Bush's stunning inaugural speech last year, but Mr. Buckley's comments, in a television interview last weekend, had the sting of the definitional. I agree with Mr. Buckley's judgments but would add they raise the question of what Bush's political philosophy is--I mean what he thinks it is. It's not "everyone should be free." Everyone in America thinks everyone should be free, what we argue over is specific definitions of freedom and specific paths to the goal. He doesn't believe in smaller government. Or maybe he "believes" in small government but believes us to be in an era in which it is, with the current threat, unrealistic and unachievable? He believes in lower taxes. What else? I continually wonder, and have wondered for two years, what his philosophy is--what drives his actions.
Does he know? Is it a philosophy or a series of impulses held together by a particular personality? Can he say? It would be good if he did. People are not going to start feeling safe in the world tomorrow, but they feel safer with a sense that their leaders have aims that are intellectually coherent. It would be good for the president to demonstrate that his leadership is not just a situational hodgepodge, seemingly driven and yet essentially an inbox presidency, with a quirky tilt to the box. Sometimes words just can't help. But sometimes, especially in regard to the establishment or at least assertion of coherence, they can. And it's never too late. History doesn't hold a stopwatch, not on things like this.

[AmericanGirl]

Someone has been reading my mind, but you all know I'm not a hardcore conservative either although I am getting more conservative with age. Brad you are not the only one to feel this way. I have a good friend who not only supported Bush in the 1st election, but campaigned for him, and he has become completely disillusioned with Bush, stating he is not the conservative Republican we though he was. (my friend has gone as far as saying if it werent for the war on terrorism issue, he would consider becoming a libertarian) Even my parents and grandparents who are staunch Republicans are not happy with Bush. My mother told me this last election was about chosing the lessor of two evils.

I will say I admire President Bush's steadfast position on the war on terror and I think we needed a president right now that is not swayed by public opinion (a la Clinton) and can stand up and say we aren't going to back down. Unfortunately because he is not a great communicator like Reagan, he never really explained his choices and actions and it wasnt until too late that he started backpeddling to try to get a message out there that just got lost in the static. There are so many opportunities that he has missed when he had our undivided attention to prepare the American people for the long hard road we have ahead of us when it comes to this fight on terrorism. And you are right, his inability to communicate why he believes as he does has caused domestic issues like immigration to just get lost in the background. I think the Republican party is paralyzed right now, they are so uncertian about this coming set of elections that they are afraid to take on hot topics and instead debate the marriage act and the flag amendment...

Sometimes I think Bush doesnt want to rock the boat too hard unless it benefits him. He comes down hard on the war on terror but has skated around some other issues... He got elected because of funding from his friends in "high places" in the business world and now that some of them, especially in the oil business, are making money hand over fist... the perception is that Bush is in their pocket. Reagan at least had the guts to pursue anti trust laws and go after monopolies.

I think if it weren't for the war on terror, Bush would be some obscure footnote in the pages of history that would be percieved as someone who supported big business, lowered taxes and promoted federal funding of faith based programs...

anyway dont mind me, these are the ramblings of a sleep deprived caffiene addict who has spent too much time reading the funny pages... hell what do I know!