Category: Politics

Snow Is It

The White House will announce that FoxNews reporter Tony Snow will be the next White House Press Secretary. Snow’s a good pick for the job – he’s an excellent reporter, he knows how to work a room, and he can build some badly-needed bridges between the Administration and the media.

Of course, being the Press Secretary for a White House popularity is in the toilet is a thankless job, but at least Bush will have someone in that position who will be able to speak well under fire and present a better public face for the Administration. McClellan was never the sort who could really engage the press, and going into a White House press briefing is about like swimming with sharks – the second they sense blood in the water, they’re in a feeding frenzy.

Bush needs to do much to reverse the free-fall in his approval ratings, which are now in the territory usually reserved for child molesters, bubonic plague, and people who talk during movies. Hell, I’m not remotely impressed with his performance as of late, and apparently to some I’m part of his “cheerleading squad”. (Which reminds me, where did I put those pom-poms?) The skyrocketing prices in gas are severely hurting Bush’s approval numbers, and there’s little he can do. The only thing keeping the GOP from cratering is the fact that the Democrats are all that much worse.

Snow has a tough job, probably one of the most thankless there is. However, if there’s one person who would be up to the task, it’s him.

The End Of The GOP Majority?

Newt Gingrich writes on the potentially bleak future of the Republican majority in Congress – while I don’t (yet) see a Democratic landslide in the making (the Democrats are as disorganized and ineffective as the GOP is at the moment), it isn’t impossible and GOP policymakers have every reason to be very worried about our party’s prospects in November.

Gingrich gives a fairly respectable five-point plan:

Today, in order to win the future, there are five challenges that America must meet:

1. Confronting a world in which America’s enemies, including the irreconcilable wing of Islam and rogue dictatorships, could acquire and use nuclear or biological weapons;

2. Defending God in the public square;

3. Protecting America’s unique civilization;

4. Competing in the global economy in an era of the economic rise of China and India, which will require transformations in litigation, education, taxation, regulation, and environmental, energy and health policies for America to continue to be the most successful economy in the world;

5. Promoting active, healthy aging so more people can live longer, which will require dramatic transformation in pensions, Social Security and health care.

I like Gingrich’s idea of “winning the future.” What the GOP needs to do is first, acknowledge that people are worried. Gas prices are up. Terrorism is still a threat. The situation in Iraq looks bleak to those who get their news from the MSM spin machine, and even the optimists have cause for alarm. Even though the economy really is solid, and people feel their own economic circumstances are fine, there’s still a widespread (and again, media fed) perception that the economy is on a downward slope. The ongoing transition from an economy based on heavy manufacturing to an economy based on 21st Century technologies is a difficult one – and has been for the past 30 years.

What the GOP has to do is say, we know what the problems are. Here are the solutions. Here’s how we can unleash the creativity of the American people to bring this country more fully into the 21st Century. Here’s how we can provide vouchers to allow workers in obsolescing industries to retrain for the future. Here’s how we can reform education to make American students able to have the skills that Indian students do. Here’s how we can reform patent law to foster rather than hamper real innovation. Here’s how we can keep taxes low and spending down to make government more responsive to the people rather than a fat, bloated monstrosity.

The GOP could do this is they had the vision that they did in 1994 – a vision of changing the culture in Washington. However, today’s GOP has become part of the corrupt Washington culture. That has to change.

The Democrats have no vision other than their constant complaints. If the Republicans can respond with real policies and say what they would do, this election could see an even stronger GOP majority. However, if all we have is the GOP defending the status quo and the Democrats attacking it, this election will not be kind to the Republican majority. Vision wins elections, and right now neither party has anything that looks even remotely like a real vision. We can turn this around, the question is whether the culture of waste and arrogance in Washington has so poisoned the GOP that they no longer have the vision required to truly lead.

Oil’s Well That Ends Well?

Just when I think the Republican Congress can’t get any dumber, they do something like this – demanding that the President investigate (nonexistent) “price gouging” by oil companies. It appears as though the Republicans, who should know better, don’t have a clue about the basics of the oil industry.

Oil is at nearly $75/barrel. Our capacity to refine that oil into usable gasoline hasn’t expanded in years, and different states require different formulations of gasoline that further tightens an already iffy supply. This should be basic Economics 101 stuff – the smaller the supply of something, the higher the price. Add to that the rampant speculation going on into oil futures, and you’re going to see gasoline heading northwards of $3/gallon for a lot of people.

Artificially lowering the price of gasoline means that people use more – which leads to shortages and even worse problems than people who feel the need to overcompensate for something with their massive gas-guzzling land whale having to take it in the rear at the pump. Such an effort would lead to the kind of gas lines that we saw in the 1970s. The second Congresscritters think they can control the market is the second that the problem gets infinitely worse. High prices are a signal that supplies are low, and trying to lower prices only reduces supply that much faster – which can soon lead to critical shortages.

This investigation is economically idiotic, but it’s politically stupid as well. There is little to nothing Congress can do about oil prices. The only thing Congress can do in this case is preen in front of the cameras and create a nice kangaroo court for some hapless oil executive. That sort of televised circle jerk will be forgotten soon after, and when the prices continue to go up people will see right through Congress’ cheap pandering.

If Congress wants to really reduce gas prices they could mandate a single formulation of gasoline, expand our refining capacity, and start pushing for increased exploration of domestic oil. All of those things would have the environmental lobby screaming bloody murder, which is why no one in Congress has the guts to do it. Apparently for Congress, it’s much easier to pander to a problem than to solve it.

The White House Shakeup Begins

The White House has announced some shakeups in staffing today. Press Secretary Scott McClellan is leaving, and Karl Rove is giving up his policy portfolio to concentrate on politics in advance of the 2006 elections.

These are all good changes. McClellan had an extremely difficult job, but always gave the impression that he was letting the White House Press Corps using him as a punching bag. He was no Ari Fleischer, who did a great job in Bush’s first years in office. Suggested replacements include FoxNews journalist Tony Snow, former DoD Press Secretary Victoria Clarke, and former White House press official Den Senor. Any one of the three would be a solid pick. Tony Snow has the journalistic connections to make nice with the press corps, Victoria Clarke has solid experience from her days at Defense, and Senor was the number two man to Fleischer and knows the job well. The Bush Administration’s press efforts have been lackluster at best, and hopefully this shakeup will result in more effective relations with the increasingly hostile press.

Karl Rove is an excellent political operator, which is why his move is a sound one. On policy matters, he’s been asleep at the wheel. The Bush Administration has made policy blunder after policy blunder after policy blunder, all on Rove’s watch. When it comes to pioneering techniques for numerical analysis in elections, Karl Rove is one of the world’s best political operatives. When it comes to sound policy, Rove doesn’t seem to measure up. The POTUS needs a strong hand in policy who will work with Capitol Hill to get an agenda through. Someone with strong conservative credentials, and a clear-headed view of policy issues. The Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and other think tanks are full of people who would fit the bill. It’s just a matter of finding the right one.

Bush has needed to clear the decks for a while. The White House’s political and policy directions have both been rudderless on a storm of constant bad press and missteps. Bush needs to set the nation’s agenda, not let his political opponents do it for him. If he can’t do that, he’ll spend the next two-and-a-half years as a lame duck. Bush should have fought when he ran (Social Security reform), and run when he fought (Dubai, Harriet Miers). Bush runs the White House like an MBA would, relying on the expertise of his team, and his team hasn’t produced the results. Hopefully this team will do better in setting the White House on a strong course towards more fiscal responsibility, better public policy, and stronger public communications.

UPDATE: Joel Kaplan will be taking over Karl Rove’s policy portfolio. He’s a former Marine and a Harvard J.D. I’m not sure how deep his policy background goes, but hopefully he’ll be able to keep the White House on the right policy track.

Bush’s Malaise? 

Dick Morris says that President Bush is becoming a Republican Jimmy Carter – which is about the worst insult one can give to a Commander in Chief. Morris argues:

Even when he seeks to develop an issue, his approach is half-hearted and ineffective. It seems that on any issue other than taxes and terrorism, he has attention-deficit disorder. He squandered his re-election “political capital” on a Social Security reform he spent six months pushing and a year and a half running away from…

And so, with no political immune system, he is subject to the infection du jour, be it the Dubai ports deal or the Iraq leaking scandal. In the meantime, his party is wallowing in a massive public perception of congressional corruption.

When Dick Morris is wrong, he’s wrong. When Dick Morris is right, he’s right. Sadly for the President, on this account, he does have it right. President Bush has basically allowed himself to become a human punching bag for his critics. A good politician knows how to get in front of the issues, and Bush has utterly failed to do that. Hopefully the upcoming White House shake-up will make the Administration less painfully reactive and more proactive in dealing with the constant political fire they’re taking from the relentlessly hostile media.

Morris suggests a few initiatives that might help the President, much in the Clintonian style of midnight basketball and other touchy-feely triangulations. Those may help, but what Bush needs to show now is real leadership. Bush rightly rejects the Clinton Administrations fixation with the polls, but they’ve also been completely asleep at the wheel when it comes to the political side of being President. They have the bully pulpit, but they’ve utterly failed to use it. Bush’s plummeting numbers are a direct result of the Administration’s lack of political pushback. Morris is right, on the war, on Social Security, on taxes, and on a whole host of other issues, the President has virtually surrendered to his critics. When the nation only gets one side of the story, it’s hardly surprising that the President’s poll numbers will start to sink.

A coherent energy policy would be a good start. The President should push forward with a crash program to develop safe nuclear technologies to augment and eventually replace coal. (Of course, that should be paired with economic development for key coal-producing states like West Virginia who might otherwise see such a program as putting them out of their jobs.) If the Chinese can work towards developing a network of advanced pebble-bed reactors to meet their energy needs, we can too – and we can do it better.

The President must push back on the economy. The perception of the US economy is bleak, while the reality of the economy is that unemployment is low and the jobs being created are well-paying jobs. The President has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on the economy by letting the narrative be written by his critics. Elections, especially local elections, are decided largely on pocketbook issues, and if Bush can’t sell a booming economy, how politically effective can he be?

The First Law of Politics is always be on the offensive – the Bush team needs to learn this or they could well end up spending the next two and half years as lame ducks. Given the challenges we face, from Iranian nukes to entitlement reform, the last thing we need is a malaise hanging over the White House. Bush must fight back, and he needs to fight back hard, or Morris’ warnings may yet come to pass.

Will The GOP Retain Control?

Michael Barone argues that there’s a good chance that the GOP will retain control of the House. On the other hand Richard Morin of The Washington Post argues that the political map doesn’t look good for the GOP.

Morin makes the argument we’ve all heard: a deeply unpopular President means GOP failure. The problem with that line of reasoning is that the approval rating of the President doesn’t seem to have a great deal to do with Congressional ballots these days. Barone explains:

In the five House elections from 1996 to 2004, there has been very little variation in the popular vote percentages for both parties. The Republican percentage of the popular vote for the House has fluctuated between 49 and 51 percent, the Democratic percentage between 46 and 48.5 percent.

This has been true despite great differences in the job ratings of the parties’ leading figures. Republicans won pluralities of the popular vote for the House in 1996 and 1998, when Bill Clinton’s job rating was high and the favorability ratings of the highly visible Newt Gingrich were very low. Clinton’s job rating was high in 2000, too, but Republicans still won the popular vote 49 percent to 48 percent. In 2002, when George W. Bush’s job rating was up around 70 percent, Republicans won 51 percent of the popular vote for the House. In 2004, when his job rating was around 50 percent, Republicans won 50 percent.

These numbers seem inconsistent with Hypothesis One. How to explain them? We have a highly polarized politics that divides us along cultural lines. Those cultural divisions tend to be more important to voters than their ratings of presidents’ and parties’ performance. The polarization is exacerbated by the fact that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both happen to have personal characteristics — I don’t have to spell them out, do I? — that people on the other side of the cultural divide absolutely loathe.

The pollsters, I think, aren’t seeing the big picture here. The Republicans aren’t in trouble because of Bush, they’re in trouble because the drop in the President’s approval ratings are coming from the Republican base. The GOP leadership has been utterly rudderless on immigration and spending, two of the key issues in this election cycle. There are a number of GOP voters who are just going to stay home on Election Day unless the GOP gets some cojones and starts pushing for some serious immigration and spending reform.

Of course, that doesn’t seem very likely at this point, meaning that the worse enemy the Republicans face in 2006 isn’t the hapless Democratic Party, it’s their own political weakness. In fact, at this point, one of the few things that can save the Republican Party would be the Democrats actually saying what they feel – the more unhinged the Democrats show themselves to be, the more fence-sitting Republicans and swing voters will feel obligated to go to the polls. It’s not a very good position to be in, but right now the only thing that the Republicans have is the insanity of their opposition – and that may simply not be enough.

The GOP needs a new Contract with America, a renewed committment to lowering spending, fighting illegal immigration, vigorously prosecuting the war, and fighting for less government rather than more. The GOP is missing a golden opportunity to link the widespread (and correct) view that the US tax system is profoundly unfair to the need to reform the IRS and make the President’s tax cuts permanent. Unfortunately, the current GOP leadership doesn’t have the vision to make that case.

When the GOP starts to lose George Will because they won’t stand up for political speech, you know they have a problem – and a big one. Like the Democrats, the Republicans are their own worst enemies, and when voters have a choice between Feckless Incompetence and Incompetent Fecklessness, whichever side wins, we all end up losing.

At this point, the battle is about which party will implode first – which is hardly a ringing endorsement for America’s political system these days. While I don’t think the Democrats will be able to pick up 15 seats and retake the House, it is possible, which is why GOP strategists should start seriously thinking about the fecklessness that is alienating the base they need to win.

The Eternal Two Minutes Hate

The Washington Post had an incredibly chilling look inside the mind of the fringe left last week:

In the angry life of Maryscott O’Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O’Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O’Connor’s reputation is as one of the angriest of all. “One long, sustained scream” is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers “malevolent,” a “sociopath” and “the Antichrist”? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as “Satan,” or about Karl Rove, “the devil”? Should it be about the “evil” Republican Party, or the “weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving” Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says “I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned”?

Sadly, she isn’t alone. In fact, I’d argue that she’s probably representative of the average denizen of The Daily Kos or one of the other Democratic community sites. Now, there is no doubt that the right has its fringe lunatics as well, but the level of vitriol and abject hatred coming from the Left these days is absolutely shocking. O’Connor’s impotent rage seems to be the hallmark of the typical left-wing blogger these days. This hatred isn’t as much about policy as it is personal. It’s all about George W. Bush and his litany of sins, real and imagined. It isn’t a question of policy, a question of different aims, it’s the utter demonization of the other side.

The left side of the blogosphere has become a fever swamp of hate and irrationality – what value is a place like Eschaton to someone who doesn’t share it its strident anti-Bush convictions? Is a blog like that designed to persuade or to vent? Based on O’Connor’s own attitudes, the latter is clear.

The problem with hatred like this is that it doesn’t go away. And there’s nothing that a fanatic hates more than an apostate, which is why the Democratic Party is getting pulled farther and farther towards the fringes and moderates like Sen. Joe Lieberman are being punished for having the audacity of standing behind their principles. Does anyone really believe that all that anger will go away on January 21, 2009? Or will the left find new targets for their ire. Those who profit from this anger have every reason to keep fanning the flames of hatful partisanship – after all, that hate keeps their books flying off the shelves – how long will it be before that hatred turns on the party that helped spawn it?

The level of partisan hatred from the left is poisonous to rational civil discourse. The argument that “well, they do it too” is absolutely no excuse. If the left wants to have more than their own impotent rage, they’ll have to moderate themselves. Sadly, moderation seems to be in short supply these days.

Rudy!

The New York Times finds that Rudy Giuliani is beginning to lay the groundwork for a 2008 run.

If Rudy runs in 2008, he’ll win. Yes, he’s not nearly as socially conservative as the Republican base, and yes the Kerik kerfluffle was a major black eye – none of that really matters. Giuliani, despite his social liberalism, can energize the Republican base like nobody else can. At the end of the day, politics is about winning – and Giuliani can win.

Given that Hizzoner is working on developing his contacts with Republicans across key states and trying to ingratiate himself with conservative groups, it’s fairly clear that he has his eyes on 2008. If Rudy runs, Rudy will win, and the Democrats will be in big trouble…

Muddying The Waters

The latest “bombshell” revelation from the Libby case is that President Bush authorized the declassification of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq – which is something we already know. First of all, the already-formed lefty talking point that Bush released the NIE just to spite Joe Wilson is unsupported by the paper. We already know that Bush released the contents of the NIE in June of 2003. He’s the President, he has full authority to declassify documents, and Fitzgerald makes absolutely no claim that the release of the NIE was in any way related to the Plame matter.

Tom Maguire, who’s been doing yeoman’s work in following this case, has a detailed look into the actual substance of the decision handed down. The Bush “revelations” are only a part of the material, and the news is mixed for Libby’s defense team. The judge set down some rather clear limits as to Mr. Fitzgerald’s authority in withholding evidence, but at the same time the judge also limited what Libby’s defense team can request in discovery.

Maguire also follows up with a detailed analysis of the political implications of the recent release, which are unsurprisingly a lot less cut-and-dried than the usual raving partisan blather spread throughout the blogosphere and mainstream media. Was Bush’s release of information from the NIE even related to the Plame case? It doesn’t seem that way, which makes it a rather large red herring in the grand scheme of things. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Fitzgerald is left with nothing either.

All in all, I don’t think this case is going anywhere. Fitzgerald has to prove that Libby intentionally conspired to withhold relevant information from his probe. That’s a difficult case for Fitzgerald to prove even if Libby really did “leak” anything. Meanwhile, the Libby defense team has a very credible argument that says that Fitzgerald is cherry-picking material and can’t provide enough evidence for either side without violating executive privilege. If the Libby team can’t have full access to exculpatory evidence in discovery, then the trial is basically a show. I don’t think that Fitzgerald is necessarily playing politics here, I think he was given a case and he’s prosecuting it as strongly as he possibly can. That’s what a prosecutor does in our system of law. However, the Libby team can argue that Plame’s status was not known at the time, and they can argue that whatever Fitzgerald alleges that Libby perjured himself about was not material to the case on hand – and materiality of statements will be an issue if this case goes to trial.

We know that Joe Wilson was a liar, and that the Senate Iraq Report called him out on his misstatements. The fact that Bush was trying to clear the air about what intelligence they had is hardly a shocker. What we have here only muddies the waters, although it appears for some, the benefit of a trial should simply be a formality – they’ve already made up their minds about Libby’s (and by extension, the President’s guilt). Fortunately our system of law isn’t run by those people, and Fitzgerald will either have to put up or shut up eventually – and I’m guessing that he doesn’t have anywhere near enough to successfully prosecute Libby and prove that there was an intentional leak of Plame’s name to the press.

DeLay To Leave Congress

Rep. Tom DeLay has decided not to run for reelection in 2006.

On the whole, this is probably a net win for Republicans. DeLay was in some trouble, although he probably would have retained his seat. The GOP badly needs a fresh start, and with Rep. Boehner taking his majority leader position and new leadership in the House, DeLay’s old base of power was eroding. DeLay’s comments about the government having no pork to cut was one of the more bone-headed statements of last year – no mean feat indeed. Stepping down now was probably the right choice for him – it doesn’t look like it comes from political pressure and it clears the deck for a new set of GOP leaders. No doubt the left will be crowing, but if it’s a victory in any way for them it could ultimately by a Pyrrhic one.