His Search For A New Groove (Time Bush article)

[Moloch]

The President has had a dreadful year, and his approval ratings are anemic. What Bush is doing to try to reverse his second-term slump
By KAREN TUMULTY AND MIKE ALLEN

The yuletide decorations at the White House are simpler this year. The gaudy tinsel and the 155,000 lights of 2004 have given way to a more natural look of Christmas trees decorated with white lilies and pink roses that are replaced as they wilt. Guests at the holiday parties are noticing a different tone to George Bush too. He has never liked the 26 receptions, the thousands of punishing or limp handshakes, the graceless requests for souvenir cuff links with the presidential seal. But at some of the smaller gatherings this year, Bush has freed himself from the photo line to circulate with an intensity his friends haven't seen before. An adviser who encountered Bush on one of these reconnaissance missions through the Red Room last week tells TIME, "He's listening a little more because he's looking for something new. He's looking for ideas. He wants to hear what people are saying, because something might strike him as worth following up on."

No one has written a playbook for the President who is trying to stop a second-term slump before it becomes a long slide to oblivion. The most successful ones in modern times have gone about it in different ways, depending on the forces that were arrayed against them. Dwight Eisenhower, confronting a hostile Congress, made his mark with his veto pen. Ronald Reagan rid his White House of the aides whose incompetence and duplicity had produced Iran-contra, and engaged the Soviet foe he had once called an "evil empire." After Bill Clinton got past impeachment, he did what he could by Executive Order and picked his shots with Republicans on Capitol Hill—for instance, demanding more education spending in must-pass bills at the end of the year—boosting his popularity at their expense.

But recalibration and retrenchment do not come naturally to this President. Bush recently rejected a draft of an economic speech because it didn't mention his now dead proposal to restructure Social Security. He is still steamed because his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers for the Supreme Count imploded; he vented about it to African-American leaders who met with him last week to discuss racial issues and Katrina disaster relief—prompting one of them to gently remind him that it was not African Americans but conservative Republicans who were her undoing. His reading of late has tended toward military history, which offers the comfort that other wartime Presidents, notably Harry Truman, endured scathing criticism by their contemporaries only to be redeemed by history.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1139779,00.html

[rosesaylavee]

1. This article is trying to paint him as someone

who cares what the country thinks of him... as if he cares that his ratings are in the toilet. Doesn't wash with me. Sorry. If he seems to be listening harder - its because he just can't hear people agreeing with his stupid ideas anymore.

[Bumblebee]

2. "Coaching":This is the part I found most interesting in light of the spin

of his "improving" poll numbers as found on MSNBC et al -- which obviously did precisely as "coached":

White House strategists believe they have ended the slide in Bush's approval ratings, which lately have been topping 40% again. "It's time for the Bush comeback story!" one coached Time for this article. "The perfect storm has receded. We have better news in Iraq, oil prices are down, and Katrina has kind of fallen off the radar screen in terms of public concern." But they know that Bush is running short of time to salvage his remaining three years. The focus will soon shift to the 2006 midterm elections and then to the race to replace him in 2008. And a midterm election that doesn't go the Republicans' way would draw a bright line of demarcation between a presidency and a lame-duck Administration.

[PDittie]

3. This part:

"... and Katrina has kind of fallen off the radar screen in terms of public concern."

is what we need to feed them. All the way through the holidays. Why does * seem more interested in rebuilding Iraq than rebuilding America?

[AlinPA]

4. "His reading of late has tended toward .." What a laugh, now they claim

the idiot reads books!

[NJCher]

5. what's just as funny

Is that they're claiming he's a listener!

"He's listening a little more because he's looking for something new. He's looking for ideas."

As if this idiot could spot an idea if it smacked him upside the head!

LOL. Oh man.




Cher

[sendero]

6. LBJ..

... was not "redeemed by history" for Vietnam, and this bozo won't be either.