Bush is supposed to give a speech this afternoon (1:00 ET) to comment on the election results. The results were largely a referendum on him and Iraq. He got his ass handed to him last night but will he get it? I can’t remember Bush ever being willing to admit he was wrong about anything. Is he going to show any contrition at all today? Is he going to be able to comprehend or acknowledge that this result was essentially a vote of no confidence in HIM?
My guess is that he won’t. My guess is that he’s going to “challenge” to Democrats to “step up to the plate” and “work with him” to continue rubber stamping his own agenda. I can’t see him being willing to offer any compromise himself or to recognize that his agenda is what lost him Congress in the first place.
I predict mushy phrasing such as “we are entering an era of bipartisanship”, without any clear statement of what Bush himself intends to do differently.
I don’t think his situation has changed much, really. He was already in lame duck mode. About the only thing left for him to do to this country, should fortune smile on him, is to ram another right-wing SCOTUS nominee through the Senate. We can hope this becomes mathematically impossible, but I’m pessimistic.
The dems are not in a position to put an end to the Iraq war, or even to significantly cut funding for it. They will undoubtedly push for some kind of plan to get out, but that pressure is alreay building, and it won’t bear fruit until the next president is in office.
He also has to think about trying to help the pubbies out in 2008. Admitting that he’s a fuck-up, even if he figured it out, would not be the way to go.
I think it’s a constitutional incapability in Bush’s case, but, to be fair, it’s also just bad politics. You say you’re sorry and that you were wrong after you’ve been convicted of a felony and are on your way to jail. Short of that, you look upbeat, you accentuate the positive, you downplay the importance of the decision, attempt to mitigate the perceived impact through sophistry. It’s just the way the PR game is played, and we can’t really expect anything other than smiles and empty promises about bipartisanship.
What is all this BS about a symbolic referendum? Couldn’t we have just held a real referendum? Pansy Pelosi is telling me she’s not going to do anything about the president’s alleged misdeeds.
It may be how the game is played, usually, but it’s bad tactics. Say you’re sorry/that you screwed up and try to make amends, and people tend to forget about it ( how often do people think of the Tylenol poisonings ? ), or at least go easier on you. Drag things out to the bitter end and it just makes things worse.
Bush is on record as saying he won’t change his Iraq policy even if Laura and Barney are his only supporters. As someone recently said, he may soon only have Barney on his side. No, no contrition. He’s no Schwartzenegger-- who quickly acknowledged his mistakes and made amends after the fiasco of a special election he orchestrated last year.
I don’t understand this. Given the fickle nature of the electorate you correctly cite, it seems to me a persistant positive spin is the only way to go. Dazzle them with bullshit if you have to. Keep their attention focused on something other than failure. When you’re a failure, it’s the only way to play it.
< points to John Mace’s post > The positive spin approach only works on friendly or neutral audiences. Once people decide that you have screwed up, it just makes you look dishonest, or an idiot. The other approach that often works is plain old bribery; in this case, offering some sort of incentive to the American people that they won’t care what he’s done - except that that’s going to be hard with the Dems controlling the House, and possibly the Senate.
I agree. As John Mace wrote, that’s what Arnold did here in California when he was cut off at the knees two years ago. He turned into almost a RINO and is pursuing a line than most Democrats approve.
I even voted for him and I rarely vote for Republicans.
Unhappily, it looks to me like GW’s idea of bipartisan is that everyone comes to agree with him. He has said that the best thing about being president is that you don’t need to ask anybody for anything. He might just discover the limits of presidential power if the congressional Democrats have any backbone. As Keith Olberman said of them, “The dog has caught the car.” Now what is he going to do with it?
I think Bush’s performance will improve. Had the Republicans held, he would have had 2 more years of Congress rubber-stamping his every whim. Now he’s going to have to listen to and negotiate with people that disagree with him. He has a chance, however slim, of escaping the basement of the presidential rankings if he can work with the opposition as he did in Texas. Having Pelosi over for lunch is a good start. I think the two of them will get along surprisingly well.
Man, Chris Matthews is already ragging Howard Dean about how come we haven’t pulled the troops form Iraq on MSNBC today. Not all the polls are even in yet and the right is already trying to position blame for Iraq on the Dems?!
I think Schwarzenegger is an excellent model. Not only did he apologize, and change his policies significantly, he cruised to an easy reelection.
The latter of course is not relevant to W.
My guess is that President Bush is far more of a bonehead than the Governor, and will merely offer the empty promises of bipartisanship as suggested by others already in this thread.
This is the best thing that could have happened to Bush. He read somewhere in one of those corporate leadership books that leaders lead, they don’t negotiate. And this philosophy has lead him over a cliff. Now he’s got some independent voices that he HAS to pay attention to. Even if the Democrats do nothing, the mere fact that they control the House will improve decision making in the White House dramatically. Like, from 1 to 2, on a scale of 1 to 10. That’s a 100% increase!
I would have to call that contrition, especially given the flat-out denials anything of the sort would happen. However, I do wonder how much Rumsfeld himself had to do with this, as he claimed he’s tried to step down at least twice before. Bush may simply say he gave into Rumsfeld’s wishes, and thank him profusely for his service. Rumsfeld may also wind up landing some cushy job in a think tank or something like the World Bank very soon, and that would make the gesture seem a bit less contrite than it could have.
