The lights were on, but no one was home

It’s exceedingly rare for Bush to admit a mistake of any kind, but it sure sounded like the president was acknowledging an error late last week in a foreign interview when the issue of U.S.-Russia relations came up.

Speaking to the Itar-Tass news agency during a brief White House interview as he prepared for his first European trip since his reelection, Bush avoided the points of contention that dominated his November encounter with Putin in Chile: the rollback of democratic reforms in Russia and Putin’s alleged attempts to influence former Soviet republics.

Bush and Putin are scheduled to confer next week after Bush’s meetings with leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

He said Friday that his personal relationship with the Russian leader remained warm, and he blamed his own reelection campaign for any chill.

“I think this relationship can be invigorated,” Bush said. “The campaign came, and in American public life … you kind of shut down when the campaign comes.” (emphasis added)

That last quote got me thinking. Bush “shut down” his work as president to focus on campaigning, letting matters such as foreign policy with Russia slip through the cracks. As is turns out, he wasn’t alone. Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was spending more time campaigning in swing states than dealing with, say, national security, and Tom Ridge was devoting plenty of his time to the campaign as well.

By any chance, did it occur to the Bush gang that someone might need to run the executive branch at some point during the campaign?