It depends on what the meaning of ‘provocative’ is

November 10, 2006

For all the pleasantries and polite rhetoric about “bi-partisanship” and “cooperation,” the president has decided to pick two fights in the immediate aftermath of his party’s devastating election losses: the John Bolton nomination and legislation to authorize warrantless searches and wiretaps.

Tony Snow was asked today about what kind of message this sends.

Q Back to the lame duck for a second, there are six weeks — five weeks, or so, more that Republicans are still in the majority on the Hill. Does the President see this period as a time when he should be pushing things like the surveillance measure and the Bolton nomination —

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q — given that it’s the last chance that Republicans have to set the agenda and actually —

MR. SNOW: Look, again, I don’t think you should look at these as necessarily provocative.

No, of course not. All we have here is the most controversial U.N. ambassador in a generation, and an unprecedented and legally-dubious power grab that empowers the president to circumvent the law in order to conduct surveillance on Americans without a warrant.

Why should anyone look at these as “necessarily provocative”?

Reminds me of early 2005, when the SS phase-out plan was getting near-universal opposition but GWB just kept campaigning for it all the harder, and and people were wondering, “They’re too smart to be pushing a divisive, universally unpopular policy measure for no reason – what’s their real game here?”

Turns out there was no real game. They were just pushing a divisive, universally unpopular policy measure for no reason.

That’s what seems to be happening again right now.

  • No one should be offended by their trying to get this stuff at the last minute. And the Bush administration should not be offended when the Senate Dems fillibuster and stop them.

    (Back to orange is it?)

  • Like BC’s point. Maybe the lesson from the election is, they’re not that smart, they’re just pushy. Bush wants what he wants and he keeps pushing for it. The Dems have a lot of ways to say no. They’ve always got the filibuster. They’ve got a lot of Republicans courting them and having no loyalty to Bush. There are plenty of bat-crazy Repubs with little to lose, but they’re outnumbered now I think.

  • Oy. Here we go. Pelosi, Hoyer, Durbin and Reid have lunch with the President. President turns around and tries to ram through a terrible bill and an even more ridiculous nominee. As soon as Democrats say no, Snowjob (Bush) whines about Democrats unwillingness to cooperate in a bipartisan manner.

    Rinse and repeat.

  • Shorter Tony Snow: “‘Provocative’ means something that provokes. The only thing that makes this ‘provocative’ is that Democrats aren’t controlling their reactions. Ergo, it’s provocative, but it’s *their* *fault*.”

    This has been another episode of “The Bush Administration means exactly what they are saying.”

  • I think Dale’s onto something. They just push, and push, and push. And Democrats and the press figure there must be a plan, some kind of sneaky political tactic, to get what they want.

    There is. It’s called winning, and they’ve found the more they push, the more they win. It’s not a perfect correlation, but it’s quite strong, and it has the added virtue of feeding its own success. So, they push, and push, and push. And they were winning pretty often with only that. So, they’re going to push, and push, and push some more and see if they can get it to work again.

    This has been another episode of “The Bush Administration means exactly what they are saying.”

  • Bubble thinking, that’s what it is.
    Bush does not hear anyone saying hey, that’s wrong. Think of the aide that has to tell him bad news, or has to suffer abuse when correcting Boy George II. He’s a spoiled rich kid who has always been bailed out, and he wants his way. Who else but Yes-Boys (certainly not men) and ass kissers would work under those conditions?
    Boy, this should be a great couple of years. Maybe the Robo-heart Dick will give out, and the brat will have a full-on meltdown.
    Pass the popcorn, this should be a good show.

  • Hmm…

    I think there’s more here than “pushy behaviour”. They actually think that by causing a fight on these issues it will paint us as unwilling to come to the table.

    The average American views everything with a high level of distrust on both sides and when people fight it just turns them off from all involved.

    The wise thing to do is to change the subject every time. Hard to do when you don’t have power, but in 2 months we get to set the adgenda. They can’t tell us what to vote on anymore and it will be interesting to see how much G Dub is willing to veto.

    I say just draw everything out and then kill things with holds until the new session. No one knows quite how to cover a secret hold.

  • Alex may be right. You’ll notice that the press coverage has veered from “Holy shit, Democrats recaptured Congress!” to the media’s constant wet dream of “Why can’t everyone be civil and bipartisan?” which totally enables Republicans to be assholes, while demanding that Democrats cooperate with them (e.g., McCain’s temper tantrum at Obama for daring to support a *Democratic* lobbying reform bill, because *everyone* knows that McCain gets to define what’s moderate (despite being so conservative) and bipartisan (despite a bit partisan himself).

    So, don’t be surprised to see the press pushing bipartisanship and civility, Republicans being assholes because they can, and Democrats under pressure to work with Republicans because… um… because… well, dammit, we in the media says so! And that’s what the voters want! Even if it’s what the voters just said they *didn’t* want! Screw you! Just do what we say! Stop making things hard for us! Why can’t you get along with Republicans! Nobody likes it when Mommy and Daddy fight! Just shut up and be quiet!

    Well, that sort of got off-topic, but it does sum up the attitude of the press, not to mention their maturity level and integrity/coherence. Fucking tools.

  • Of course the republicans want bi-partisanship: they marginalized the Democrats for 6 years and could get pretty much anything they wanted, and don’t want a complete role-reversal. They are grasping for any sort of power and leverage they can. The sudden interest in civility in politics that will just make Democrats look bad when inevitable conflict erupts is just icing on the cake.

    The democrats cannot let either happen, too much damage needs to be reversed, and it will take a win in 2008. They cannot let the bi-partisan narrative take hold or it will continually tie their hands.

  • Let’s remember that although Bush got the shit kicked out of him last Tuesday, he didn’t get any sense knocked into him. So he’s newly shitless but just as witless.

  • The scariest thing about this is that SnowFlake—probably without intending to do so—finally said something that is CORRECT.

    Saying that it’s “not necessarily provacative” hits this nail right on the head, because Bolton and domestic surveillance are both completely unnecessary. Therefore—they are “not” necessarily provocative; they are “unnecesarily provocative.”

    Maybe Snowflake’s missed a dose of his kool-aid….

  • “I don’t think you should look at these as necessarily provocative.”

    In an ideal world someone would have kicked the snowballs into the roof of Tony’s smirky head and said “What’s the matter Tony? It wasn’t meant to be provactive.”

    From the Democrats’ point of view, telling ShrubCo to stick the wire taps and Dolton (coo-coo-ca-choo!) in the same place they keep their brains is exactly what they should do, especially while the bile people feel for the Republicon’s is still burning in the back of their throats.

    • Comments are closed.