‘A presidency that’s been whittled down to its ultimate core’

December 14, 2006

Just a few weeks ago, U.S. News reported that the Bush White House is hard at work on what aides described as a “big, big” policy agenda, that the president would unveil in 2007 by way of his budget proposal and State of the Union address. “There will be no cruise control,” one inside said after Dems won back Congress. “These are big, big ideas and we will be pushing them with all our might and energy.”

They shouldn’t bother. The public has already decided which end of Pennsylvania Avenue they want controlling the policy agenda — and as Kevin Drum put it, “Americans [are] practically begging Democrats to take the policymaking initiative away from President Bush.” Consider the new WSJ/NBC poll:

Falling public support for the war in Iraq has weakened President Bush’s political hand across the board, bolstering the clout of the new Democratic Congress as it prepares to take power.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Americans have grown more pessimistic after the Iraq Study Group report that the situation there has become “dire.” That contributed to Mr. Bush’s lowest-ever approval rating in the Journal/NBC poll — 34% — and turned Americans toward his Democratic adversaries. By 59% to 21%, Americans say Congress rather than Mr. Bush should take the lead in setting policy for the nation. […]

The results show “a presidency that’s been whittled down to its ultimate core,” adds Mr. Hart’s Republican counterpart, Bill McInturff, as even three in 10 Republicans want Congress to lead on national policy. (emphasis added)

Dems on the Hill are used to being a defensive crouch, but numbers like this suggest the public is anxious for them to take the lead and set the national agenda. Seven in 10 want congressional Dems to push the president to bring the troops home within six months. Seven in 10 support raising the minimum wage. Seven in 10 support Dem plans to negotiate lower Medicare drug prices with pharmaceuticals companies. Eight in 10 favor forcing auto makers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Generally, on political issues, 70%-80% of the public doesn’t agree on much, but as of now, a progressive policy agenda is generating these kinds of big numbers.

It is not, in other words, a time for Democratic meekness and timidity. The wind (and the public) is at our backs.

For what it’s worth, other polls say the same thing.

Americans trust Democratic lawmakers more than President Bush to handle the nation’s toughest problems, including the Iraq war, and a quarter of Republicans are glad that Democrats have won control of Congress, a Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. […]

Asked whether they trusted Bush or Democrats in Congress “to do a better job coping with the main problems the nation faces,” 57 percent of the respondents said congressional Democrats and 31 percent said Bush. When the question was broken down to specific problems, such as Iraq, the economy, immigration and the “war on terrorism,” Democrats held clear majorities over Bush. Their lead was overwhelming in the area of health care: 64 percent to Bush’s 26 percent.

More than half of the respondents said it was a good thing that Congress will switch from Republican control to Democratic; 17 percent called it a bad thing and 1 in 4 said it would make no difference…. In the poll, more than 4 in 5 Democrats said the latest change in control of Congress is good, as did 55 percent of independents. Even 23 percent of Republicans called the change a good thing. […]

Two-thirds of those polled said Bush “should work mainly to compromise with the Democrats” in Congress rather than pursue his own agenda.

Maybe Bush should just skip the State of the Union this year.

Bush Sucks.

  • Hoist the sails! Set course for 1600 Pensylvania Avenue! Ramming Speed!

    Run Bush and his dingy over and only slow down enough to make sure he’s good and hurt before moving on to reasonable and effective gonvernance of the world’s leading democracy.

  • Yah, basically it’s Republican’ts saying “Take the Blame for losing the war! Please!” because they are too much of cowards to take credit for their own failures.

    If the Democrats want to reduce the Executive branch to its ultimate core, defund the Office of the Vice President. That will make stopping this war a lot easier than defunding the war.

  • “These are big, big ideas and we will be pushing them with all our might and energy.”

    Let me guess:

    Tax “relief”
    “Personalized” Social Security accounts
    “Protecting” marriage
    School vouchers
    Continue “democratizing” the Middle East

  • Whittled down is one way of describing the current situation. The ship of state foundering in storm-tossed seas might be another. I can’t remember feeling this anxious about an absence of leadership, not even during the Nixon or Clinton impeachments. Congress is out and Bush won’t be rushed to announce an Iraq policy — having had four years to come up with one. The Rs are coming apart, and the Ds can only plan for what they’ll do when Jan rolls around. Meanwhile, the world turns. If Reagan were to ask, “who’s minding the store,” today, what would the answer be?

  • I guess everyone here saw his little press op yesterday. Olbermann showed a clip, and I have to say, inveterate Bush loather that I am, even I was shocked.

    Yeah, the bluster is still there, but he looks like a blustering deer in the headlights. He has no idea what to do or what to say – he looks like a scared, desperate man.

    I think it would be a mercy if he were impeached. Let him roam free on his Texas ranch, where he can’t harm anyone else.

  • * Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) delivered a very impressive speech at Georgetown University Law Center today. “We have a duty to repair real damage done to our system of government over the last few years,” Leahy said. “This administration has rolled back open government laws and systematically eroded Americans’ privacy rights…. “It has brazenly refused to answer the legitimate oversight questions of the public’s duly elected representatives”

    CB, this is essentially what I wanted to write here when you asked about what the Democrats should do right after the election, or to write on my blog, but I never got around to it (ugh).

    Democrats should still talk about Iraq, and we should still keep people aware of what’s being done there and what’s going on, and how it happened. It should be our opening sentence when speaking- we should talk about it all the time. But our main focus from here on in should be to repair the harm the Republican have done from the syste from here on in. The Dems in the Senate and Congress should repair everything the Republicans have done to hijack our democracy and turn it into a piece of junk. We need to be telling the American people all the things the Republicans have been doing and what the consequences are, and what we have to do to change things to keep it from happening again. The main issue in America today is power and its abuse and Democrats have to make protecting it from abuse their number one priority.

  • think it would be a mercy if he were impeached. Let him roam free on his Texas ranch, where he can’t harm anyone else.

    Mercy is the perfect word. I couldn’t agree more.

  • It is not, in other words, a time for Democratic meekness and timidity. The wind (and the public) is at our backs.

    One can only hope that our pinstriped pimps are not really habituated to bending over and spreading for the other pinstriped pimps.

    “There are my people, and I must follow them, for I am their leader!” I don’t remember what famous 19th Century French politician said that, but I for one would like to see that message inked to the forehead of every Democrat in Congress.

  • There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:

    I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

    If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armements”

    http://www.rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com

    The Pentagon is a giant,incredibly complex establishment,budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Adminisitrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.

    How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the Sec. Def. to be – Mr. Gates- understand such complexity, particulary if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?

    Answer- he can’t. Therefor he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.

    From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.

    This situation is unfortunate but it is ablsolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.

    This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen unitil it hits a brick wall at high speed.

    We will then have to run a Volkswagon instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.

  • Didn’t Pelosi say she was going to announce some major legislation before the State of the Union? I hope she does, that will show who is running the show now and dampen what little hope is left for the Chucklehead in Chief.

  • Maybe Bush should just skip the State of the Union town this year.

    Sorry, couldn’t resist a little editing.

    I just wish it were possible for BushBaby to be this fucked without so many other people having to be fucked by his evil incompetent arse. The first head-to-head collision with Congress should be interesting in a “Watch the Leader of a Super Power Melt Down Like Three Mile Island,” sort of way. Of course it may come before that if he gets mad at all the people saying mean things about him. Do we have enough National Guard units left in the country to enforce martial law?

  • I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Shrub use his State of the Union address to revoke last November’s election result and announce implementation of martial law here. He seems to be a “go for broke” and “to hell with y’all” kind of guy.

    On September 11, 1973, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet seized power from Salvador Allende. After he tortured and slaughtered Allende and all the other leftists he could lay his hands on, our own Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, a major player in the Pinochet coup, said “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” I don’t think Bush’s thoughts — certainly those his advisors who are capable of thought — stray very far from these anti-democratic sentiments of Generalfeldmarschall Kissinger.

    We should be trying Henry Kissinger as a war criminal instead of offering him the Nobel Peace Prize and treating him like royalty. And we should take the initiative by impeaching the current administration.

  • If Bush spits in the eyes of the Democrats during the SOTU address, as I’m sure most of us believe will happen, his approval numbers will most definitley crack the 20’s. At the rate GIs are falling in Iraq, by the time the SOTU arrives over 3,000 soldiers will have perished. This nation should have little patience for a man preaching to save his legacy when the cost of that legacy is other people’s lives.

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