I’ll describe the disaster, you name it. There’s a problem in the Gulf region, the seriousness of which the president has been reluctant to appreciate. Objective experts have offered Bush warnings, which he has ignored. The White House has had trusted loyalists responsible for addressing the crisis, but they turn out to be tragically inept. The result is a catastrophe, with mass casualties, a $200 billion price tag, and a political mess that embarrasses the United States on the global stage and causes Bush’s approval rating to tank.
OK, it could be one of two things. It’s those similarities, however, that are apparently causing Bush some trouble — so much so that he’s now inclined to combine the two.
At an event at the Pentagon yesterday, for example, a reporter asked the president about “the country’s ability to pay for these hurricanes.” Bush responded:
“I’m going to work with Congress to prioritize what may need to be cut. The other day I said that we’re open-minded about offsets. What’s a priority for me is to win this war on terror and secure the country, and to help the people down there to the extent that the law allows.”
What does the war have to do with hurricanes? Nothing. And yet, the segue between fighting in Iraq and assisting hurricane victims in the U.S. was seamless, if not awkward.
Oddly enough, this keeps happening. Earlier this week, Bush linked terrorism and hurricanes while speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition.
“You know, something we — I’ve been thinking a lot about how America has responded, and it’s clear to me that Americans value human life, and value every person as important. And that stands in stark contrast, by the way, to the terrorists we have to deal with. You see, we look at the destruction caused by Katrina, and our hearts break. They’re the kind of people who look at Katrina and wish they had caused it. We’re in a war against these people. It’s a war on terror.”
Again, he was mixing the two together as if they were two sides of the same coin. He did the same thing a week and a half earlier at an event with Iraqi President Talabani.
It seems to be part of a new strategy. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
It’s almost as if the president (or more likely, Karl Rove) has decided the way to boost the president’s standing with the public is to attach the war to every challenge, whether it makes sense or not. As John Dickerson noted, this is, at best, a flawed strategy.
The political problem Bush faces, of course, is that the majority of the country does not support his leadership on either event [Iraq and Katrina], or see what they have in common. If most people mention the two in the same breath, it is probably to link them as Bush administration screw-ups. Logic aside, it’s hard to see how Bush’s political standing will improve through his effort to connect one major policy failure to another.
Of the two disasters, Iraq remains the bigger political problem. According to the USA Toda/CNN/Gallup poll, 41 percent of the country trusts his leadership in handling the hurricane; only 32 percent approve of his leadership in Iraq. Bush’s standing on Katrina is likely to improve as he signs more bills and heralds signs of recovery. Iraq doesn’t provide such obvious opportunities. All that Bush can do there at the moment is continue to reframe his old arguments. This may explain the metaphoric association he is now trying to draw. Using Katrina as a rallying cry, Bush implies that the problems facing us in the war on terror are intractable (like poverty) and inevitable (like the weather).
The idea, as far as the White House is concerned, is probably to boost Bush’s standing as someone who can be counted on in a pinch. Bush, they say, can handle a crisis, so we can trust him to handle Iraq and Katrina.
Except this doesn’t make any sense. First, no one seems to approve of his handling of either. Second, by forcing to the completely different crises together, Bush is only reminding everyone of his tragic failings.
I realize political circumstances may be getting desperate at the White House, but if this is their best strategy, they’re in even more trouble than I thought.