In his acceptance speech this week, Bush made it sound like he’s ready to engage in genuine outreach to bring people together after he waged a vicious and deceptive campaign. He was, to be sure, wearing that “uniter” hat again.
“[T]oday I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation. We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America.”
There are at least two things wrong with this pleasant-sounding rhetoric. First, as Paul Waldman noted, it’s nearly identical to the language Bush used four years ago. He clearly didn’t mean it then, so there’s no reason to believe he’ll meant it now. Fool me once…
Second, while Bush is calling for bipartisan unity before the cameras, his top aides are admitting it’s all a sham.
[O]ne key adviser said the White House has calculated there is little to be gained from courting Democrats, since the expected fights over Supreme Court nominations would just undo the goodwill.
“This isn’t a guy who pivots,” said a presidential adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity so White House officials will continue to talk candidly to him. “There’s no point in a lot of outreach in the next 90 days that would be rendered moot by the first retirement from the court, and he’s not going to do it.”
For this gang, reconciliation is a just another political consideration to be abandoned when inconvenient. Bush has been more than happy to be a divider for four years. Just days after he won another term by the narrowest margin of any incumbent since Woodrow Wilson in 1916, he’s planning to give us more of the same — because “there’s no point in a lot of outreach.”
Break the country in half and make sure your chunk is bigger.