This week, Bush’s media operation is branching out. The normally media-averse president is sitting down for two fairly lengthy television interviews — one with Fox News Channel, and the other with the Fox Business Channel. It led Dan Froomkin to label Bush the “Fox News President,” which seems wholly appropriate under the circumstances.
Any why, pray tell, do you suppose Bush is willing to give up so much of his time to the partisan News Corp. outlets? Perhaps it has something to do with questions like this one from David Asman, which kicked off yesterday’s interview:
“You call yourself a supply-sider. Your speech today was all about tax cuts. But were even you surprised at how much revenue came in to the Treasury when you lowered those tax rates?”
C’mon. I mean, really. A self-respecting “journalist’s” first question is predicated on the idea that the president’s policies have been so successful that he might even be “surprised” by his own greatness? (As Froomkin noted, this gives “sycophancy a bad name.”)
Even more important, of course, is that neither Asman nor Bush have any idea what they’re talking about. Reducing taxes doesn’t increase revenue. No serious person believes such nonsense — the argument has even been rejected by Bush’s own council of economic advisors. It’s pure right-wing fantasy, but on Fox, it’s stated as fact in the form of a brown-nose question. (Of course, the president believes the nonsense, which might help explain why he promised to balance the budget while delivering the biggest deficits in American history.)
But these two were just getting started.
There was also this bizarre exchange on the value of the U.S. dollar.
ASMAN: A lot of folks are worried that it’s fallen too far. Is there anything more that you can do, as president, to assure the world that the dollar should maintain its value and increase in value?
BUSH: Well, we have a strong dollar policy, and it’s important for the world to know that. We also believe it’s important for the market to set the — to set the value of the dollar relative to other currencies. And if people would look at the strength of our economy, they’d realize why, you know, I believe that the dollar will be stronger….
ASMAN: Even if the dollar is weak — excuse me, if the economy is weak, shouldn’t the dollar be strong?
BUSH: Well, all I can tell you is, is that the policy of this government is a strong dollar, and that we believe that the marketplace is the best place to set the exchange rates.
ASMAN: So you’re satisfied with the exchange rates as they are now?
BUSH: Well, I am satisfied with the fact that we have a strong dollar policy and know that the market ought to be setting the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and other currencies.
Does any seriously think the president knows what “strong dollar policy” even means?
Best of all, these two finally got contemplative.
ASMAN: What do you think, looking back, your greatest hit was? Where you really hit one out of the park. And what do you think your greatest error was?
BUSH: Well, I would rather go disappointments, rather than errors. The disappointment is not getting a Social Security package, Social Security reform, because that truly is the big deficit issue. I’m sorry it didn’t happen. I laid out a plan to make it happen — to enable it to happen. I was the first president to have addressed it as specifically as I did. I wish Congress wasn’t so risk-averse on the issue.
Just a few thoughts on this. First, Bush didn’t “lay out a plan”; in fact, his White House went out of its way to insist publicly that the president didn’t have a plan at all. Second, being the “first president” to try to privatize Social Security isn’t something to brag about. And third, Congress wasn’t “risk-averse,” it was sane.
But in the bigger picture, Bush still can’t talk about his errors. As far as he’s concerned, he apparently hasn’t made any.