{"id":10333,"date":"2007-03-27T14:42:13","date_gmt":"2007-03-27T18:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10333.html"},"modified":"2007-03-27T14:42:13","modified_gmt":"2007-03-27T18:42:13","slug":"when-in-doubt-schedule-an-alternative-fuel-photo-op","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-in-doubt-schedule-an-alternative-fuel-photo-op\/","title":{"rendered":"When in doubt, schedule an alternative-fuel photo-op"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president doesn’t seem to have much of a policy agenda anymore, so he’s apparently stuck looking at alternative-fuel cars all the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An imperiled attorney general, an unpopular war, a hung-over housing market and a presidential approval level of 32 percent: White House officials took all that into consideration and made their decision.<\/p>\n

They would have President Bush do another event promoting cellulosic ethanol.<\/p>\n

“Most of our ethanol is made from corn,” the commander in chief announced yesterday morning, posing in the White House driveway with three “flex-fuel” cars. “But the federal government is spending a lot of money to try to develop new technologies that will mean that ethanol could be made from wood chips or switch grass.”<\/p>\n

It was another milepost in the shriveling of a presidency. What began as “with us or against us” now must share time with “wood chips or switch grass.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Shriveling,” indeed. I didn’t realize this, but apparently Bush has done six<\/i> alternative-fuel events over the last year — and a seventh comes this morning when he inspects newfangled Postal Service vehicles. On average, that means the president is hosting a photo-op on alternative-fuel vehicles about once every seven weeks.<\/p>\n

Part of me is kind of impressed. Bush used to mock hybrid vehicles on the campaign trail, but now he seems to habitually appear at staged campaign-like appearances in front of a hydrogen-powered car. I suppose this is progress.<\/p>\n

But I can’t help but wonder if he’s decided this is the only safe thing he can do right now.
\n
\nBush doesn’t want to talk about the war. He doesn’t want to talk about the economy. He can’t take his State of the Union message on the road, because his State of the Union didn’t really include a message.<\/p>\n

So we’re left with all “flex-fuel” cars, all the time. Reporters who cover the president’s every move have stopped showing up for public events.<\/p>\n

Only half a dozen members of the White House press corps bothered to attend Bush’s event in the driveway yesterday — and they had come to ask about Alberto Gonzales’s diminished life expectancy as attorney general because of the prosecutor firings.<\/p>\n

“What do you say about support for Gonzales falling?” CNN’s Ed Henry shouted when Bush finished his flex-fuel pitch. Another reporter shouted out a similar Gonzales question. Henry repeated his question. The president only smiled and waved, as though the reporters had complimented his suit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If Bush wants to avoid the lame-duck label, shouldn’t he, you know, do something? Assuming, that is, he actually knows?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president doesn’t seem to have much of a policy agenda anymore, so he’s apparently stuck looking at alternative-fuel cars all the time. An imperiled attorney general, an unpopular war, a hung-over housing market and a presidential approval level of 32 percent: White House officials took all that into consideration and made their decision. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}