{"id":10604,"date":"2007-04-24T12:37:33","date_gmt":"2007-04-24T16:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10604.html"},"modified":"2007-04-24T12:37:33","modified_gmt":"2007-04-24T16:37:33","slug":"bush-sees-a-mandate-from-the-2006-midterm-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-sees-a-mandate-from-the-2006-midterm-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush sees a mandate — from the 2006 midterm elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president could make the case that Americans are just wrong about the war. He could tell the nation, “Look, I know most of you disagree with my judgment, but I’ve decided that my policy is the only way to go. Americans showed they prefer a change when the voted for Democrats last November, but I’m still the president. As long as I’m in office, I’m not going to change course. Period.”<\/p>\n

That tack would at least be consistent. He’s stubborn and obstinate. He hears the public, but has decided to disregard their demands. He sees the political landscape, but will buck the prevailing winds, no matter the consequences.<\/p>\n

Except Bush is actually saying the opposite.<\/a> Today, he suggested that the midterm elections, in which his party unexpectedly lost control of both chambers, offered a mandate for his war policy.<\/p>\n

“Last November, the American people said they were frustrated and wanted a change in our strategy in Iraq. I listened. Today, General David Petraeus is carrying out a strategy that is dramatically different from our previous course. The American people did not vote for failure, and that is precisely what the Democratic leadership’s bill would guarantee.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is unusually bizarre, even for Bush. As Greg Sargent summarized<\/a>, “The American people voted in 2006 for a change of course in Iraq. Bush gave them a change of course in the form of a ‘surge.’ This shows, therefore, that he listened to the American people and gave them the change they wanted.”<\/p>\n

This really doesn’t make any sense. How bad is it? So bad that a Charles Krauthammer column recently made the exact same argument.
\n
\nFrom the WaPo’s Krauthammer just 10 days ago<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Democrats say they are carrying out their electoral mandate from the November election. But winning a single-vote Senate majority as a result of razor-thin victories in Montana and Virginia is hardly a landslide. […]<\/p>\n

[W]here was the mandate for withdrawal? Almost no Democratic candidates campaigned on that. They campaigned for changing the course the administration was on last November. Which the president has done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Based on the Bush\/Krauthammer argument, the public desperately wanted something<\/i> different with regards to the war policy, but couldn’t care less specifically what kind of change occurred. In other words, Bush and Krauthammer believe it’s possible that Americans, while denouncing the status quo in Iraq, actually prefer<\/em> a massive escalation and extended tours for our badly-stretched military because it was a “change.” Indeed, as the president said this morning, he “listened” to “the American people,” and came up with the so-called “surge.”<\/p>\n

By this logic, literally anything that differed from the war policy in November 2006 — more troops, less troops, a draft, a withdrawal, an escalation — would be embraced by the public by virtue of it being different from the status quo.<\/p>\n

Are war supporters this dumb, or do they think we’re<\/i> this dumb?<\/p>\n

Americans opposed the “surge” policy, but Bush did it anyway. Americans support a withdrawal timeline, but Bush will veto it anyway. If the president believes that the electorate is wrong; fine, he should make the case.<\/p>\n

But for crying out loud, the president can’t suggest he has a mandate to do the unpopular and expect the country to do anything but laugh at him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president could make the case that Americans are just wrong about the war. He could tell the nation, “Look, I know most of you disagree with my judgment, but I’ve decided that my policy is the only way to go. Americans showed they prefer a change when the voted for Democrats last November, but […]<\/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-10604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604","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=10604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}