{"id":2539,"date":"2004-09-15T13:34:48","date_gmt":"2004-09-15T18:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2539.html"},"modified":"2004-09-15T13:34:48","modified_gmt":"2004-09-15T18:34:48","slug":"the-excuse-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-excuse-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Excuse Presidency’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Kerry campaign has added some communications staffers (McCurry, Lockhart, etc.) of late, they’ve been experimenting with some new rhetorical lines of attack and campaign slogans. About two weeks ago, we were hearing a lot about “W stands for ‘Wrong<\/a>,'” which isn’t bad. Last week, Kerry was using the “if you’re happy with Bush’s record on ____, vote for my opponent…” tack<\/a>, which I also liked. This week, Kerry was throwing around “Bush talks the game but doesn’t deliver<\/a>,” which works pretty well.<\/p>\n

But today’s campaign theme — the “Excuse Presidency”<\/a> — is easily my favorite.<\/p>\n

Democratic candidate John Kerry unleashed a harsh indictment of President Bush’s economic stewardship on Wednesday and urged his Republican rival to take responsibility instead of playing the victim.<\/p>\n

Trailing in national polls seven weeks before the Nov. 2 election and heeding advisers who have urged him to be more forceful, Kerry rejected Bush’s perfect storm defense — recession, war and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — of the tepid economic performance in the United States.<\/p>\n

“The president would have us believe that his record is the result of bad luck, not bad decisions, that he’s faced the wrong circumstances, not made the wrong choices,” Kerry said in excerpts of remarks prepared for delivery at the Detroit Economic Club, a traditional forum for presidential candidates.<\/p>\n

“In fact, this president has created more excuses than jobs. His is the Excuse Presidency — never wrong, never responsible, never to blame. President Bush’s desk isn’t where the buck stops — it’s where the blame begins. He\u2019s blamed just about everyone but himself and his administration for America\u2019s economic problems. And if he’s missed you, don’t worry — he’s still got 48 days left until the election.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Man, do I wish Kerry had started using this one sooner.
\n
\nThematically, this couldn’t be better. It emphasizes two points, both of which Dems have struggled to articulate effectively. One, Bush keeps failing, and two, Bush is a poor leader who shuns accountability.<\/p>\n

Successful presidents don’t fail and come up with good excuses; they succeed. Bush clearly fits in the prior, not the latter. Granted, the Bush White House is clever is creating justifications for their fiascoes. Slow economy? It’s Enron’s fault. No WMD in Iraq? It’s the intelligence community’s fault. Job losses? Clinton’s fault. Record deficits? Osama bin Laden’s fault. Health care crisis? Trial lawyers’ fault. Frayed international alliances? France’s fault. <\/p>\n

This isn’t leadership.<\/p>\n

Bush acts as if he has an allergy to accountability. It’s the kind of characteristic that strikes at the heart of the fraudulent persona Bush’s aides have sold (a solid, resolute leader who demands responsibility, instead of a wavering and confused president who blames others for his mistakes). <\/p>\n

That’s what makes Kerry’s point today so salient — real leaders don’t make excuses, they accept responsibility when things go wrong. And with Bush, everything<\/i> has gone wrong — tax cuts didn’t create jobs, Iraq is a debacle of historic proportions, etc. — but responsibility always lies elsewhere.<\/p>\n

During his 2000 convention speech, Bush described<\/a> a far different approach.<\/p>\n

“A hundred years from now this must not be remembered as an age rich in possession and poor in ideals. Instead, we must usher in an era of responsibility…. [O]ur nation’s leaders our responsible to confront problems, not pass them onto others. And to lead this nation to a responsibility era, that president himself must be responsible.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Couldn’t agree more. All the more reason to bring this “excuse presidency” to an end in 48 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Kerry campaign has added some communications staffers (McCurry, Lockhart, etc.) of late, they’ve been experimenting with some new rhetorical lines of attack and campaign slogans. About two weeks ago, we were hearing a lot about “W stands for ‘Wrong,’” which isn’t bad. Last week, Kerry was using the “if you’re happy with Bush’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}