{"id":5124,"date":"2005-08-31T11:30:01","date_gmt":"2005-08-31T15:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/5124.html"},"modified":"2005-08-31T11:30:01","modified_gmt":"2005-08-31T15:30:01","slug":"mcclellan-cant-have-it-both-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mcclellan-cant-have-it-both-ways\/","title":{"rendered":"McClellan can’t have it both ways"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m glad the president is cutting his five-week vacation short<\/a> by two days to oversee the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. It’s only the second time Bush has cut a trip short — the first<\/a> was to sign the Terri Schiavo bill — but even if it’s just for symbolic significance, I think appearances alone dictate that the president not clear brush and ride his bike while so many are suffering along the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

Having said that, I can’t help but find it a little odd that the White House’s line is that this has nothing to do with symbolism and or appearances. Consider this exchange<\/a> from yesterday’s press briefing with Scott McClellan.<\/p>\n

Q: This is more — this is more symbolic. Cutting short his vacation is more symbolic because he can do all this from the ranch, right?<\/p>\n

McClellan: No, I think — no, I disagree. Like I said, this is one of the most devastating storms in our nation’s history, and the President, after receiving a further update this morning, made the decision that he wanted to get back to D.C. and oversee the response efforts from there. This is going to — there are many agencies involved in this — in this response effort, and it’s going to require a long and sustained effort on behalf of all the federal agencies working closely with state and local officials to help people recover from the destruction and devastation. <\/p>\n

Q: What is he unable to — what is he unable to do in Crawford he could do — <\/p>\n

McClellan: We’ll talk to you all later. We’ve got to go. Thank you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look, the president is doing the right thing here. There’s a calamity of biblical proportions in Louisiana and Mississippi and Bush is heading back to work. Fine.<\/p>\n

The problem arises from McClellan’s claim that Bush’s abilities to oversee government activities are hampered by being in Crawford. If McClellan’s right, why hasn’t the war in Iraq prompted Bush to return to the White House sooner?<\/p>\n

For years, every time Bush takes another break, the White House message emphasizes that the president is still “on the job.” He’s getting briefings, calling world leaders, being kept appraised of international developments, etc. It only looks<\/i> like he’s taking a five-week vacation every August, they say. There’s no reason for Bush to oversee the war in Iraq from the White House, aides insist, because everything that he could do in DC he can do from the ranch.<\/p>\n

So, is that old line no longer operative?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m glad the president is cutting his five-week vacation short by two days to oversee the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. It’s only the second time Bush has cut a trip short — the first was to sign the Terri Schiavo bill — but even if it’s just for symbolic significance, I think appearances alone […]<\/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-5124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5124","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=5124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}