{"id":7219,"date":"2006-04-24T10:15:38","date_gmt":"2006-04-24T14:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7219"},"modified":"2006-04-24T10:15:38","modified_gmt":"2006-04-24T14:15:38","slug":"second-term-reboot-take-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/second-term-reboot-take-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Second-term reboot — take three"},"content":{"rendered":"

[tag]Time[\/tag] reports<\/a> this week that new White House Chief of Staff [tag]Josh Bolten[\/tag] has a plan to “reboot the second term.” It also notes that this has now happened “so many times (at least three, by Time’s count) that even their allies have lost track.”<\/p>\n

But this one’s different, the [tag]White House[\/tag] says. This time, there’s a [tag]five-point plan[\/tag]. Fred Barnes offered his four-part “keys to a successful comeback<\/a>” two weeks ago. Then National Review’s Rich Lowry unveiled a seven-point plan<\/a> of his own. And now we have Bolten’s five-point strategy<\/a> to be implemented over the next six months to help prevent a Dem Congress from getting elected.<\/p>\n

* “Deploy Guns and Badges<\/em>” — Time reports that Bush will shore up the conservative base by emphasizing “an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border.” This will include photo-ops, in which we’ll see Bush “go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV.” Downside: there still won’t be any immigration legislation passed.<\/p>\n

* “Make Wall St. Happy<\/em>” — Time explained that Bush will focus on tax cuts for stock dividends and capital gains, in part because “a lot of Republicans are investors.” Downside: Bush should be worrying a lot more about Main Street than Wall Street.<\/p>\n

* “Brag More<\/em>” — Apparently, a key component of Bolten’s strategy is playing up how really great Bush’s accomplishments are. Downside: Bush doesn’t have any accomplishments; this will only reinforce the image of the White House’s detached arrogance; and if the Bush gang brags while everyone is disappointed, they’ll look out of touch.<\/p>\n

* “Reclaim Security Credibility<\/em>” — As Time put it, Bush will pressure Iran and, in the process, “rehabilitate himself on national security.” Downside: the possibility of another war, and the likelihood that Americans won’t fall for this trick again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* “Court the press<\/em>” — Bolten reportedly believes “the White House can work more astutely with journalists to make its case to the public.” Downside: the White House hates journalists and journalists know they’ve been lied to.<\/p>\n

Of the five points, three of them are solely about style, one of them is primarily about public relations, and one of them might lead to another disastrous war. Is there a Plan B?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[tag]Time[\/tag] reports this week that new White House Chief of Staff [tag]Josh Bolten[\/tag] has a plan to “reboot the second term.” It also notes that this has now happened “so many times (at least three, by Time’s count) that even their allies have lost track.” But this one’s different, the [tag]White House[\/tag] says. This time, […]<\/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-7219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7219","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=7219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}