George W. Bush's To-Do List
BARNES, FRED
George W. Bush's To-Do List Four keys to a successful comeback. BY FRED BARNES WHAT ARE THE ODDS that President Bush will succeed in his full-blown campaign to recover from a second-term swoon?...
...After enormous success in 1965, the remainder of the John Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson presiFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD and author of Rebel-in-Chief (Crown Forum...
...The press, communications, congressional liaison, and economic policy offices at the White House may be overhauled...
...And should Bolten turn his attention to cabinet posts, particularly one or more of the Big Four (State, Defense, Justice, Treasury), he's likely to look first at Treasury Secretary John Snow...
...Bush didn't intervene when the House passed a bill in December limited to border security and has remained on the sidelines as the Senate deals with the issue...
...They hoped to get reporters to like them or sympathize with them...
...Now the president has braced himself for the pain of more staff switches...
...The groups included sharp critics of Bush like Democratic senators Russ Fein-gold of Wisconsin and Carl Levin of Michigan...
...Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton tried to revive their flagging presidencies this way...
...And he intends to change his emphasis on policies and initiatives...
...The president has a problem with firing anyone...
...History says all this won't revive the Bush presidency...
...So, without any ballyhoo or even an announcement, he's mounted a four-front offensive...
...More important, though, are the president's meetings with congressional Republicans, who used to constitute his base of support on Capitol Hill...
...Snow's the only one who's not a longtime Bush ally...
...The mere fact of widespread changes, not the press's needling, would dominate the news...
...No one should expect the president to change his policies on fundamental issues like Iraq and taxes...
...So what...
...It wouldn't be smart to play his card too soon," a senior Bush aide said...
...The president shouldn't expect too much from his sitdowns with reporters...
...But it's still worth doing if it aids Bush and Republicans, even a little, in warding off catastrophic defeat in the midterm election in November...
...And it might...
...At this point, the most important domestic issue is immigration...
...The tactic failed...
...He saw a Republican resurgence in 1938, struggled to win reelection in 1940, and was rejuvenated only by World War II...
...He's begun to overhaul his White House staff and his administration...
...Along with his meetings with members of Congress, the president's off-the-record chats with small groups of Washington reporters and his Q-and-A sessions following speeches destroy the image that he's insulated and out of touch...
...Staff shakeup...
...At one session last week, Bush spent most of the meeting listening to their advice and complaints...
...Harry Truman never recovered after the scandals and the Korean War dragged down his presidency...
...He's given the new chief, Josh Bolten, carte blanche to make personnel changes...
...Whether in a slump or not, Bush or any president has extraordinary power to change the subject in Washington and indeed around the country—that is, so long as he's willing to be bold, as Bush often is...
...Bush's task is huge...
...Meanwhile, Senator Ted Kennedy was invited over to discuss Bush's competitiveness initiative...
...He's inviting members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, to meetings at the White House like never before...
...It was time well spent...
...At least he'd better...
...Chats with Congress...
...The president's goals are quite simple...
...dency was a disaster...
...Watergate short-circuited Richard Nixon's second term, Iran-contra doomed Ronald Reagan's, and impeachment ruined Bill Clinton's...
...Bush could wage a noisy campaign for confirmation of appeals court judges and put together a tax reform plan...
...Democrats staged a revival in Dwight Eisenhower's second term as he limped out of office...
...Thus, it was highly significant that he allowed Andy Card to fall on his sword during a bad spell for Bush and quit as White House chief of staff...
...Bush replied, "I haven't really thought of it that way...
...Many of them have become alienated from the president...
...If they are, Bush can create the aura and energy of a new presidency, one ready to overcome troubles and do big things again...
...Policy shifts...
...One thing he's sure to do is attempt to focus the nation on the terrorist threat once more...
...To achieve these, he has to improve his popularity as measured by his job approval rating, since the political community and the media are obsessed with this poll number...
...Unlike most presidents, he's loyal to his staff, especially those who've been with him for years...
...But there are old policies he could reemphasize and new ones he could adopt...
...A spate of major firings and hirings would mesmerize the media...
...They'd have to cover it extensively...
...He needs to persuade Republicans and conservatives to accept a plan for illegal immigrants already in the country to "earn" citizenship—or at least reconcile them to such a program...
...Rumsfeld has only known Bush since the start of the administration, but he now looks like a Bush lifer...
...Three bipartisan congressional groups that had visited Iraq were awarded private sessions with the president last week...
...They'd better be sweeping...
...Not good, if you consider the records of second-term presidents over the past 70 years...
...Of course, they'd stress the president was succumbing to the advice of critics...
...Let's examine his effort to revive his political fortunes...
...Now Bush is vigorously trying to escape the fate of his predecessors...
...He has at least three in mind: improve relations with Congress, strengthen ties to the Republican base of voters, and quash the Democratic talking point that he and his administration are incompetent...
...We will help get a vehicle off the floor of the Senate, but then engage the issue more during a [House-Senate] conference...
...Bush actually surprised the press when he began taking questions following a speech in Cleveland two weeks ago...
...The first question, however, was based on a hostile book by political writer Kevin Phillips and sought Bush's take on whether the Iraq war and the rise of terrorism are "signs of the apocalypse...
...The pace of presidential gatherings at the White House with Senate and House members has accelerated noticeably in recent weeks...
...He's inaugurated what an aide calls an "open door policy" that includes schmoozing the press and taking questions from the public...
...Open door...
...Start with Franklin Roosevelt...
...Other issues...
Vol. 11 • April 2006 • No. 28
