A Bush Rally
EDITORIAL A Bush Rally The Associated Press reported last week that a left-wing group, Americans United for Change, plans to spend $8.5 million to ensure that President Bush’s public approval...
...It’s nice of them to worry that Bush will have a decent legacy...
...Crittenden’s response was the right one: to mock the effort, and to adduce the easily adduce-able evidence that Bush has been a pretty decent president...
...Bush’s approval numbers may not change much over the next year...
...That’s what most Republicans are saying...
...It is also a good idea to win a few big congressional fi ghts—on eavesdropping on foreign communications, for example...
...He’s not running for reelection...
...It has enrolled 24 million seniors and premiums for the basic drug benefi t are running about 40 percent below the projected cost...
...EDITORIAL A Bush Rally The Associated Press reported last week that a left-wing group, Americans United for Change, plans to spend $8.5 million to ensure that President Bush’s public approval rating doesn’t improve in his fi nal year in offi ce...
...But that’s just Democratic spin...
...It may be Republicans will lose the White House in any case...
...I’m sure I missed a few, but it’s been a long 7 years...
...That’s all the more reason not to risk the progress produced by the surge by prematurely drawing down American troops...
...It would be smart for Americans to see more of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, CIA director Michael Hayden, and Generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno over the next year...
...What’s more, 2006, an off-year election, was a retrospective verdict on Iraq and Katrina...
...It would also be smart to deploy some of the not-too-partisan and not-tootainted (whether the tainting was fair or unfair) faces in the administration to defend its policies and explain its successes...
...Why would liberals want to spend good money refi ghting the battles they lost yesterday...
...All of a sudden he became a rallying cry for conservatives and their ideology,” Brad Woodhouse, the group’s president, lamented...
...And it was sensible to take some issues off the table—cutting a quick and pretty harmless bipartisan agreement on a stimulus package, for example...
...Yet the Republican National Committee’s reaction was different from Crittenden’s...
...The group points out that President Reagan recovered politically in 1988...
...Stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan is a priority, too...
...This year’s election will be forward-looking...
...But it would be nice to watch the left gnash its collective teeth at the Bush administration, as it governs competently and makes its case, and its approval numbers climb...
...This is the conventional GOP response to concerns about Bush’s low approval rating: 2008 won’t be about Bush...
...It may be that his administration will end up winning a war, keeping the country safe, and presiding over decent economic growth—and people will still disapprove of Bush...
...asked RNC spokesman Alex Conant...
...Rahm Emanuel can repeat all he wants that “George Bush is on the ballot in 2008...
...But the truth is that Emanuel isn’t all wrong: It is important to Republican prospects in 2008, and to conservative prospects beyond, how the Bush administration is judged...
...Woodhouse added that another reason his group wants to insure against a Bush recovery is that it could help the GOP presidential nominee this year...
...Nor is his vice president...
...It would also be useful if Americans learned that under the direction of drug czar John Walters teen drug use is down 25 percent over the past six years...
...On other fronts, the administration, unfortunately, seems determined to drift with respect to North Korea and Iran...
...William Kristol...
...And the leading GOP candidates have a very limited association with the Bush administration...
...Meanwhile it is engaged in wishful thinking with respect to Russia and the Palestinian question...
...He continued, “The 2008 election will be about the future and which candidate is best able to lead during a time of war and economic challenge...
...And perhaps the president himself should take some time to explain that his politically courageous August 2001 decision on stem cells, balancing scientifi c progress and moral concerns, has been utterly vindicated...
...there are 860,000 fewer teens using illegal drugs than in 2001...
...Continued progress in Iraq is paramount...
...As Jules Crittenden commented on his excellent eponymous blog: “Apparently the Iraq war, Gitmo, trampling of constitutional rights, failure to catch bin Laden, bipartisanly despised immigration bill, Plamegate . . . heck, I can’t remember all of it, but seven years of Bush bumbling and Bush lies and Bush looking like a chimp just didn’t do it...
...Progressives are still living with that...
...Maybe they’re afraid someone will notice we’re winning in Iraq, America hasn’t been attacked again, Katrina had more to do with inept Democratic leadership in Louisiana than it did with inept Republican leadership in Washington . . . we’ve had decent job growth and it isn’t likely to be much of a recession...
...Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt should be on television explaining that the Medicare prescription drug benefi t has been a success...
...Absent a crisis, it may be that all conservatives can do is mitigate the damage—and focus on making sure Iraq and Afghanistan are in reasonably good shape...
Vol. 13 • February 2008 • No. 20
