Let's Have an Argument
EDITORIAL Let's Have an Argument Most presidents retreat to the bully pulpit after suffering a setback, but George W. Bush has done the opposite. Following the Jeffords defection, President Bush...
...For example, substantively the Bush administration proposed a balanced energy policy, which had a nice mix of conservation measures, infrastructure improvements, and supply enhancements...
...Bush is no Bill Clinton...
...Bush makes liberals in the media more powerful by not using the power of the White House to offer a competing view...
...But President Bush never made the case...
...The Bush administration seemed to have painted itself into a corner on the patients' bill of rights, but it is now likely to get a bill it can live with...
...This has yielded some startling victories...
...In some cases, the administration has merely succeeded in promoting a slightly more responsible version of a Democratic initiative...
...They'd turn into subjects for the newspaper columnists and grist for the television talk shows...
...These victories are a tribute to Bush, Dick Cheney, White House legislative director Nick Calio, and perhaps most of all to Tom DeLay's always impressive whip operation...
...On Kyoto, for example, Bush behaved admirably...
...The second assertion seems to us false...
...Following the Jeffords defection, President Bush went down into the trenches, conducting detailed negotiations with members of Congress, and visiting the Capitol building to personally move legislation...
...The administration supported a bill to ban human cloning...
...They represent an effort to wage a values campaign without actually articulating any values...
...This encouraged Democrats to take more aggressive lines on a whole range of economic and environmental matters...
...And the media abhors a vacuum...
...Worst of all, they are compassionate conservatism without the conservatism...
...Bush doesn't seem to have that magic ability to move opinion...
...he is no master of off-the-cuff wonkery...
...the president will champion ideas like instant messaging between grandparents and grandkids...
...No Senate is going to ratify a treaty that will send the economy into a steep recession...
...Right now the Bush administration is strategically crippled...
...David Brooks, for the Editors...
...He and his administration have done a good job of promoting missile defense—making it look inevitable to Russia and the Europeans...
...That's the European—and Clintonian—way...
...These ideas are so minuscule and innocuous, they are an insult to the memory of Dick Morris...
...Most of all, an administration that takes seriously its rhetorical duties would have to take up again the task that it began during the campaign but has abandoned in the White House: that of defining compassionate conservatism and the role of government...
...Right now it seems that President Bush believes that they don't...
...But they could be promoted beforehand...
...But when he gives a set speech, he does it well...
...It's often said that Bush doesn't enjoy the bully pulpit role...
...If Bush is going to break the deadlock that is stifling action in Washington, he is going to have to articulate a long-term vision...
...Earlier this summer, President Bush went abroad and produced several impressive achievements...
...Some worthy White House official recently leaked a "strategy" plan to the Washington Post...
...If the Bush administration is going to seize the initiative on big issues, if it is going to win strategic victories as well as tactical ones, if it is going to be able to strike fear into the hearts of Senate Democrats, then President Bush is going to have to use the bully pulpit to frame issues and shape public opinion...
...Aides could brief reporters and pundits on these speeches before he delivered them...
...So on Kyoto as on so many other issues, Bush was cast as the bad guy...
...Nonetheless, knowing that the treaty was never going to be implemented here, Bush could have gone along cynically...
...the House passed it by 103 votes...
...This has so far been the most unrhetorical presidency of modern times...
...But the plan was presented so badly, it was cast as a production-only sop to corporations...
...In a thin political season, Bush would have the stage to himself, and could shape the national discussion among those who still care about politics and policy...
...They need a president who will give life to the old conservative mantra that ideas have consequences...
...When presidents can't get their initiatives passed, they always say it is because they can't get their message out...
...But he could...
...The document outlines a fall's worth of goo: The president is to urge members of the media to put more good news in the paper...
...Some of the news channels would cover them...
...These don't have to be prime time, network-televised addresses...
...Usually that's bunk...
...Early in his presidential campaign, he gave a series of thoughtful and innovative speeches that gave a lift to his candidacy...
...His Inaugural Address was a glowing success...
...No wonder this administration often seems more defensive than it really is...
...But these are tactical victories...
...As for not enjoying the speechifying role, well, right now it looks like a few speeches might make the difference between a transformational presidency and a merely managerial one...
...Or that he's not good at it...
...House moderates seemed all set to defect from the Bush energy plan, as they had defected on arsenic regulations and other environmental matters...
...During the Clinton administration, the Department of Energy estimated that implementing the treaty would shrink the GDP by 4 percent...
...No wonder Democrats don't fear Bush the way Republicans used to fear Bill Clinton...
...The Republican convention speech was a success...
...In each case, the Bush administration failed to deliver the sort of reasoned argument that would have explained why it was taking the position it did...
...But after intensive White House lobbying, Republican unity held...
...But in the case of the Bush administration, it's true...
...Or, he could, as he did, take the honest approach...
...Because Bush hasn't been dominating the airwaves, the media commentators have been able to...
...The American people, who like to see their leaders acting honestly instead of cynically (the European nations shot down coal-inhibiting regulations in Brussels, even as they trumpeted their virtue on Kyoto), could have been rallied on this issue...
...He scuttled bad treaties like the Kyoto global warming accord and an unenforceable germ warfare agreement...
...But these were all back-room successes...
...He could replicate the early successes of his campaign by delivering a series of formal substantive speeches...
...He could have pretended to support it, knowing full well that it would never be sent to the Senate floor for a ratification vote...
...Then when the Bushies pointed to conservation measures that were always in the plan, they were seen as weakly trying to placate the environmentalists...
...In office, the Bush administration has been all over the place—siding with Ted Kennedy here, stuffing Tom Daschle there...
...But if conservatives are going to build a working majority, they need to do something more...
...This inability, or unwillingness, to articulate an argument has hampered the administration on issue after issue...
Vol. 6 • August 2001 • No. 45
