W. is giving out free advice – to some non-traditional clients:
President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.
In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ”
Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.”
This is almost Rovian in its cleverness. Not only is it wise counsel in its own right, it could also serve to fatally split the responsible elements of the Democratic Party from the fringe left. While all that mad money provided by the perpetually agitated True Believers on the netroot side looks attractive to campaigning politicians, they won’t want to be pulled so far from the mainstream that they’re unelectable or that any electoral gains they may get in 2008 are unsustainable.
The True Believers held their nose and voted for the Clintons’ DLC-style centrists back during the 90’s, choking down balanced budgets, retreat from gay rights, gun control and even welfare reform because it was presented as the price of access to the levers of power. For their pains they saw a Republican congress elected and then – horror of horrors – Bush elected not once but twice to the presidency. They’re tired of compromise and are demanding fealty – exactly what they won’t get from professional political partisans that need to attract a substantial part of the center and for whom winning is the One True Thing, an end rather than a means.
I think it’s quite possible that once again the man has been misunderestimated.
Lex, you just summed up the past 6+ years.
I hope that they choke on their bile, and do something incredibly foolish that pushes the center towards the right. Kind of like the MoveOn ad with General Petraeus. Apparently, the advertisement didn’t quite have the impact that the far left had thought.
The man has been over estimated repeatedly. What it shows is that the guy is every bit as political as Clinton-plus he believes that Clinton getting the Nom is the best thing for the Republican party. As for the Republicans taking back Congress-fat lot of good that did us…………..
The Republicans lost the election in 92 and the Dems lost the Congress in 94 by their own buffoonery.
I read this as Bush is fighting for the rights of the Office of the President. He’s been fighting that fight for his entire term in office. There are three branches of government, with checks and balances, and Congress has for 6 years determined it has oversight on the Administrative branch. If somebody who believes that takes said office, the precedent would cause those rights to be lost forever.
This has ramifications at the Constitutional level. If you want to see how a little wedge can open the door, take a look at any bill before the congress and notice how part of the justification is it somehow affects interstate commerce.
Its about power, pure and simple. I see Bush fighting to retain the rights and powers of the office he holds now, so that others who gain it will not have lost on his watch, no matter their party or their politics.
– Max
I really prolly ought to quit drinking, for all sorts of reasons.
When I contemplate upon the people who want to be Prez of the US, I just want to drink more. I want to be numb when they come for me. Maybe it won’t hurt so much, that way.
I do pine for the days when political parties had real conventions, in which the deciding was done in smoke-filled rooms.
That’s how we got President Truman, instead of President Wallace (shudder!)
Right now we’re getting our chief executives out of a sort of reality show, which isn’t as bad as it might sound but really tilts the playing field towards showmanship and less towards reality.
Hey, can’t fix that before the next election, might as well accept it and move on for now.
And we’re too large a country to expect campaigns to always stop nearby. Plus the prize is electoral college votes, so small population areas are dismissed by simple calculus.
It’s a heckuva way to run a Republic, but as they say it beats the heck out of all the others.