by Mark Silva
Is the White House acutely aware of just how much time President George W. Bush has left in his term?
Say, 49 days?
En route to North Carolina today, the press secretary was asked if Bush is planning a lot of appearances such as today's, where he is taking part in a roundtable discussion in Greensboro with children of prisoners and their mentors to talk about one of Bush's "faith-based initiatives,'' the President's Mentoring Children of Prisoners Initiative.
(They have brought Cynthia McFadden of ABC's Nightline along for the trip. She is preparing a report on the faith-based initiative that has pumped more than $2 billion a year of federal funding into charity-run social services. She will get some time with Bush for a piece probably running on Monday.)
"Over time we've done different speeches since, I think August, talking about the president's record on judicial nominees, and on keeping America safe, on the faith-based -- remember we did the faith-based conference,'' Press Secretary Dana Perino said today. "So, we have looked to opportunities for the president to be able to talk about some of his legacy items, some things that he will be remembered for. He talked about that a little bit yesterday. You saw the Charlie Gibson interview.
"So, now is the right time for us to be able to identify some opportunities where the President can either give a speech, or do a roundtable like he's doing today... He's giving a speech on the Middle East on Friday. So there's a lot of different opportunities, and you'll sort of see them between now and, I guess, 49 days from now.''
But then, who's counting?.
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Comments
There's no better way to lose a war than to have your on-the-ground decisions be forced through an ideological prism. And it was obvious even to outsiders that this was how Bush was conducting the Iraq war -- indeed, it was the decisive factor behind the very decision to invade in the first place. It's even more telling that the military minds involved saw that this was occurring too.
But in truth, this constitutes not merely the entire Bush approach to governance, but conservative governance as well. Thus -- to use one example out of many -- during Bush's tenure there was not a single economic problem that could not be solved by anything other than tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the financial sector.
Of course, we now realize that this was simply a prescription for gobbling PCBs after a diagnosis of cancer.
So when we hear conservatives tell themselves that the reason they lost this last election was their failure to adhere to "conservative principles," we know they're continuing to cling to the very reason they lost. Because such adherence inherently means that these "principles" -- that is, conservative dogma about how they believe the world ought to be, particularly the insistence that government itself is the problem, when the reality is that bad governance is the problem -- trump their ability to face realities on the ground.
From the outset, it's clear that reversing that approach is the most fundamental aspect of the "change" that Barack Obama intends to bring to the White House. And that is a very good sign indeed.
Posted by: You Betcha | December 2, 2008 1:46 PM
Betcha,
Well said. To this day, "victory" in Iraq had not been defined -- no wonder it can't be achieved.
Posted by: Kenny Bunkport ☮ | December 2, 2008 6:49 PM
Who needs a definition, Kenny B.? Neocons create their own reality. Brace yourself now for specious argument from my learned friend, John W., as to why the only way we lose a war is if we cut and run. We didn't achieve a single stated goal in Vietnam, but J.W. will tell you we weren't defeated because we didn't lose a single strategic battle in the entire conflict. "Peace with honor" rings hollow to most people, but not with the true believers.
Posted by: dt | December 2, 2008 8:55 PM
So many pardons to sign.
So many midnight regulations to promulgate.
So little time!
Posted by: ornery | December 2, 2008 10:08 PM
49 days--or 1176 hours--or 7,560 minutes. How many executive orders can one man sign in 7,560 minutes--even when using 11 different commemorative pens for one signature?
Posted by: Vivian | December 3, 2008 12:42 AM