James Wolcott is really good!
http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/06/kristol_ball.phpFor a tuff-talkin' Texan, President Bush is awfully punctilious about reporters' trying to double-dip questions during press conferences. During the one wrapped up a bit earlier today, he took a sarcastic swipe at a foreign reporter for picking up the "American trick" of asking two questions when the quota is one per customer. He's a stickler about that. Before the war Bush didn't know the crucial difference between the Sunnis and the Shiites, according to a NY Times magazine piece (on the eve of invasion he had to have it explained to him by an Iraqi exile), but this sort of infraction he pounces on like John Simon affronted by a dangling modifier. The press conference itself was mostly a familiar reiteration of his War on Terror halftime pep talk; more interesting was the byplay between Bill Kristol on Fox News and the shiny host, whose name escapes me but who seems to be competing with Fox's Shepard Smith to radiate avidity on camera -- they're brotherly chipmunk anchorman holograms. You can tell them apart because Shep is the one who really, really wants to do Jane Skinner like a Harlequin Romance ravisher and leave her panting for more in the hayloft.
But I digress.
What their chat boiled down to is that as a second-term president Bush doesn't have to heed the declining poll numbers over Iraq. He has the luxury of being unswayable. This was said by Kristol with the prissy superarrogance that we have come to expect from Beltway neocons, for whom no sacrifice is too great to make for the grand mission as long as some other chump is making it. Gazing into his Kristol ball, son of Irving said that Bush basically has a free hand for another year or so to defeat or at least subdue the insurgency, regardless of how much the press clamors and domestic support slides.
This marks a tactical shift from the stay-the-coursers. Only a few weeks ago, White House flacks and their shoeshiners in the media were shrugging off the bad poll numbers with "Hey, polls go up and down." You know, sorta like the stock market. You just gotta ride out these bumps. But now that it's clear even to Bush fantasists that the polls numbers on Iraq aren't going up and down, they're only going in one direction, and picking up speed as they descend, they're saying that the opinion of the American people must be discounted for their own good. The will of the people must take second place to the wiser, stronger will of those in charge. The most ludicrous poll-dismissing ploy was attempted by David Brooks, who harkened back to George Washington at Valley Forge. It was not a parallel flattering to Bush. George Washington served with his troops at Valley Forge, endured what they endured. Bush froze on 9/11 and hasn't done a single thing since that would inconvenience him, his supporters, or his Republican donors.
Historical parallels have lost their spine-stiffening efficacy. We're all Churchilled out, this isn't 1939 or 1865 or 1776, the disaster is unfolding here and now and in front of our eyes and if Republican conservatives want to persevere despite eroding support then they should pull all those future lobbyists and leeches out of the Heritage Foundation dorm and march them over to a recruiting station, where they can learn how to shoot off something besides their Rush-quoting mouths.
Here's what I'm wondering. Bush is making a major national address on Tuesday about Iraq. With each speech he masticated about Social Security "reform," approval for his non-existent program sagged. His sixty-day sales tour was a Willy Loman flop. Suppose he makes a rallying call on Tuesday and his poll numbers subsequently drop even more? I recall when LBJ would go before the nation with a televised address to shore up support on Vietnam, and it was too late, the nation had had enough. I'm not saying that will happen next week -- Bush's speechwriter may whip enough enough eloquence for a temporary boost in the polls -- but suppose it does? If Bush comes forward, and the American people recoil, I suspect a line of perspiration will begin to form even along Bill Kristol's thin upper lip.
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