Time: The (*) Mission: Find a Way to Stay Relevant

[seafan]

The Mission: Find a Way to Stay Relevant

Bush's troubleshooting plan is to explain Iraq better and stick with his same team
By MIKE ALLEN

March 12, 2006


BROOKS KRAFT / CORBIS FOR TIME
Pitching In: Bush last week helps restore a Gautier, Miss., house destroyed by Katrina.

snip

Just 16 months after the President's re-election, his Capitol Hill allies are in a funk, pointing fingers and worrying about their survival in November's midterm elections. Even Bush loyalists fear the Commander in Chief is in a hole with no ladder. When the Dubai company that the Administration had okayed to run several U.S. ports pulled out of the widely derided deal last week, the President escaped from a fight with a Republican-controlled Congress that had the public overwhelmingly on its side. In the long run, though, the company's withdrawal may turn out to mark the moment Bush became a lame duck. "The ports deal showed that the Congress is completely going its own way," said a presidential adviser. White House officials contend that Bush quickly realized the ports affair was a fiasco. "I know a prairie fire when I see one," the Texas rancher told an aide. The most politically injurious fallout could be new constraints on Bush's ability to play what had been his strong card—his national-security credentials.

In an acknowledgment that he needs to offer a more convincing message on Iraq, the President is scheduled to deliver a series of three speeches this month that aim at persuasion, a departure from his usual hallmark of repetition. Bush plans to describe U.S. efforts to develop new defenses against insurgents' improvised explosive devices and give town-by-town case studies of how his strategy for victory in Iraq is playing out.

snip

With little hope of getting much legislation passed in an election year, Bush plans to stay relevant through an aggressive schedule of fund raising and rally stops for Republican candidates, most of whom are still eager for presidential visits. One Bush adviser sees political promise for the President in a nuclear peril. "Certainly, there's going to be a serious showdown on Iran," he said. "He's very relevant on that, and that may help his numbers a little bit." Through the challenges, the President has kept his human touch.

Touring New Orleans last week, he met a man who had survived for days on canned goods before being evacuated to Utah. "Were you the only black man in Salt Lake City?" Bush asked. Meanwhile, lobbyists and outside Republican strategists are pleading anew for a White House shake-up, arguing that if this were a business, the management would be thrown out. "The Bushies have proved that five people can run the country for four years and one day," a G.O.P. congressional aide complained. The critics are conducting their conversations with the President's men in polite code, such as asking how they can help. "There is a drumbeat," a Bush friend explained, "but it's not resonant in the White House. These are people this Administration, and the President in particular, disdains. You scrape 'em off your shoes—and keep going."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1172179,00.html


Yes, we the people, the press and the activists are the *stuff* on *'s shoes.

[niyad]

1. WHERE shall I begin? with that fake picture of * "helping"-- the man

choked on a pretzel, and yet we are to think his handlers let him hold nails in his mouth? the man who doesn't want anybody but his "base" near him is down in the dirt with the surivors he has demonstrated he doesn't give a damn about?

"I know a prairie fire when I see one" said the texas rancher. to WHOM was the article referring, because it sure as **** wasn't bush--who isn't a texan, isn't a rancher, and has probably never seen a prairie fire.

if any DEM had made that kind of ignorant, racist statement ("were you the only black man in SLC?) the media would have been screaming for weeks. nary a peep out of them as * demonstrates yet again that he is completely clueless.

we are indeed the stuff on his shoes--I say it's time to eat through the leather.

[lyonn]

2. Then the comment we all dread

but keep hearing the DRUMBEAT ....

"Certainly, there's going to be a serious showdown on Iran," he said. "He's very relevant on that, and that may help his numbers a little bit." Through the challenges, the President has kept his human touch.


I don't think the dems in congress can stop bush on his march to Iran but, maybe his party can.

[chaumont58]

3. Stay relevant? In 1994 or 5, there was the same cry about Clinton...

staying relevant. Only in the minds of the brain dead inside the beltway reporters would such a thing even be considered. These fuckin' people are so god damn dumb. They only think of fluff, not reality. Bush will be president until January 2009. Most of his duties and authorities are defined by law. The bullshit about moral authority is just that, bullshit.
The article is but one example of how too much time inside the beltway will rot the best of brains.