The Peninsula (Qatar): "All pump, no power at the ranch in Crawford"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/commentary/commentaryother.asp?file=augustcommentary672005.xml

ALMOST feel sorry for President Bush. The poor man is trying to pay homage to French civilisation by taking the month of August off, but we just won’t leave him alone.

Not only are antiwar activists camped outside his ranch in Crawford, Texas, but soaring gas prices are now clouding the economy’s otherwise rosy outlook. On Tuesday, Wal-Mart whined that high gas prices are affecting its sales, and we all know that as Wal-Mart goes, so goes the nation. Wholesale inflation is also perking up on account of fuel costs.

Bush knows that any self-respecting president has to express empathy when people face $3-a-gallon sticker shock at the pump, even if he can’t do much about it. It’s the same when stock markets crater – a president has to exude confidence and control, even if he has neither, without promising a deliverance he is in no position to effect.



The best practitioner of this art in recent memory was not a president but former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who exuded a soothing competence any time markets took a dive. In 25 words or less, he could make you feel lucky to be invested in the miracle that is America, even as you lost your shirt. Bush’s father, on the other hand, was too clumsily transparent on the campaign trail in early 1992 when he went around New Hampshire proclaiming, “Message: I care. We’re trying.” Voters saw a president reading his handlers’ directions, so they added an “exit stage right” line at the end of Bush’s campaign text and voted him out of office.