WP: Bush Team Rethinks Its Plan for Recovery

[kskiska]

Thursday, December 29, 2005; A01

President Bush shifted his rhetoric on Iraq in recent weeks after an intense debate among advisers about how to pull out of his political freefall, with senior adviser Karl Rove urging a campaign-style attack on critics while younger aides pushed for more candor about setbacks in the war, according to Republican strategists.

The result was a hybrid of the two approaches as Bush lashed out at war opponents in Congress, then turned to a humbler assessment of events on the ground in Iraq that included admissions about how some of his expectations had been frustrated. The formula helped Bush regain his political footing as record-low poll numbers began to rebound. Now his team is rethinking its approach to his second term in hopes of salvaging it.

(snip)

The lessons drawn by a variety of Bush advisers inside and outside the White House as they map a road to recovery in 2006 include these: Overarching initiatives such as revamping Social Security are unworkable in a time of war. The public wants a balanced appraisal of what is happening on the battlefield as well as pledges of victory. And Iraq trumps all.

"I don't think they realized that Iraq is the totality of their legacy until fairly recently," said former congressman Vin Weber (R-Minn.), an outside adviser to the White House. "There is not much of a market for other issues."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801517.html

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. Attack-smear-attack-smear, demonize, for Rove there is no other way...

[stepnw1f]

3. And Some Actually Think

Rove is brilliant.:crazy:

[BillZBubb]

9. Rove is brilliant in a real-politik sense.

He knows what motivates the sheeple. Anyone who could get a turd like Bush in the White House for two terms has to be brilliant at least in that area.

We can sit back and sneer at his obvious tactics, but a great many Americans buy into them. He applies them relentlessly and successfully. There is a brilliance to that. To deny that is to ignore reality.

[AndyTiedye]

10. If Rove Is So Smart, Why Is He on the Verge of Indictment?

So much of Plamegate points right at Rove! That isn't even remotely smart.
Rove isn't smart, he's just a ruthless bully.

[Kralizec]

29. Because, in the end, he is not Human.

Which means he can still be controlled by his emotions. He is in trouble because, at one point in time, he let his emotions control him. He lost control.

[beltanefauve]

12. This says it all:

"Writing off 30 percent or more of the public as adamantly against the war, his advisers focused on winning back a similar-size group that had soured on Iraq but, they believed, wanted to be convinced victory was possible."

[hadrons]

15. "...wanted to be convinced victory was possible."

AKA, the suckers

[stepnw1f]

19. That Just Means Rove is a Sociopath

Most people know what makes people tick, they just don't cross that line of decencey. This guy does, because he has no guilt nor feelings to hold him back.

That's reality. Rove is nooooo genius... sorry.

[robbedvoter]

27. So would be Tony Soprano, with our treasury money at his beckoning

and the FBI helping rather than hindering. But then Tony would have more scruples...

[stepnw1f]

2. lololololol... recovery?

you is done!

[FlemingsGhost]

4. Wonder who suggested asking for another favor from "Osama."

Was that Rummy, ya think?

[peacetalksforall]

5. Who the heck are the younger aides - they are all look like old fogies.

Are these the guys who flew in to Miami five years ago to pretend that they were Dade Country residents? The ones who pounded on the door demanding that the vote count be stopped and because of their terrorism and pretension - succeeded? The ones whose pictures and bios are shown on DU every couple of months? Those young aides?

[Vidar]

6. First they say he's "reading" & now "thinking" too. How impressive!

[cliss]

7. Pay no attention to these "strategies", seemingly

planned and plotted by White House. The fact is, Bush is rudderless. This is just happy spin-talk. Bush and his advisors have been so wrong about so many issues. They lack any kind of foresight to anticipate even a little bit down the road, and adjust their policy accordingly.

Take hurricane Katrina, for example. Bush was still on vacation, while people in New Orleans were getting flooded. As Bush cut the birthday cake for John McCain, the situation was getting desperate. As Bush flew over the watery Hades in Air Force One, White House aides published the photo. If anything, it made Bush more pathetic and helpless than before. He just sat there, on his ass, looking out the window. How could the aides NOT see what the reaction would be to that photo.

They're clueless, absolutely groping in the dark. All they can do is REACT to events, rather than pro-act which means staying ahead of the crises.

[EST]

8. Looks like Capitol Hill Blue scooped WP again!

[Hardrada]

11. I know the fish have teeth, Karl, but you can outswim them

and I'll be needing the life jacket, thank you," sez little Georgie to his old pal.

[radfringe]

13. reinvigorating the fear factor

....snip....

The lessons drawn by a variety of Bush advisers inside and outside the White House as they map a road to recovery in 2006 include these: Overarching initiatives such as restructuring Social Security are unworkable in a time of war. The public wants a balanced appraisal of what is happening on the battlefield as well as pledges of victory. And Iraq trumps all.

for the next year it's going to be 24/7/364 booga-booga Iraq, terra-terra-terra

[Judi Lynn]

14. GOP, Bush scale back grand plans

GOP, Bush scale back grand plans
Having overreached this past year, the party tries thinking small for 2006

Los Angeles Times
December 28, 2005

WASHINGTON - For the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress, the tumult of 2005 has been an object lesson in the political risks of thinking big.

President George W. Bush began the year with grand ambitions to overhaul the sacrosanct Social Security program, rewrite the entire tax code, retain expanded law-enforcement powers to fight terrorism and bring stability to war-torn Iraq - and fell far short, dividing his own party and taking a beating in the polls.

Chastened by the experience and eager to play it safe in an election year, Republicans now are preparing for a new year of thinking small.

Instead of reworking the entire tax code, Republicans will be gratified if they can just make current tax cuts permanent. A bill to tighten border security is in the works, but a more ambitious plan to curb illegal immigration is in doubt. One of Senate Republicans' early priorities next year? The arcane issue of asbestos litigation.
(snip/...)

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/ny-uscong284567296dec28,0,3070000.story?coll=ny-lipolitics-print

[bklyncowgirl]

16. This part pretty much says it all--it's all smoke and mirrors.

Regarding Bush's more "humble" approach.

"Although Rove raised concerns about giving critics too much ground, the younger-generation aides prevailed. Bush agreed to try the approach so long as he did not come off sounding too negative. Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University specialist on wartime public opinion who now works at the White House, helped draft a 35-page public plan for victory in Iraq, a paper principally designed to prove that Bush had one."

They're trying to win back those relatively few people who wanted to believe that the Iraq war was a good thing but who had soured on the bad news and the president's lack of touch with reality.

There will be no change in the reality--until of course a few months before the mid-term elections when things will miraculously get better and significant numbers of American troops will return home to kisses, hugs and the thanks of a grateful president.

[fishnfla]

22. a paper plan to prove they had one

Fire, ready, aim

[beltanefauve]

23. Not to mention

lower gas prices while they're at it!

[lanlady]

17. here's some free advice to Dubya

Try actual policy-making instead of prezidentin' by p.r.

On second thought, don't bother. Just resign and go home.

[beltanefauve]

28. And that's just it

Bush* and his ilk have never stopped campaigning. That's ALL they do. It's still 2000 to them as far as they're concerned. What does it say, for instance, that we've been in Iraq for over 2 1/2 years now and he's still trying to explain and justify why we're there?

[ima_sinnic]

18. "Iraq is the totality of their legacy"?? wrong!

Iraq is only ONE of their failur--er, "legacies."

Far more relevant and immediate for MANY, the turning point for people who might have otherwise supported the dumbass, is the memory of the inept A-hole pretender's lack of preparation or response to Katrina, which resulted in death by drowning or starving/dehydration of at least 6,000 citizens. Very little has been done since then to alleviate the suffering of unknown thousands of displaced residents. About all the stinking bushitter did was ensure that Halliburton would get the job of refurbishing the offshore oil rigs and infrastructure with criminally underpaid labor.

[gratuitous]

20. Bush is in "political freefall"?

I'm sure that will come as startling news to regular readers of the Washington Post, who are regularly assured that the corrupt Bush administration strides the world like a colossus.

[sandnsea]

21. Debate Events

"For most of the year we were debating events," the senior official said. "Now we're debating Democrats."

If we stay focused on issues and events, we win. When we make it about D vs R, we lose. Is anybody paying attention?

[VaYallaDawg]

24. Methinks the training wheels went, now all the wheels are falling off.

[KamaAina]

25. Oh. I thought it meant their plan for Gulf Coast recovery.

But then, they couldn't exactly "rethink" that, now could they, seeing as how they haven't thought one up in the first place? :grr: :banghead:

[robbedvoter]

26. Rethink? (not flip flop then). The word "thought" and BFEE....nah

I guess this was a part of it:

CHB Investigates. . .
Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promote Iraq war while home on leave
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Dec 29, 2005, 05:44
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7918.shtml

[Demeter]

30. That Catapult Needs A New Rubber Band

The propaganda keeps hitting them in the face, nowadays.