White House Out of Step?

[rodeodance]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/


White House Out of Step?
Friday, Jan 28, 2005; 12:00 PM

The first-term Bush White House was justifiably renowned for its nearly flawless message execution. But in just the first few days of the second term there have been a surprising number of missteps.

The elephant in the room, as it were, is of course the very first thing President Bush said after being sworn in a second time. His soaring inaugural address about bringing liberty to the globe struck so many people as being out of touch with conditions on the ground that the White House and Bush himself have spent much of the last week qualifying it and trying to anchor it in reality..........


On a much bigger scale, it's possible that Bush's ambitious second-term agenda is simply so bold that the nation, and even his fellow Republicans on the Hill, haven't caught up with him yet. But it's also possible he's genuinely out of step there, too.


National Journal media columnist William Powers observes that Bush appears to have lost any trace of humility. "He's CEO of the world, and he walks and talks as if he's about to fire everybody. His indifference to tone is mesmerizing, like a work of conceptual art designed to provoke and madden his audience. He's the Marcel Duchamp of American politics."
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