The White House Wakes Up

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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As a former speechwriter in the Bush administration – starting as an intern in the White House, and ending as the chief speechwriter for a Cabinet secretary – it was with great trepidation that I watched Sunday night’s speech. With the president’s poll numbers hovering between 35% and 40% ever since Hurricane Katrina, it seemed as if the White House had entirely given up in the press war. And in giving up in that war, they were putting the real war at risk. Public support can only go so low before troops must come home.


If Sunday night’s speech is a sign of things to come, then it will go down as a decisive break not just from the Bush of the past few months, but from the Bush of the past few years. In bringing his argument directly into people’s living rooms – with candid, intelligent words – the president and his team finally may have realized that they’ve been a punching bag for far too long, and they actually have a case to make.


Over the past few years, the hardest thing for any conservative journalist to admit is that the White House has been entirely unhelpful. When the Clinton team had positive economic news, his Cabinet secretaries appeared on every morning talk show – perfectly happy to give Bill all the credit. With the Bush White House, we’re lucky if economic figures even make the news. This despite the fact that we’re enjoying a red-hot economy.


The same can be said about Social Security. That fight wasn’t lost because of any Democratic grand strategy – even with the help of AARP, Howard Dean could have never pulled off such a feat. Rather, President Bush’s nationwide tour of “town hall meetings” appeared amateurish. All he needed was a decent piece of legislation and a few serious speeches. The rest would have taken care of itself.


If it weren’t for FOX News, talk radio, conservative magazines, and the blogosphere, it’s doubtful that any good news would be heard over the chorus of the administration’s critics. To a degree, this is understandable – press bias is undoubtedly real (as confirmed, yet again, by a new UCLA-led study), and indisputably anti-Bush. Hence why Cindy Sheehan’s every move – not to mention those of Rep. Jack Murtha – receives blanket coverage, while the Iraqi elections have already been relegated to the back pages.


Nonetheless, this treatment is no excuse for the Bush White House to give up, and that’s exactly what it had been doing. In 2004, for example, the White House most certainly would have ignored Dan Rather’s “documents,” even though the story began unraveling only hours after the “60 Minutes II” broadcast.


With Iraq, their behavior has been the same. With the exception of a few soaring speeches (namely, his second term inaugural), the president has been entirely unwilling to take any credit for improvements in Iraq. But Sunday’s speech was different. As conservative blogger Gateway Pundit proclaimed after the address,” After Only 1,000 Days, Bush Takes Credit for Iraq.”


If only he were kidding. Perhaps then the public would be more aware of the remarkable progress we’ve made. It was, to prove Gateway Pundit’s point, the first time that Mr. Bush spoke so honestly about the war, and took full credit – and blame – for its consequences. In the 16-minute address, Mr. Bush spoke of himself 25 times, and twice described the war as “my decision.”


This honesty – along with his direct, nonpartisan appeals to the American people – will once again put Iraq on the political table. Why? To quote Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, it’s “because he thinks we’re winning, and he wants credit. By November 2006, and especially November 2008, he thinks that’ll be obvious, and he wants to lay down his marker now on what he believed – and what the other side did.”


Democrats have yet to realize that the political landscape has already changed. Senator McCain, according to a new poll by Zogby International, currently enjoys greater support than ever before, appealing across the entire political spectrum. This despite the fact that he too has put all of his stock in Iraq, and has been one of the war’s loudest defenders. Just last month, Mr. McCain compared the words of Senator Kerry to those of Ms. Sheehan, and warned that if we heed their calls, America would “face consequences of the most serious nature.”


What Democrats fail to realize is that as long as national security is on the front page – even if it’s the war in Iraq – voters are unlikely to trust them. And this is entirely because of their perpetual defeatism. Claiming, in the words of Dr. Dean, that it “is just plain wrong” to think that that “we’re going to win this war,” is just plain idiocy. As Atlantic Monthly correspondent Robert D. Kaplan pointed out in the latest issue of The American Enterprise, much of the political left continues to think in a “1970s time-warp mentality.” He was speaking, apparently, of the entire Democratic leadership.


In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the Republicans were able to paint congressional Democrats as weak on terror for the 2002 elections. In 2004, thanks to Dr. Dean, Senator Pelosi, and the rest of the antiwar left, Iraq allowed the GOP to play the same game. With the 2006 elections just around the corner, today’s Democrats are poised to launch their third consecutive antiwar campaign. If the White House is serious about once again engaging with the mainstream press and the American people, then 2006 may actually turn out well. Because as long as the Deaniacs control the Democratic Party, it’ll be like watching “Groundhog Day” over and over again.



Mr. White is assistant editor of The American Enterprise, a publication of the American Enterprise Institute.


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