A different Bush

Dasu Krishnamoorty

The repeated applause that greeted President Bush¿s state of the union message on Tuesday first time to a Congress dominated by Democrats registered a faint echo in the national media. In the closing years of his presidency, Bush tried to sound reasonable, gracious and eager to convey readiness to reinvent bipartisan collaboration that he had shunned in the last six years. His speech was so low key that USA Today commented, ?In a way it is almost as if two presidents addressed the nation last night -- one urging a course in Iraq that sails directly in the face of public opinion, and another tacking hard to the center on domestic matters.?  He also tried to seek a middle ground on domestic policy by grafting Democratic priorities like health care, education and global warming on his party agenda which compelled BBC News to remark, ?It almost felt like the old days of Bill Clinton, who was known to seizing his opponents¿ ideas - a strategy known as triangulation.?

Bush spoke extensively on Iraq. Though the New York Times thought that Bush had added nothing to his failed policies on Iraq, it agreed reluctantly that the proposal to increase the permanent size of the army and marines would repair some of the damage that he had done to those forces. Slate considered Bush¿s request for more time to let his Iraq strategy work as full of import even while it alleged that he played hardball with the Democrats who were afraid of taking a clear stance on the troops issue. This is no way of reaching out, the Slate article said.

The Boston Globe was quick to point out that Bush had tried to make bipartisan co-operation hostage to Democratic approval of his Iraq plan. The Globe editorial said, ?But on the issue most responsible for the erosion of his power, the war on Iraq, President Bush came looking not for advice and counsel but for a rubber stamp for his decision to escalate US involvement with more than 20,000 troops.? Although much of the President¿s speech concerned Iraq, the Los Angeles Times found that Bush had said ?little that was particularly original or helpful.? Maybe, LAT had little to comment on for this reason.

On Wednesday, a day after Bush had asked Congress to give his new war policy a chance, the Democratic-controlled Senate foreign relations committee approved a non-binding resolution declaring the president`s plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq as ?not in the national interest.? Significantly, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska, joined Democrats in support of the resolution. He said the Bush plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq ?is no strategy ? this is playing a ping-pong game with American lives.? Republicans have been meeting behind closed doors to mobilize support for the Iraq war plan. The Senate is tied 49-49 between the two parties, with two independents leaning toward Democrats. That means either party needs help from the other in order to achieve the 60 votes needed to advance legislation.

The Baltimore Sun complained that that Bush¿s address had missed the essential point: the mess in Iraq is not the consequence of an ineffective military strategy but a political problem stemming from the hostility between Sunni and Shiite forces from the weakness of the Iraqi government and from the inability of the US to address either. ?Without a political solution, there can be no military solution,? the Sun editorial said. Having started the problem, the US should solve it. USA Today warned that time was running out on the Iraq front. ?The President didn¿t sound like a man down to his last chance, but he is. With voters already restless and angry over a war that was sold as a quick strike but is now almost four years old, no candidate of either party wants to go into the 2008 elections with nothing changed. That makes the end of this year the practical outside limit for Bush`s policy to show success.?

Some oxygen, however, for Bush came from the Times¿ liberal cousin, the Washington Post. It found ?Mr. Bush is assuredly correct? as his objective was not so much to argue anew for the troop increase but to drive home the point that the ?consequences of failure would be grievous and far reaching.? There were other Bush issues too that won endorsement from the Post. ?On energy, health care, education and immigration, Mr Bush last night offered at least a reasonable basis for further discussion. Congress should engage, not reflexively dismiss,? the Post editorial said. But it faulted Bush for not offering a sustained and broad-scale effort to address climate change. 

TIME magazine felt that it was decidedly out of character for Bush to call ?for better fuel economy, stepped-up production of alternative energy and a whole pupu platter of green-sounding goodies. It was enough to make you wonder if the war President steeped in Texas oil has suddenly become a bit of an eco President.? USA Today too said the same thing when Bush ?proposed a sweeping new initiative to reduce gasoline consumption, hardly what one might expect from a president so closely associated with Big Oil.? TIME rued that Bush¿s speech gave remarkably short shrift to the threat posed by global warming; but on energy and health care it credited Bush with giving the issues new priority. Perhaps his apparent green conversion is just a calculated ploy to win some much-needed good press, the weekly said.

GOP supporter Wall Street Journal stood by Bush and cited mostly domestic issues. Asserting that Americans had the most advanced health care in the world, WSJ commended Bush¿s health insurance plan because his tax policy now would include individuals besides institutions to deduct the cost of health expenditure. The newspaper regretted that Bush had not announced this plan earlier when the Republicans were in control of Congress. WSJ, however, thought that the President¿s plan to overhaul immigration law has greater chances of approval by the new Congress. The other GOP friend the New York Post thought that Bush¿s domestic policy initiatives may have little chance of moving ahead in the changed political landscape and will only divert effort and energy from his Iraq agenda.

Bush sounded less like himself before the 2006 November election and less imperious, recognizing the need to refurbish his image battered by rock bottom approval ratings of his presidency. As a New York Post columnist wrote, ?Bush struck a tone that was more than conciliatory. He seemed to understand the hardened national sentiment on Iraq and erosion of his political capital. This could be gleaned from his opening tribute to his bitterest critic Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With a Congress that is no more his rubber stamp and revolts breaking out in his own party, newspapers admitted that he made a move to reach out to Democrats, a gesture BBC News measured in the 17 times he had used words like ?we,? ?us,? and ?our? in seven sentences. USA Today too felt that Bush had struck the right tone when he said, ?We can work through our differences, and we can achieve big things for the American people.?

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