Redstate

Am I missing something here?

The team deserves praise for a job well done today. It doesn't matter if not all of them did their jobs perfectly (though I have no evidence of that).  Praise the team when it wins.

Again, unless I'm missing something.

Helen Thomas got a big-time smackdown.

From a purely political standpoint, this will not do. It is a failure of political savvy.....

Problem is, you have been use to the political savvy of the Clinton years it seems. Not all great leaders and their teams are as efficient at the political game as the Clinton political team.  The Bush team doesn't seem as focused on the "polls" and opinion as they are the actual things that matter.

Clinton made it his full-time job to sell himself and his programs.  Bush has made it his full-time job to keep the country safe.

if he were willing to degrade the Presidency with announcements on such hot button issues as subsidies for school uniforms, although I think he blew it by not coming out for a federal manhole cover initiative.   Come on, in Clinton's case it wasn't the message or the messenger, it was the message receivers, the press.  They treated his pap as important and transmitted the importance to whatever fool would take it seriously.  If the MSM can minimize something that's going on right under our noses, a healthy and expanding national economy, what might they not do? Depressing, but people have to be told that the economy is doing well.  Bush can be faulted for not fighting perceptions hard and often but it's problematic how much long term effect it would have given a media that regards him as global enemy #1.

Bush has been way too busy with the real war, and he has let the antique media spin machine get way off the reservation. He needs to realize that he can't do that, the public care and feeding needs as much attention as the war itself.

It's been puzzling, but it may just get fixed and stay fixed. With the documents dripping out, the Bush lied meem is on it's last legs.

far more about being liked, and presenting the image he thought people wanted to see, and working the media to his advantage.  

Bush just seems to prefer to do his job.

But I also think Bush is the type that likes to set up the other side-he lets the other side spout their talking points to the point that when the smackdown comes, they don't have too many lines of defense open to them.  The problem with this stategy is that Bush takes a lot of hits in the mean time.

that Clinton courted the press, not that he cared about the opinion of the American people.  

With the 24-hour news cycle, stories expire quickly.  This makes the timing as to when that the matter is throughly discussed critical.

If the strong defense is mounted at the wrong time, it will be forgotten when it really matters, and reminders will be treated as "old news" by both the Democrats and the mainstream media.

In politics, as in war, the importance of timing cannot be overstated.

I HOPE that the "Bush Lied meme is on its last legs", with the release of some of Saddam's documents.

But the MSM, and even Fox News, to some extent, are still repeating the "no WMD in Iraq" myth. There was even an article on the Fox News website yesterday (which seems mysteriously missing this morning) stating that "transcripts" of meetings of Saddam with his henchmen from 1996 showed that Saddam and his henchmen had already destroyed their illegal weapons by then, and couldn't understand why the stubborn UN inspectors and Americans wouldn't believe them. Of course, there were no "transcripts" attached to the article, so the reader has to trust the article writer to be correctly interpreting whatever he/she has read.

But this is what the MSM and even Fox News is feeding the public--that even during the Clinton Administration, Saddam and his goons were goody-two-shoes who destroyed their weapons, and why won't anybody believe them? The Michael Moore version of tranquil, peaceful Iraq until the Americans started a war.

Except for the fact that the released documents (for anyone who cares to read them) say the exact opposite, that Saddam was definitely in cahoots with Al-Qaeda. I must confess that I can't read Arabic, and need to trust the government translators. But what I've seen in English is very dam*ing against Saddam, yet the media continue to insist that there's nothing in there.

President Bush can no longer afford to let the media twist public opinion against him. There are too many "sheeple" out there who believe everything the MSM says without question, and the Bush Administration will probably have to dig up fact after fact and lay them out on the table, repeating over and over that "here is the proof that [Bush] told the truth, which others have been hiding." Yesterday's press conference was a good beginning, but it must continue.

It will be a long hard slog. With the help of the blogs?

...and defend the country at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. Clinton NEVER allowed himself to take a beating with the rope-a-dope nonsense that Rove and the WH communications team have practiced throughout the past year. There is simply no excuse for this failure. Bush has a good economy at his back and a reasonably successful counterinsurgency program going on in Iraq, despite the tales of the MSM. He needs to be defending it EVERY DAY and shouting it from the rooftops. Clinton would be. That was his secret.

Watch. Bush will make a fabulous presser, then climb back into his hole and go down into the thirties again.

This war needs to be explained constantly to the American people, bypassing the media filter and going directly to unfiltered audiences out in the country. That means getting several people into the game: the President and Cheney, Rumsfeld, and most importantly, Condi. She is deeply trusted in the country and has an obligation to explain the President's strategy to the American people. She's a part of this Administration just as much as the next guy. Let her rip...

This needs to be constant all the way through midterms. Feingold, Reid, and "Hillary Clinton's Hollywood Democrats" (yes, saddle Hillary with the pacifists-force her to distance herself from her base voters) must be held to account for their intellectual dishonesty and their opportunism. Just because you're busy "running the war" doesn't relieve you of the obligation to be something more than a pinata.

The lack of political saavy that seems to have taken root in the second term will cost us some seats and possibly the white house in 08.  I actually believe that the Dems are missing a big opportunity and their party is in so much disarray that they won't effectively capitalize on Bush's problems.

That being said Bush is the man that needs to lead us in a direction and ensure that the country not just those of us on the right see what he is doing.  Agree with what he is doing and continue to elect conservative voices to the house and the senate.  We need him to do just what is noted in this post and make his point often and loudly to the public.  

If we let the MSM drive public opinion we will end up with John Kerry in the white house in 08, legalized abortions of all types, and more terrorist attacks on american soil.

Walk.  Chew gum.  Repeat as needed.

To suggest both cannot be done simultaneously is silly, Neil.  And you know it.

But we're in a 24/7 news cycle that is accellerated more and more by the internet, particularly the blogosphere.  It's not enough to just explain the situation, but to explain it at the right time.

The real issue is to make the attack at the right time, preferably when the anti-war movement and the Democrats have overextended to the point where the attack can succeed.  Jabs as opposed to a full-scale assault are appropriate now - particularly when it comes to making sure the story isn't stale or "old news".

The White House is dealing with a dishonest, hostile press.  To break any message through that wall will take effort.

I mean, come on.  Working on the outlets that gave us Dan Rather, Helen Thomas, and Dana Milbank is supposed to be a priority?

It is not just that the media needs better managing (while properly prosecuting the foreign policy).  Bush needs a planning team that will scan future activities and set up preventative schemes for those unexpected events that also seem to be taking him down.  (It is not hard to argue that this really is the same thing as managing the media, but I mean to prevent things like the Cheney shooting rather than merely explain it properly.)  

The Bush team has plenty of good news they can crow about, but it only takes one ah-shucks to counter several atta-boys.  Bush needs to eliminate the mistakes that can be eliminated by proper planning.  (The Katrina aid fiasco and Dubai Ports deal are examples of crises that could have been better planned.)

To break any message through that wall will take effort.

... that it's not worth the effort?

Because I happen to think it is - being that the only way we lose Iraq (in particular) and the GWoT (in general) is if we lose it in Boston, and NYC, and Omaha, and Peoria, etc.

I think that the effort would necessarily take resources that could go elsewhere.  I think that any administration-wide effort to communicate more would have to be led from the top, and I don't want to see Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld, and the rest read any more memos than they have to on what George Stephanopoulos, Chris Matthews, and Christiane Amanpour are saying.

If they spend 10 more minutes a day reading, thinking, and talking about how to shape what the mainstream press is saying, that's 10 minutes they're not looking for solutions to the Iran problem, Social Security, Medicare, or any other substantitive issue that could affect us for generations to come.

On the Katrina matter, Bush was dealing with state and local officials that made Frank Jack Fletcher and George C. McClellan seem like competent leaders in a time of crisis.

On DPW, the problem was that a union decided to make political hay out of an issue - and the reason the top Administration officials were out of the loop was because CFIUS was designed to make this sort of decision without politics entering into the equation.

We agree to disagree.

Cheers.

President Bush should give poor Scott McClellan a new job away from the pit vipers, and appoint Corporal Punishment as press secretary.

has to be a part - an early part - of any media offensive.

I look at the way he gets treated, and I think it's like a situation where a basketball coach has lost the respect of the team.

He might be a good coach, but the team has tuned him out, and it's just time for someone new to come in and restore order.

It's sad to say, but Katrina did catch the Administration napping. Of course, incompetent fools like Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin didn't help, either.

Somehow, this didn't happen when four hurricanes struck Florida in 2004 (or with Wilma in 2005, for that matter). The President's brother was Governor, it was an election year, and everybody knew that Florida was an important state in the election. President Bush helped with hurricane relief, to the point that he was too tired to effectively debate Kerry that evening, but Floridians were grateful.

There may be other hurricanes this summer. The President needs to stay on top of the weather forecasts (even in Crawford), declare "pre-emptive" disaster areas when hurricanes threaten, and coordinate with the Governors to get the National Guard ready BEFORE they hit. And if the Governors balk (like Blanco did with Katrina), publicly take them to task, pointing out that the lack of an early evacuation caused so many problems with Katrina.

I agree with another poster that Scott McClellan, like his namesake from the Civil War, needs to take an early retirement, and Karen Hughes should be promoted to Press Secretary. She's tough, smart, loyal, and articulate--just what the President needs.

If it looked like the feds got a slow start, it's only because the law and the State of Louisiana got in the way.  It's since come out that President Bush WAS pushing Governor Blanco to get in gear in advance, for example.  She REFUSED, though, to make the declarations needed, and turn things over to the feds to get started early.

Ever notice that despite Mississippi's having suffered far more damage from the hurricane than Louisiana, that that state isn't full of horror stories of mismanagement?  Did Governor Barbour work with a different DHS and FEMA, or snap his fingers and make the Feds competent in that state?

The Feds did their job (assuming for a moment disaster recovery was their job).  The State authorities did not, in Louisiana, so Louisiana had trouble after the hurricane.

If it were just Florida that did alright, you could say it was a special case.  But throw in Mississippi, too, and it's Louisiana that's the special case.

Where were the major problems in other states that got hit with hurricanes?  In these instances, it takes competent local and state leadership to prevent things from becoming an absolute disaster.

It was there in Mississipi and Alabama when Katrina hit.  It was there in Texas for a subsequent hurricane.  It was there in Florida with multiple hurricanes in 2004.

Bush and Brown were the fall guys for the incompetent leaders at the state and local level.

Repeat as needed until bad politics no longer endanger the integrity of the policies at issue.

 in raising the issue is that the administration should have known that sooner or later they would have a disagreeable conflict with a state governor (who refused to allow straightforward federal  help) and a local mayor who was afraid of being named in local lawsuits.  

Why did the federal government not have a ready made policy to move to in much the way lawyers can declare a witness to be hostile and change the manner of their questions?  Such a policy would have to deal with removing the barriers to getting aid to people in need and at the same time resolve the publicity issue in favor of the administration.  My point is tht if such a plan was already in place, Brown could have moved swiftly and avoided the stalling and charges of incompetance.  (And Bush could have been a hero instead of becoming frustrated with the aftermath.)

... but there was a 24/7 news cycle during impeachment, as well. The Clintons masterfully turned the news against the Republicans, if you'll recall. They remained on the offensive at all times.

Bush is at 40% because he plays rope-a-dope. It's stupid. He needs to stop. Period. It is demoralizing his own party. Unanswered attacks that go on for an extended period of time are considered to be valid attacks.

That's the lesson that the Democrats understand. Bush needs to relearn it.

Unanswered attacks that go on for an extended period of time are considered to be valid attacks.

Tell a lie long enough and people believe it.  I forget the exact quote, but Stalin understood the process, and so do the Democrats!