ShareThisMARSHA MERCER
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Poor George. Life in a bubble has consequences.
President Bush says he was surprised and disappointed by the midterm election results.
"I thought we were going to do fine," he said at his post-election news conference last week. "Shows what I know."
One can only imagine the shock and awe at the White House when the president discovered not only that many Republicans were toast but that he'd have to break sourdough with someone he'd repeatedly said would never be speaker of the House.
That of course is the next speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
Republicans from Bush on down had fun demonizing the liberal Democrat who represents San Francisco. Bush found ready applause lines on the campaign trail by mocking Pelosi, who said Democrats love tax cuts.
"Given her record," the president said, "she must be a secret admirer."
Noting that Pelosi and other Democrats opposed various tax-cutting measures, he said, "If this is the Democrats' idea of love, I don't want to see what hate looks like."
For her part, Pelosi said Bush was "oblivious, in denial, dangerous" after Katrina. He was an "emperor with no clothes," she said.
Now they're going to work together. They both say so.
People wonder how such fierce competitors can lay down their knives. The answer, in a word, is politics. Politicians do what's necessary to achieve their goals.
Take Don Rumsfeld. A week before the election, the president was asked in the Oval Office if he would keep Defense secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney. He said yes.
The day after the election, though, Bush dumped Rumsfeld and named former CIA director Robert Gates as Defense secretary.
Asked why he'd responded as he had only days earlier, Bush said he didn't "want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign" and besides he "hadn't had a chance to visit with Bob Gates yet, and I hadn't had my final conversation with Don Rumsfeld yet."
Bush also said he decided to replace Rumsfeld before the election, although he didn't tell Rumsfeld he had to go until Election Day.
Clearly, Bush was for Rumsfeld before he was against him.
Now, the president wants "a fresh perspective."
Isolation is a danger for every president. Bush doesn't read newspapers and interacts rarely with ordinary Americans. He meets well-heeled Republican donors at closed-door fundraisers, but his public events are staged affairs where his handlers put him before ecstatic crowds. If the only people you ever see are cheering, it's understandable if you think you're popular.
Bush said he read the pre-election polls that showed Republicans would lose seats, but he had no idea how many. He said he's an optimist and indirectly blamed the voters for not heeding his message.
"I thought when it was all said and done, the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security," he said.
"But the people have spoken, and now it's time for us to move on."
It's not the first time Bush has tried to set a new tone of openness. Last spring, he hired a new press secretary and named a new Treasury secretary. He invited retired generals and others critical of his war policy into the White House to talk about Iraq.
But the entire exercise had the feel of a public relations campaign, and there were no policy shifts.
Now, he says, "in order to get legislation passed we've got to work with the Democrats. They're the ones who will control the committees. They're the ones who will decide how the bills flow. And so you'll see a lot of meetings with Democrats, and a lot of discussion with Democrats."
Really? Just days before the election, Bush hammered Democrats, saying their approach to Iraq was "terrorists win, America loses."
What changed? "What's changed today is the election is over, and the Democrats won," Bush said.
Did the election's shock and awe shatter the presidential bubble? As another Republican liked to say, stay tuned.
(Marsha Mercer is Washington bureau chief of Media General. E-mail mmercer(at)mediageneral.com)
