Too Little, Too Late

I've been remiss in not linking to my latest diavlog with Ross Douthat. One point worth emphasizing is probably this one about the Bush administration's remarkable inability to ever capture the conventional wisdom on Iraq and thereby stabilize his political situation. The starkest example is the case of the Iraq Study Group report, which was released in December and which moderates in both parties and Broder-types were begging to see made the basis of post-midterms Iraq policy. Instead, Bush announced the "surge" and only now is turning back to Baker-Hamilton, months later, tentatively, after support for that position is already slipping away.

I don't really know whether or not I think that's a bad thing, but it's a distinctive feature of Bush's political strategy. Conventional presidential strategy suggests that one should seize opportunities to occupy the middle ground and defang the political opposition. Bush, though, has tended to do the reverse and deliberately magnify policy disagreements with Democrats (lots of pro-war candidates in 2002 got attacked as soft on Saddam anyway) in hopes of winning dramatic politcal confrontations. From the vantage point of 2007, that's obviously worked terribly. But it worked a lot better -- and for a lot longer -- than I think almost anyone would have predicted back in early 2001.

Comments

> From the vantage point of 2007, that's
> obviously worked terribly.

Before you make that statement you have to explain convincingly what Bush and Cheney's goals were when they took office in 2001. And I don't think that anyone has come even close to doing so, leaving all speculation on the success vs. failure of the Bush/Cheney Administration as just that: speculation.

FWIW, my speculation is that that have achieved 80% of what they hoped on taking office and are trying to get another 5-10% before Inaguration Day 2009.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | July 16, 2007 10:06 AM

Conventional presidential strategy suggests that one should seize opportunities to occupy the middle ground and defang the political opposition.

Is that true? Or is it conventional pundit-proposed presidential strategy that suggests candidates should move to the middle? I think an awful lot of politics--and in particular, Republican politics--are about denying the existence of a "middle ground" where the two sides can meet.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 16, 2007 10:07 AM

"...the Bush administration's remarkable inability to ever capture the conventional wisdom on Iraq and thereby stabilize his political situation."

Reading the post, I get a distinct sense that you (Matthew) see the "conventional wisdom" and the "middle ground" as some sort of inherently meritorious territory.

As I see it, the problem with the Bush administration and Iraq isn't that they've been insufficiently "coventional" or moderate. It's that from the beginning to the present, the war in Iraq has been conducted with complete and total disregard for the realities of the situation. No one with any practical knowledge of Iraq--"conventional" or otherwise--ever saw this war as winnable.

Posted by James Gary | July 16, 2007 10:21 AM

They got their massive transfer of wealth to the top %1 in the first term and they got their two lock-step conservative Justices in the second term. Plus, as a bonus, Cheney enriched all his military defense brethren.

They fooled the foolish long enough to win a second term. Leaving office unpopular matters little considering what they achieved for the plutocracy.

Posted by Bragan | July 16, 2007 12:42 PM

I'm with Bragan. The strategy you're describing is more Rove's than Bush', I think, and it was wildly successful for a while (with a huge assist from 9/11, of course). I think the moral is that this can be a very successful short-term strategy, at least under certain conditions, but that in the long run this is likely to be bad for the party. The current GOP candidates are all now struggling to bridge the gap between the GOP base, which has been endlessly catered to for the last 6 years and expects more of the same, and the rest of the country. Of course, since all the evidence suggests that Bush doesn't give a damn about anyone besides himself, I doubt that he worries much about the damage he (and his congressional enablers) have done to the GOP.

Posted by beckya57 | July 16, 2007 3:14 PM

Bush's divide and conquer "strategery" only worked because after 9-11 people WANTED to trust the President.

As one of the 9% who still hated Bush even right after 9-11 I can vividly remember being totally outnumbered by all the normally rational people who wanted to rally around the President.

It just took a while for that trust to evaporate. Barely a majority in 2004 were still willing to hold their nose and give Bush "another chance."

In reality, Bush could easily have been another Reagan with 60% approval ratings if he'd never attacked Iraq and was willing to allow Democrats to join his "coalition."

Instead he thrived on getting 1/2 the country to hate him, so long as the other half loved him.

But, this was supposed to generate a PERMANENT Republican majority and it's done exactly the opposite. It's revived the left in a way that we haven't seen since the Vietnam war and marginalized and divided his own party.

Bush really has been channeling Lyndon Johnson like mad!

Posted by Cugel | July 17, 2007 12:34 PM