Could Bush’s Thursday night TV speech on Iraq prove to be a big political blunder and actually backfire?
Time Magazine says there is indeed a risk — and it confirms what we noted here last night about cable news networks indicating some key Republicans were not happy Bush gave the speech at all:
But Bush’s trumpeting of what he called a “return on success” could end up backfiring. Bringing the war into America’s living rooms is never a safe political bet. And if news of a slow drawdown may be popular, Bush himself still is not. Some key Hill Republicans, in fact, were upset that he returned front and center on the issue at a time when the White House had so carefully ceded the selling of the surge to Petraeus and Crocker. “Why would he threaten the momentum we have?” says one frustrated Capitol Hill Republican strategist with ties to the G.O.P. leadership. “You have an unpopular President going onto prime time television, interrupting Americans’ TV programs, to remind them of why they don’t like him.”
It’s the old story that the message can be obscured or bolstered by the messenger. And the bottom line is that, to all but his most loyal supporters, there is a huge epidemic of Bush fatigue throughout the line — tiring not just Democrats but independent voters and some Republicans. Perhaps particularly those Republicans who are facing tight 2008 re-election races. Time goes on:
Republicans in Congress who were finally breathing a sigh of relief after months of bludgeoning on Iraq felt Bush was risking the progress he had made with those closely following the war by thrusting it in the faces of those who may not be paying attention. It didn’t help that Bush said American forces would be on the ground in Iraq, as part of an “enduring relationship,” well past the end of his term in office. Even conservative stalwarts like Newt Gingrich felt Bush was the wrong man for the job. “The right two people to talk about Iraq were Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus,” Gingrich said on Friday. Asked why Bush took the risk, he responded, “Call and ask [White House political honcho Ed] Gillespie.”
It’s a bit ironic, but Gingrich is evolving into the highly public voice of GOP non-spin and bluntness.
Republicans are especially frustrated because they feel what many progressive Democrats are arguing: that the Democrats’ Congressional leadership is in disarray and de-facto retreat on the Iraq War issue after seemingly being outsmarted and outmaneuvered by Bush and his Republican supporters since the Democrats took control of Congress:
One thing keeping the spirits of Hill Republicans up is the fact that their Democratic counterparts are in retreat over the war. Centrists are running for cover, adjusting to the relative progress on the ground by trying to lie low. At the same time the left is putting targets on its back, particularly with ads personally attacking Petraeus in the New York Times. Rhode Island’s respected senior Senator Jack Reed tried to profit from Bush’s prime time foray in the Democratic response Thursday night, but had difficulty differentiating the Democrats’ proposal from the President’s without sounding defeatist.
Or is this all about his legacy?
They claim he’s “hitching his wagon” to the popular and respected Petraeus because he knows his place in history is at stake. “He’s more concerned about his legacy than he is about helping his Capitol Hill Republican colleagues,” says the Republican strategist.
He may be right. White House aides respond to the Republican concerns by saying: “Regardless of what the news was going to be [from Petraeus and Crocker], the President was going to speak to the nation. He’s the commander in chief and it’s his responsibility. It’s his war.”
But it’s a bit of an eye-opening political situation, like watching a death-defying act at the circus:
Bush is walking a political tightrope while Democrats seem to have tumbled off of it and are grasping to retrieve it.
When they grab the rope and it invariably shakes, who will finally go down?
UPDATE: We see that Ed Morrissey, a top conservative blogger, had the same reaction regarding the timing of Bush’s speech:
When I first heard that George Bush would address the nation this week after the testimony of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, I wondered who had made that mistake. The Republicans had put the Democrats back on their heels after the MoveOn debacle on Monday had revealed the low character of their base, and the news from Iraq made their rush to abandon Iraqis just when they had started to fight our enemies look even more craven. Momentum has shifted away from the defeat-and-retreat caucus.
Why interfere with that, unless President Bush had a heretofore unsuspected piece of good news that would provide a conclusion that surpassed what Petraeus had to say? Why not let the best voices on this issue resonate a while longer? If President Bush wanted to top Petraeus and Crocker, then he needed enough substance to make it worthwhile — and he didn’t.
He has a bit more to say and ends it with this:
It seems superfluous to rehash the Petraeus testimony, especially given Petraeus’ excellent delivery this week. The White House should have let Petraeus resonate and saved this for a daytime Rose Garden appearance.
Read it in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.