Wall Street Journal columnist and former Ronald Reagan writer Peggy Noonan has made it known in the past that she has soured on President George Bush.
But in her latest column, she suggests that she has totally had it — and that other Republicans would fire him if they had a chance.
The key point is in the sub-headline:
We can’t fire the president right now, so we’re waiting it out.
She raises the issue at the very start of her piece which is yet another sign that there are many Republicans who are not saying “ditto” like some talk show hosts to everything George Bush says, does and or the attitude he now projects in his public appearances:
It’s been a slow week in a hot era. I found myself Thursday watching President Bush’s news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth. I mean what it is apart from the huge and obvious issues on which they might disagree with him.
I’m not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome. That phrase suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore. I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who’d previously supported him. She said she’d had it. “I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.” I was startled by her vehemence only because she is, as I said, rock-ribbed. Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: “I took the W off my car today,” it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.
At the very end of her piece, Noonan hits her key theme:
Americans hire presidents and fire them. They’re not as sweet about it as they used to be. This is not because they have grown cynical, but because they are disappointed, by both teams and both sides. Some part of them thinks no matter who is president he will not protect them from forces at work in the world. Some part of them fears that when history looks back on this moment, on the past few presidents and the next few, it will say: Those men were not big enough for the era.
But this is a democracy. You vote, you do the best you can with the choices presented, and you show the appropriate opposition to the guy who seems most likely to bring trouble.
And she nails it: part of the process of American voting is picking one who you think will do the worst harm to your own political values and what you perceive to be the nation’s values.
But, we should add, underlying this vote are two assumptions:
#1: That the person you vote for will be competent overall,
and..
#2 That the American system of democracy with its carefully thought-out and (up-till-now) cherished system of checks and balances will in the end prevent anyone from doing endless harm —and prevent someone who turns out to be a “dud” from ruining the whole candy store or turning it into another kind of store.
Noonan ends her piece with this:
Americans can’t fire the president right now, so they’re waiting it out. They can tell a pollster how they feel, and they do, and they can tell friends, and they do that too. They also watch the news conference, and grit their teeth a bit.
The only problem in “waiting it out” (which is most likely what will happen despite all the wishful thinking in some quarters about impeachment) is that there are huge consequences.
if Republicans feel as many Democrats and now independents do that Iraq policy is at the very least poorly planned and can’t reach the goals originally announced by Bush when he FIRST announced his plans (not the fudging and instant revision of history that this administration picks up and its followers instantly accept where they change their definitions during various crises when it look like they’re not doing what they said they would do or what would happen — or they deny they ever said certain things that are documented on video tape) then the net result is that some young Americans will die. As time runs out, so do lives will end
This is a situation unprecedented in American history.
Even during the Vietnam War, there was a perception that Johnson would follow existing norms of American government. Even during Watergate, although there were fears Nixon would not go quietly into his helicopter (as he finally did), he deferred to American institutions such as the Congress, the courts and even to the will of his party leaders in Congress.
All such bets are off with these folks. The Bush administration seems to be testing government’s limits, virtually defying Congress to do anything about it and — seemingly lurking in the background — perhaps counting on the fact if these matters do go all the way up to the Supreme Court they’ll win since they now have more sympathetic people in place. The net result will be an altered form of American government.
Noonan notes one thing that is troubling her: the President is supremely confident, no matter what the crisis or challenge. She writes:
Is it defiance? Denial? Is it that he’s right and you’re wrong, which is your problem? Is he faking a certain steely good cheer to show his foes from Washington to Baghdad that the American president is neither beaten nor bowed? Fair enough: Presidents can’t sit around and moan. But it doesn’t look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.
Or could it be that in the end he can do what he wants to do because he and his team of lawyers have concluded that they can take everything to the mat but Congress, any judges who disagree with him, the press and disgruntled Americans won’t have the stomach to go to the mat as Bush injects ultra-partisanship into American institutions and checks and balances the same way he and Karl Rove injected it into elections?
It now seems evident that on Iraq policy, documents sought by Congress and a host of other matters, the administration feels the executive branch can do what it wants…and get away with it,,,,because the political and institutional and political opposition will blink in the end.
Noonan’s piece is also notable because she also chronicles Bush’s rhetorical technique of framing issues in a way so that he is the only noble and virtuous one and anyone who opposes him either has bad motives or is dumb:
In arguing for the right path as he sees it, the president more and more claims for himself virtues that the other side, by inference, lacks. He is “idealistic”; those who oppose him are, apparently, lacking in ideals. He makes his decisions “based on principle,” unlike his critics, who are ever watchful of the polls. He is steadfast, brave, he believes “freedom isn’t just for Americans” but has “universal . . . applications,” unlike those selfish, isolationist types who oppose him.
This is ungracious as a rhetorical approach, but not unprecedented. There’s something in the White House water system. Presidents all wind up being gallant in their own eyes. Thursday I was reminded of President Nixon, who often noted he was resisting those who were always advising him to “take the easy way.” Bill Safire used to joke that when he was a Nixon speechwriter, part of his job was to walk by the Oval Office and yell in, “Mr. President, take the easy way!”
There’s more, so read it all.
CAUTION: Opinion pieces such as Noonan’s (and this) are snapshots. Presumably, something can happen tomorrow that will cause the Democrats to overreach, or Bush will respond to it and many Republicans will yell “Bravo!”
But that won’t change the general job performance.
Or the fact that this White House and this President seemingly feel they can pick and choose laws to obey, ignore centuries of protocol about the way the executive branch responds and respects Congress, and in effect reshape the way the American system of government checks and balances operates — and that no one or either party will really go to the mat on it.
Perhaps that’s the reason for his smile.
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.