Let’s Try Baloney

Let’s Try Baloney
The White House is way off track. Only something radical can rally Bush’s presidency.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005266/site/newsweek/

snip

“He needs people who affirm him,” said the diplomat, recalling Harriet Miers’s note to then Gov. Bush that he was “deserving of the greatest respect.” In this diplomat’s assessment, having known the Bush family, respect is the key word. Bush for years was the ne’er do well son of a respected, duty-bound father, and he’s still playing catch-up in the family Oedipal drama.

Talking to Bush requires what diplomats call the “baloney sandwich approach.” It works like this: Your spouse has run up the credit cards. Confronting her will provoke a fight. So you flatter her, tell her what a great wife and mother she is; then present this teeny little problem the two of you can work together to solve because you love her so much. Bush’s world has collapsed in on him. It’s time to try something new, even if it’s baloney.

snip

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005266/site/newsweek/




...SWEET

I think we have turned another corner. We shall see. This was W for the first time rolling the dice. He is no good at it. I think he is going to get hammered for it. But, we shall see. I will join you all in bated breath as to seeing what happens.

It was a hellish week at work, so I just got around to reading all of last week's stuff. The Eleanor Clift article in Newsweek was one that really struck me.

I was surprised that Clift wrote this paragraph; it sounds so Dowd-ish:

Friends of the senior Bush are blaming Cheney for usurping too much power, but that’s why they wanted him there, as a minder for the man-child who should never have been made president.

Also, the article is full of interesting details, via a former ambassador close to Bush 41 on background.

Here are two of the juicier allegations, which really just confirm long-held suspicions:

The Connecticut crowd is headed by Bush 41 with Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser, speaking for the father, James Baker the consigliore, and chief-of-staff Andy Card their mole. Scowcroft has terminally offended the White House with his anti-Iraq war views. “He might as well be dead,” says the former diplomat. “If you say anything publicly, you’re frozen out. You have to show comity toward them, or they won’t listen to you.”

and

(in reference to Condi Rice) “He needs people who affirm him,” said the diplomat, recalling Harriet Miers’s note to then Gov. Bush that he was “deserving of the greatest respect.” In this diplomat’s assessment, having known the Bush family, respect is the key word. Bush for years was the ne’er do well son of a respected, duty-bound father, and he’s still playing catch-up in the family Oedipal drama.

As so many of us have always suspected, this nation is suffering at the hands of a "man-child who should never have been made president," who is obsessed with getting the respect of his father and his old-money buddies. It's just awful, and Clift summarizes it nicely.