this will make you grin ear-to-ear --" * has lost control of the agenda" [View All]

An editorial commentary written by a freeper. Long read, happy news in every sentence. Bottom line: Bush has lost control of the agenda.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1097621/posts

Six months ago, it seemed that this campaign would be a pleasant little divertissement. A sitting President seemed unchallengeable with virtually unlimited financial resources, managing a recovering economy and the immeasurable personal goodwill reservoir that comes from a successful wartime defense of the nation. A challenge by Howard Dean an unknown governor from a micro leftist New England state promised to be good fun. Sit back, wave some popcorn and enjoy. Or so it seemed.

What a difference six months makes. Now, as the faint aroma of flop sweat begins to waft through the Bush reelection “juggernaut”, might I suggest that the Bush team, and its ardent supporters (of which I count myself one) are increasingly in denial? It is now painfully and increasingly obvious that the President’s campaign team has totally lost control of the election agenda and is on the verge of being both “Quayled” and “Doled”. For those that have forgotten, Dan Quayle was tagged a dummy via the potato-e route, and once fragged, tagged, and bagged by the media, became the story. And the story had legs. In the final phase, urban legend about totally untrue remarks (Latin spoken in Latin America-remember that one?) was reported as fact to feed the Quayleing. The media and his advisers convinced Bob Dole, Mr. Lifelong Acerbic, that if he “went negative” he would be massacred in the press. Unwisely, he sought a total makeover as a nice guy, and by the time the convention rolled around he was DOA due mainly to aggressive and early Democratic positioning of him. He responded weakly, and too late. Sound familiar?

The President is entering the same danger zone trod by Dan and Bob: his opponents are increasingly in charge of his image. Its not Kerry vs. Bush, but Bush vs. Bush, with the forces of darkness getting to play the Bush hand. Not surprisingly, Bush is losing. Media focus is now almost exclusively on the Presidents “failures”, “problems”, his “falling approval”. Radio, TV, Newspapers, the pattern to watch is every key story starts with a quick reference to the event being reported, then rapid move to a discussion of how it negatively impacts Bush. How pervasive is this? Seeking refuge from the Bush bashing spin on the front page, I opened the movie reviews this weekend. Surprise- even the reviews are Bush bashing: “The Day After”- gonna hurt Bush because he is pro global warming; “Spartan”, a movie about some government plot had this astonishing one liner in the review: “…ripped holes in the country’s cultural myths. They reinforced any paranoid’s worst fears about abuses of political power. As today’s headlines raise more and more questions about US intelligence and the post September 11 policies of the Bush administration…” I’d say when even the movie reviews are spinning, you have lost control of the agenda.

That’s just the small stuff that has permeated every media outlet in an unrelenting wash of negative. The big stuff is an even more serious problem since it shows there is little positive the President can do to turn things around. I first became concerned with the President’s campaign political strategists when the President okayed the protectionist steel tariff move. Something in complete opposition to what I felt were this President’s innate beliefs, but calculated to achieve a political result: union and other support. OK, I can go along with a certain amount of pragmatism and deal making if it achieves the greater good. But it was a colossal flop!! Backfired with conservatives who support free trade-and more problematic- didn’t garner the political benefit anticipated. Followed by its reversal. A complete misstep, which I am afraid to say, set the pattern for the future.