It’s Item One today. Fascinatingly diverse response, with many conservatives being highly disappointed. I reprinted one email yesterday from one of them. I didn’t watch the interview yesterday in its entirety. It was a gorgeous day in Southern California and I needed a breather. But all the clips struck me as Bush as he normally is: affable, accessible, often inarticulate, but on the basic points of the war (if nothing else) right. I thought, however, he seemed very tired. One aspect of the current administration that I think is overlooked is the simple exhaustion factor. They’ve been through an awful lot; they’re tired out; and it’s beginning to show. Anyway, here’s another view:
I disagree completely with just about every Bush policy and everything he stands for. Hell, I’d vote for Kucinich over Bush. But I have to say, having watched the entire interview, that I thought Bush fared pretty well with Russert. He is a lot more comfortable in his skin. He’s a lot more sure of himself, and he knows his stuff much better than he used to. This is the first time I can remember him not trying in an interview to “show” that he knows stuff by dropping names and committing the fallacy of the argument to authority — something he was still doing last fall in the Diane Sawyer interview. He just said what he thought. Sure, his answers on the economy were weak, but he has very little to work with. The economic numbers are all much worse than when he came into office, and the deficit is the huge elephant in the Oval office. But what choice does he have but to spin and downplay these problems? Russert went fairly easy on him — a lot easier than he went on Dean last week — but he asked some tough questions, and I thought it was particularly interesting that Bush seemed to welcome them and accept them as fair challenges. He was in command. He will be a much more formidable campaigner and debater this time than he was in 2000.
One the other hand, Peggy Noonan is doing her best not to say that the interview sucked. Money quote:
The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He did not seem prepared. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event. When he was thrown the semisoftball question on his National Guard experience–he’s been thrown this question for 10 years now–he spoke in a way that seemed detached. “It’s politics.” Well yes, we know that. Tell us more.
It occurs me to that, on this question, he might have nothing more to say. The criticism might well be right. Gulp.
ON DOMESTIC POLICY: On the budget, however, I have to say that a close reading of the transcript is somewhat alarming. I’ll be linking to a TNR fisking later today I did of the president’s completely out-of-it responses. He seems to think that the Medicare entitlement will help our long term fiscal health and that highway spending is an entitlement. I don’t think he even knows what his own administration has done to the nation’s fiscal health. I wasn’t so much outraged by his complete detachment from reality as unnerved. More later.
MY DEEPER WORRY: It’s about the war. During the part of the interview when Bush could have strongly supported his nation-building in Iraq, and linked it to tackling the deeper problems that gave us 9/11, he was defensive and almost apologetic. I wonder: does he actually regret being a nation-builder? Does he privately wish he’d never done this? We all know his position before 9/11. Nation-building was the last thing he wanted to do. Has he reverted to type? In this kind of enterprise we need conviction at the top. At least more conviction than we saw yesterday. My prediction: another small poll tumble.
The Dish 