The Long Slide Begins

(July 10, 2001)

Lately, George W. Bush has been getting a reality check from the media. As usual with the media, reality intrudes in the form of polls, showing that Bush's approval rating has been in a gradual but steady slide since January. And, in GOP circles, a queasy feeling is growing that this may be only the beginning of Bush's long slide.

It is true - as the pundits are quick to point out - that Clinton's approval numbers fell faster and farther in his first six months. The difference is that Clinton got no honeymoon from the media or the Beltway establish, or rather, he got a honeymoon in hell. Remember the uproar over gays in the military? (As if that were anything new. Remember Churchill's comment on the traditions of the Royal Navy: "Rum, sodomy, and the lash.") Bush, in contrast, got one long media smooch, at least till Jim Jeffords bolted the GOP reservation, but his poll numbers still have drifted steadily down.

To be sure, it is also true that poll numbers that go down can come back up, as President Clinton's did. After drifting steadily downward for his first two years, Clinton's approval ratings rose back up just as slowly and steadily, and stayed in the 60s even through the Year of Monica. Clinton, however, learned on the job. At least as important, he did the job. One thing almost no one ever doubted, at least outside the right-wing foamer caucus, was that Bill Clinton worked damned hard at the job of the presidency.

Bush has never worked hard at anything in his life, and there is no particular sign that he is going to start now. In fact, one other thing the media has started noticing, or at least commenting on, is the frequency of his vacations. George W. Bush, it seems, has a lot in common with his father, only more so. Neither of the Bushes really wanted to do very much as president. They both just wanted to be president - to be the ultimate big man on campus, elected to the most exclusive club of all, the one with only one member.

For that matter, it's not quite clear that Dubya even cares all that much about being president. His chief motivation seems have been merely to win (if not at the ballot box, the Supreme Court would do), and reclaim the White House from all those nasty people who threw out Poppy in 1992. Once he established his divine right to the throne, he wasn't all that interested in actually sitting on it, much less doing anything from it.

Oh, yes, Bush did push through those tax cuts (with the result that the surplus Bill Clinton worked eight years to create is already starting to evaporate). But did he really fight all that hard even for the tax cuts? Getting an upper-bracket tax giveaway through Congress, when the GOP controlled both branches, was not exactly climbing a political Mt. Everest - more like asking the frat house to vote for a kegger.

Bush, in short, is a president adrift. From everything we know of him, he is likely to remain adrift ... and in politics, when you're drifting it is almost always downward.

-- Rick Robinson

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Last revised 11/07/2006 ... by RM Robinson

Email me: Lyonesse@compuserve.com

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