Mike Gerson–author of Bush’s best spoken–moments, master of the Biblical cadence–had crafted an unusually lengthy opening statement, which began with a sober military “sitrep” and ended with Bush’s mantra that “freedom is the deepest need of every human soul.”
And so, in the glittering East Room, the “presser” came to pass. The postevent punditry was predictably withering. The president had ducked and dodged, it was said, and had suffered a deer-in-the-headlights moment when asked to name a mistake he had made after 9/11. His Democratic rival for the presidency, Sen. John F. Kerry, complained that Bush hadn’t spelled out a realistic Iraq exit strategy and had failed to prove that removing Saddam Hussein was central to the war on terror. But afterward, Bush’s lead political aides expressed satisfaction. “There were a few rocky moments,” one conceded. “But I’ll trade them any time for the chance to give that ‘freedom’ speech at the start. In wartime, voters want the guy with resolve.”
There it is, encapsulated in prime time: the Bush campaign, presidency and world view. This is a president who often would rather preach than answer questions–or ask them. He leads and runs unapologetically on faith, dividing the world and the presidential campaign into two discrete spheres: one for patriots who believe in his policies and vision, and one for everyone else. Whether he can win re-election that way is unclear. The race is a tossup; the press conference didn’t appreciably move the polling needle. But if Karl Rove is the guru, the strategy is pure Martin Luther. “Here I stand,” Bush seems to declare. “I can do no other.”
Faith in his vision (and Dick Cheney’s) is the essence of his war leadership, Bob Woodward reports in his new book, “Plan of Attack.” As Woodward describes it, Bush essentially locked onto the notion of invading Iraq by the winter of 2001, and gave the “go” order 16 months later without subjecting the idea to a real vetting by his inner circle. Asked whether he seeks his own father’s advice on Iraq, the son demurred. “You know, he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength,” the president told Woodward. “There is a higher father that I appeal to.”
Tellingly, there was no rage at the White House over the Woodward account. “Sure he asked for the new war plan on Iraq,” said one top aide. “He asked for updates on 67 other plans as well.” The president needed to keep his provisional decision quiet to prevent a public uproar that might have limited his options later, said another aide. There was no formal directive to the Pentagon until February 2002–still more than a year before the war commenced. But the White House does not dispute the basic notion that Bush (and Cheney) had long had Iraq in their gun sights. Woodward is “a good reporter,” said one official.
As in war, so in the political defense of it. Some presidents have won plaudits for strategic contrition. John F. Kennedy publicly shouldered responsibility for the Bay of Pigs (even as his aides tried to blame it on Eisenhower). Ronald Reagan accepted responsibility for the terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 in 1983. Bush has only a forward gear. The 9/11 commission has amassed much evidence of missed signals before the Qaeda attack–by Bill Clinton’s administration as well as Bush’s. Iraq has been a harder slog than the White House said it expected. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. But Bush, invited to admit mistakes, steadfastly declines to do so. Nor has he fired anyone.
Bush’s campaign strategy is Manichaean, too. In the war against Kerry and the Democrats, he is suggesting that criticism is dangerous, even treasonous. Asked in the East Room if the bloodshed in Iraq legitimately raised echoes of Vietnam, the president expressed disdain. Even broaching the comparison, Bush said, “sends the wrong message to our troops and the wrong message to the enemy.” If that was too subtle, others were more blunt. When Kerry criticized Bush for placing the risks and costs of the war too heavily on Americans, Marc Racicot, the mild-voiced chairman of Bush’s campaign, reacted with venom. The senator’s comments, he said, were a “failure to remain unified in our efforts when we are at war.”
Ironically, the positions of the president and the senator on Iraq are virtually identical these days. They both favor continuing and even beefing up the U.S. military presence, a June 30 turnover of authority to a U.N. -mandated interim government and a stronger role for NATO. Behind the scenes, the president is hoping to cut a deal as fast as he can with the United Nations and its envoy Lakhdar Brahimi–though bragging about that now could undermine the talks.
But that won’t prevent Bush-Cheney ‘04 from depicting Kerry as a nonbeliever–nor, for that matter, will it prevent Kerry from depicting the Bushies as chicken hawks eager to scare voters. “Home base for George Bush is terror,” Kerry said on the campaign trail in New York. “Ask him a question, he’s going to go to terror.” In Pittsburgh, Kerry invoked Francis Scott Key. “The bombs–the political bombs–may be bursting in air today around us they try to distort the truth,” he told a rally at Pitt. “But when I look up, that flag is still there, and it belongs to all Americans!”
Bush’s handlers claim Kerry’s battle cry on the war is music to their ears. They say they not only don’t mind engaging Kerry on the war, they relish it. They’ve taken down ads portraying the senator as an inveterate tax-raiser and opened wide with one that focuses on his vote against an $87 billion measure for Iraq and Afghanistan. “Kerry,” the ad intones, “wrong on defense.” This week, on a parallel track, the president will hit the road to praise the terrorism-fighting powers of the Patriot Act, which Kerry has opposed.
But the president’s advisers need to be careful what they wish for. Their $50 million worth of ads hasn’t done much to dent Kerry thus far, except among Republicans. A campaign of preaching on the text of wartime resolve is risky. The Iraq news may not brighten any time soon. Indeed, the latest war video is of a frightened young American hostage, Pfc. Keith Maupin. He describes himself as married, the father of a 10-month-old son. “I didn’t want to come here because I wanted to be with my son,” Maupin tells his captors and the camera. The video is depressing, and might lead some voters–beyond the pews of the faithful–to wonder who really is “wrong on defense.”
