White House Solutions

There is an interesting blurb at NY Daily News about the mood inside the White House discussing Bush and his aides' ever-increasing separation from reality. I have no sympathy for this man nor his dislocation, but I am concerned about the fact that his inability to deal with real issues is now manifest by a near continuous campaign drive to "polish his image." This is not governing. Not that anything Bush has ever done approached good governance, but the employment of a large part of the executive staff in message management and imagineering may begin to have some deliterious effects upon the executive's ability to do anything even half-way approaching meaningful action.

A telling passage is related that describes how the GOP itself is now rather disturbed by Bush's White House behaviour and clearly indicates that the White House is not now, nor is it expected to be cogent in dealing with the host of serious issues currently on the White House plate:

"There is just no introspection there at all. It is everybody else's fault - the press, gutless Republicans on the Hill. They're still in denial."

This has been true for sometime, and they seem unable to deal with the fact that Bush's approval is not the 90% it was after 9/11. The response to sagging poll numbers is expected to be one that has previously seved them well: distraction:

This week Bush will begin to press the border security issue, while Alito's Senate confirmation hearings start early next year. Aides hope those issues will draw attention away from the war and leak probe.

As was pointed out over on the UnCap Journal, the military situation in Iraq now appears to be a lost cause as soldiers on the ground are reporting that the Pentagon does not appear to be making any kind of serious effort toward a winning strategy. This sort of thing would indicate that the administration has pretty much given up and is ready to pack it in.

But they won't do this in the open and they certainly won't admit it. It is interesting, of course, that a week after Murtha's proposal and the subsequent smear campaign, Bush is now saying that he has had withdrawal plans all along. Well, how about that?

The distraction provided by the Alito confirmation hearings, and anything else the White House can drum up, won't be enough to temper any attention paid to a troop withdrawal while Iraq is still roiling -- something they said they would never do. But given a general and obvious lack of awareness, Bush aides will probably still think that they can wave their hands over Alito's head and everyone will pay no attention to anything else. They really don't seem to understand that that game -- the only one they have ever known how to play -- is over.