Leadership? • By Smug Showboating Supercilious Swagger?
With "Vacationing And Guitar Strumming While People
Drowned" GWB's Approval Ratings • His Lowest In
History • Efforts To REestablish His "Commanding
Presence" • Are At A Fever Pitch
GWB Forward Thinking? • Self-confidence? • OR
• Aristocratic • Arrogant • Belief That His PRESENCE
•• Is Simply ALL It Takes?
Washington Post Article • Blows The Cover Off Bush Brain
Karl Rove's Redundant Ruses •• Sez:
"A president who roamed across the national and world stages with an unshakable
self-assurance that comforted Republicans and confounded critics since 2001
suddenly finds himself struggling to reclaim his swagger. Bush's standing with the
public -- and within the Republican Party -- has been battered by a failed Social
Security campaign, violence in Iraq, and most recently Hurricane Katrina. His approval
ratings, 42 percent in the most recent Washington Post-ABC poll, have never been
lower.
A president who normally thrives on tough talk and self-assurance finds himself at
what aides privately describe as a low point in office, one that is changing the psychic
and political aura of the White House, as well as its distinctive political approach.
Most of all, White House aides want to reestablish Bush's swagger -- the projection of
competence and confidence in the White House that has carried the administration
through tough times since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Bush likes to say his job is to make tough decisions and leave the hand-wringing for
historians and pundits. He almost never entertains public doubt, which is part of the
White House design to build a more powerful presidency. The term 'strong leader'
appears in at least 98 speeches he has given during his White House years,
according to a database search, and was the subtext of his 2004 campaign strategy.
He favors provocative language, declaring that he wanted Osama bin Laden 'dead or
alive' and taunting Iraqi insurgents to 'bring 'em on.'"
NYTimes Article • Confirms That The APPEARANCE
• Is What Counts To The Extreme Political Manipulators •
Sez:
"SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 23 - President Bush was supposed to land
here on Friday afternoon on the first stop of a tour intended to
make clear that he was personally overseeing the federal
government's preparations for Hurricane Rita's landfall. But the
weather did not cooperate.
It was too sunny.
Another White House official involved in preparing Mr. Bush's
way noted that with the sun shining so brightly in San Antonio, the
images of Mr. Bush from here might not have made it clear to
viewers that he was dealing with an approaching storm."
And Washington Post Reports • That In The Background • Is Redolent
Scrutiny Of Rove's Behavior • Sez:
In a series of private conversations over the past few months, aides began
second-guessing how they handled the Social Security debate, managed the
public perception of the Iraq war and, most recently, the response to
Katrina. The federal CIA leak investigation, which has forced Deputy White
House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and others to testify before a grand jury,
seemed to distract officials and left a general feeling of unease, two aides
said. Aides were calling reporters to find out what was happening with
Rove and the investigation. 'Nobody knows what's going to happen
with the probe,' one senior aide said."
LINK: Washington Post Reveals •• Presidential Styling
Strategy
LINK: NYTimes Describes Bush •• As Repentant
Hurricane Chaser
> RRW > a NV thanks >
3:23:44 AM
