Oldest Boy once asked me if Bush had done anything well during his presidency. Ordinarily, I can find one or two good points about anything, even if it’s not something I like. The incompetence of Bush poses a special challenge in this way.
I told him that there was one thing Bush was very good at: winning elections. He had a way of finding just the kind of issues that would split the electorate, to his advantage.
But the skills needed to govern are not the same as the skills needed to win elections, and I don’t think Team Bush has even yet figured that out. Which is why the President has decided to stake his recovery on an issue that worked for him in 2004, but which has gone cold since: gay marriage.
In our free society, people have the right to choose how they live their lives. And in a free society, decisions about such a fundamental social institution as marriage should be made by the people — not by the courts.
Talk about poor governance: he’s stacked the Supreme Court with conservative judges, but still feels the need to complain about judicial activism. (He didn’t see the need to complain about judicial activism when the SCOTUS made him President, though.) And so he’s going populist in the hopes that voters will support a Constitutional amendment that will discriminate against a segment of Americans.
Will it work? Public opinion-wise, it looks less likely than ever. The latest Gallup Poll shows a 39/58 split, for vs. against. Back in 2004, it was 32/62, so the public is slowly shifting views on marriage to match the recent acceptance of homosexuality. Once again, Bush plays to the extremists rather than the mushy middle, but this time, the base may be too alienated to return. But the middle will be even more alienated by this ploy, and Bush will continue his slow slide to 25.
6 June 2006 at 10:07 pm
While America does seem to finally see that this is just a poltical ploy I still think you are far to gracious to the American centrists.
7 June 2006 at 12:14 am
I know; wishful thinking dies a million deaths.
But look at ’em… they’re deserting the ship! Bush at 29. They’re forcing him into this distraction. Will they take the bait again, or are they finally awake?
7 June 2006 at 2:25 pm
It isn’t really Bush I am worried about anymore. He’s done. Its how far America has swerved to the right. And after 8 years of this instead of correcting itself to the left Bush is now on the liberal side of the majority. He doesn’t really care about rights for gay couples and he wants a more liberal immmagration polocy than 75% of the american public. Im starting to think that the republican line is going to be to lump that umpopular Bush and the democrates together for the next election. aaahhhhh!!!!!
7 June 2006 at 4:14 pm
Have you noticed that ‘liberal’ means ‘anything Republicans don’t like’?
Bush, that liberal.
12 June 2006 at 10:29 pm
But look at ’em… they’re deserting the ship!
They are deserting the Bush ship. Not the conservative ship. They don’t like that gitmo has made us look bad but dont have a problem with the us leaving the geneva conventions behind; they don’t like the way the iraq war has been lead but they have no problem with offensive war making or “spreading democracy with rifles”, and on and on. It isn’t the core ideas that americans are having a problem with its only the ineptitude of leadership they have a problem with and that scares the hell out of me.