Poor, poor Shrub (tongue planted firmly in cheek!)

Let’s Try Baloney
The White House is way off track. Only something radical can rally Bush’s presidency.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 11:59 a.m. ET Nov. 12, 2005

Excerpt:

The people who most want Bush to succeed are the alumni of his father’s administration, and they are in despair over the state of the White House. One former diplomat after three glasses of wine at an embassy dinner confessed that he has a recurring image of the White House as a crab with seven atrophied legs and one over-developed leg, which would be Karl Rove, pulling everything along. “If he goes, there’s nothing left.” Exhausted and demoralized Bush aides are turning on each other and leaking stories to the press, a breakdown in discipline that was common in the Clinton White House, but new to the Bush operation. Friends of the senior Bush are blaming Cheney for usurping too much power, but that’s why they wanted him there, as a minder for the man-child who should never have been made president.

This is a battle between the Bushes of Kennebunkport and the Bushes of Crawford, and who prevails will determine which direction Bush 43 goes for the rest of his term. The Connecticut crowd is headed by Bush 41 with Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser, speaking for the father, James Baker the consigliore, and chief-of-staff Andy Card their mole. Scowcroft has terminally offended the White House with his anti-Iraq war views. “He might as well be dead,” says the former diplomat. “If you say anything publicly, you’re frozen out. You have to show comity toward them, or they won’t listen to you.”

Suiting up on the Crawford side is Rove, and of course Bush 43, who reinforce each other. If Bush sticks with Rove and goes to the right, there’s a ceiling on his popularity at best of 45 percent. If he moves to the center, like the Bush 41 crowd would like, the base collapses and he doesn’t necessarily pick up votes in the center. The administration is too far gone, the problems intractable.

Complete commentary by Eleanor Clift