Unreality check

The Washington Post reports that the White House is looking to develop ideas, themes, memes, if you will, for Shrub's 2004 campaign. While that's not unusual in and of itself (anyone campaigning for office does the same), the difference between these people and most everyone else remains as big as ever.

President Bush's aides are considering a new lunar exploration program and other unifying national goals, including a campaign to promote longevity or fight childhood illness or hunger, as they sift ideas for a fresh agenda for the final year of his term, administration officials said yesterday. ...

One person consulted by the White House said some aides appear to relish the idea of a "Kennedy moment" for Bush, referring to the 1962 call by President John F. Kennedy for the nation to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. ...

[A senior administration official] said Bush's closest aides are promoting big initiatives on the theory that they contribute to Bush's image as a decisive leader even if people disagree with some of the specifics. "Iraq was big. AIDS is big," the official said. "Big works. Big grabs attention."

In other words, these notions are being tossed around not because anyone there thinks they're good ideas or even, it appears, that they have any intention of pursuing them, but just because they will look good. The utter scumminess of this crew continues to boggle.

Back in January, 1981, I addressed a group holding a "counter-inaugural." I called Reagan's win "the ultimate victory of style over substance." It's only gotten worse since.

Footnote from the See What I Mean? Dept.:

Washington (AP, December 7) - The White House sought to distance itself from a Republican Party TV ad that portrays President Bush as a fighter of terrorism and says his Democratic opponents "are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."

"The Republican National Committee is not the president's re-election campaign. It's the Republican National Committee," White House chief of staff Andrew Card said on CNN. Card asserted that new campaign laws have prevented Bush's re-election team from coordinating with the party or the White House.

But pressed on the point, Card said the content of the ad was appropriate.

"I think the ad that the Republican National Committee ran is a very responsible ad. It took public statements and highlighted them," he said.

In other words, the White House wants to endorse the ad without actually being held responsible for it.

Two questions Card was apparently not asked were did he really think that if Bush told the RNC to stop running the ad they would refuse and precisely what "public statements" he was talking about.