BUSH

Why America has gone sour on Bush

By Alec Russell

(Filed: 19/05/2006)

Karl Rove was in pretty perky form the other morning, given the circumstances. George W Bush's right-hand man does not appear often in public these days.
So it was all the more striking to see his new streamlined shape as he bounded on to the stage at the American Enterprise Institute, the panzer of Washington's conservative think tanks, to talk up Mr Bush's economic record - possibly the only part of the Bush agenda that is not under sustained attack right now.
Gone are the chubby cheeks, double chins and chalky pallor Americans have come to know so well since he steered his boss into the White House.
The "architect", aka "Bush's brain", has lost up to 50lb over the past few months - the result, he insists, of a spot of weightlifting in the White House gym, not stress.
If he was fretting about the speculation that he was about to be indicted over his role in a leaking scandal, he showed no sign of it as he bombarded us with statistics.
It was not a bad approach. America's consumer confidence index is at levels that would normally have a president if not purring, at least content.
Mixing wonkish details with a few of his usual quips, he built up his case not to give up on the Bush presidency - or rather, he tried to.
To quote back at him his closing words to a reporter who asked him about reports that he had been indicted, "nice try".
I asked him a question, too. "No matter which way you look, you can hear mutterings about the direction of the Administration. There are even grumbles from your core supporters, even in this building. What has gone wrong?"
And then he came clean. "We're in a sour time," he said. "I readily admit it."
Moments later, he was back into hyper-spin mode. November's mid-term elections, he was "absolutely confident", will be "just fine" for Republicans.
The party stands for "things that are important to stand for… strong national defence… a complete victory in the war against terrorism… economic policies that are pro-growth… fiscal restraint in the budget process…"
There was a time when such "talking points" resonated, but no longer. America has indeed gone "sour" on Bush and now he can do nothing right.
To be in Washington these days is to watch a Beltway form of "death by a thousand cuts". Poll after poll shows the President's support in freefall.
No president in modern times has been in such a dire state during the countdown to mid-terms. Yet more worryingly for the White House, conservatives' confidence in the President is imploding.
A new SurveyUSA poll found he has just 42 per cent support in Texas, his home state, where they normally weigh the vote when a Republican is in charge. A Gallup poll this week recorded a 13 per cent drop in Republican support for him in the past fortnight.
Rove gamely kept to the official line about polls: only wimps like Bill Clinton pay attention to them. You only, however, have to tour the conservative think tanks or redneck Virginia, as I did last weekend, to appreciate that this is nothing to do with the angle of the pollsters' questions.
About time, too, many in Europe will think. It is, after all, barely 18 months since the Daily Mirror sprayed over its front page, "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?", after Bush shunted John Kerry back into the Senate (where, incidentally, he will stay, abandoning dreams of running again, if he has any sense).
Tempting as it will be, and not just for Mirror headline-writers, the gloating should be temporary. A hapless presidency is the last thing the world needs, however much Bush may deserve his fate given his team's failures over Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and so on.
Also, believe it or not, the Bush Administration has learnt - been forced to learn - from its undiplomatic first-term ways. Mr Kerry would have endorsed a very similar twin-track approach to Iran and the new doveish overtures to North Korea.
At home, too, Bush has moved nearer to the centre. The man the world loves to see as a redneck gave a sensible compromise speech on immigration on Monday, taking on the "send them all back home" brigade by promising to legalise millions of illegal Mexican immigrants.
He has also done what his critics demanded and freshened up his White House with a new press secretary and chief of staff.
But it is all too late. Rove blamed the war for the sourness, but Bush's problems are far broader and more personal. The American public appears to have made up its mind about him. His only hope is that his "boy wonder" can stay out of the courts and pull off one last victory.
Rove made a good point when he accused the Democrats of standing "for little or nothing except mere obstructionism".
They have yet to find a theme akin to Newt Gingrich's Contract with America in 1994, the last time Congress changed hands. Democrats could yet blow a great opportunity by continuing to seize on the wrong issues.
Take the story of the day, the unauthorised wire-tapping of Americans. The would-be new CIA director, General Michael Hayden, was given a grilling over this yesterday in the Senate, but it would be disastrous for the Democrats to push this in November.
Americans, infuriated as they are with just about anything Mr Bush does, are not that concerned at the idea of phone calls being tapped if it means the odd terrorist may be thwarted.
Another glimmer of hope for Republicans is that the nation is clearly unhappy with politicians of all stripes. This "centre Right nation", as Rove put it, may yet be unwilling to vote Democrat in sufficient numbers for a November rout.
But if it does, Bush's last two years will disappear in a blizzard of congressional subpoenas for his aides, and then even these grim days may seem in retrospect rather rosy.