Some might not like the source...

[vakkotaur]

...but the guy has a point all the same. Richard Lowry has an article in National Review about how Bush is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Extract:

Sometimes a political figure becomes so hated that he can't do anything right in the eyes of his enemies. President Bush has achieved this rare and exalted status. His critics are so blinded by animus that the internal consistency of their attacks on him no longer matters. For them, Bush is the double-bind president.

If he stumbles over his words, he is an embarrassing idiot. If he manages to cut taxes or wage a war against Saddam Hussein with bipartisan support, he is a manipulative genius.

Comments

Lowry's right on the money

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

I would also note that it's probably trivial to make anyone look bad with sufficient material to work with and a biased editor.

Somehow, Al Gore's saying "e pluribus unum" means "out of one, many" and the time he asked "Who are these guys?" when he came upon a collection of busts of the Founding Fathers was never relentlessly beaten on by the media, and we got a huge pile of Clintonian parsing of the difference between "inventing the Internet" and "creating the Internet."

Re: Lowry's right on the money

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Actually, the significant distinction was between "created the Internet" and "took the initiative in creating the Internet". He just meant he *helped* create the Internet, by voting for its funding. Yeah, he coulda worded it clearer, but that hardly excuses the Republicans for using it to make him sound stupid.

Re: Lowry's right on the money

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

Helping to create the Internet by voting for it doesn't even qualify for "took the initiative in creating the Internet". That honor belongs to the folks who designed the protocols and wrote the software and built the hardware and figured out how to make it all work.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

There is some truth in it. However, Clinton arrived at the same point, it just took him longer. Bush Sr. also was at the same point when he lost his re-election bid to Clinton.

This argument is no defense of the wrong things that any politician does. Yet I think Lowry tries to use it as an excuse for anything that anyone might disapprove of.

The problem with the current administration, in my own opinion, has less to do with Bush than it does to do with various others who hold the real power. But there is no separating the package either. So people blame Bush for the actions of the VP, the Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Homeland Security, etc. That is the normal way of American politics. "The buck stops here" was a correct statement. The President will be blamed for the behavior of his cabinet, his party leaders, his VP, and his wife, not just himself.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I will not claim it as a defense for what Bush does, or does not, do. It's trying to have things both ways only makes it that much harder for his detractors to be taken seriously. It's a variant of the Boy Who Cried Wolf thing going on. By generating so much noise, any actual signal is buried all the further.