The New York Times ran a story today headlined, “As Agenda Falters, Bush Tries a More Personal Approach in Dealing With Congress.” It seems that Bush, normally not much of a Chatty Kathy when it comes to members of Congress, had sat down for a 15-minute Oval Office schmooze with Elizabeth Taylor’s former husband, Senator John W. Warner.

“It was a nice way of doing things,” Mr. Warner said.

It was also a new way of doing things for a president who Republicans in Congress say has for years treated them like pesky younger siblings, ignoring their ideas and calling on them only to promote his legislation on Capitol Hill …

“If you had to evaluate presidents, 1 to 10, and Johnson is a 10, this president is a 1,” Professor Thurber said. “The state of his presidency vis-à-vis the Congress is bad not only because he’s down in the polls. It’s not only bad because of the war and the Katrina mess. It’s bad because he never reaches out. He’s not that kind of guy. He goes bicycle riding with the Secret Service rather than bringing people together.”

Memories, memories…

House Speaker Tip O’Neill fuming because Jimmy Carter never called him anymore (not that he ever had). The Democratic leadership of the Senate whining the same whine. Not that they weren’t right. Carter treated Congress like bellhops. Everybody knew it. It was the conventional wisdom, all over the papers right from his first weeks in Washington.

Wait a minute, though. How come it’s taken the Assimilated Press more than five years to figure out that Bush is even worse at this game than the very bad Carter? Because reporters are no more than a bunch of running dogs of capitalism?

I don’t think that’s why Bush has gotten a free pass for so long on so many things. I think it’s personal. Jimmy Carter was smarter and better informed than most reporters, and they knew it. When I was thinking about hitting the dark horse ex-governor up for a spot on the campaign, I called up a wire service reporter who covered him.

“He’s the smartest son of a bitch I ever met,” my friend said. “And the most arrogant.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the reporters covering Al Gore in 2000 felt much the same way about him, although they may have said pompous or self-righteous instead of arrogant. Candidate Bush was another matter, though. There was a guy you wouldn’t mind having a beer with, if only he’d ask you to sometime.

The thing to remember is that most reporters weren’t the cool kids in school. And they weren’t the back-slapping, blow-snorting, beer-swilling, ass-grabbing Animal House president that Bush was, either. They had to be happy with the year book and the school paper.

So years later here’s this guy that never used to give you the time of day, and now he likes you, he really likes you. He even gives you a nickname to show that you’re one of the guys, too, and since you’re inexperienced at being one of the guys, you don’t see that it’s a sign of contempt. He takes away your name and gives you a new one, because now you’re his dog.

True, he isn’t too swift and he doesn’t know much about anything. But at least he isn’t like that stuffed shirt Al Gore, sounding like a professor all the time. Besides, the truth is that, like most journalists, you don’t know much about anything, either. The word for this, and you wear it proudly, is generalist.

Posted by Jerome Doolittle at June 11, 2006 06:50 PM

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