The Teflon presidency of
George W Bush By Ehsan
Ahrari
The CNN website on Thursday reported a
classified story about the US Central Intelligence
Agency's (CIA's) National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
that was prepared for President George W Bush back in
July. Among other things, that NIE contained two
scenarios about Iraq. The optimistic one described the
security situation there as remaining "tenuous" at best.
The worst-case scenario pointed to a civil war, a
reality toward which that country appears to be
currently sliding. Even after the disclosure of that
story, Bush continues to paint a rosy picture of Iraq in
his public appearance. His vice president, Dick Cheney,
is urging US voters to be patient. In Afghanistan
meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai barely escaped an
assassination attempt, when a missile shot at his
helicopter and missed it.
Why is all the bad
news related to Iraq and Afghanistan not yet showing its
effect in the support numbers of public opinion polls
ahead of the US presidential election in November? The
reasons may be as quirky as the era post-September 11,
2001, through which the United States and the
international community are passing. An inventory of
some of these reasons is in order.
First, the
Bush campaign has cornered the market on exploiting the
fear factor related to the September 11 attacks on the
United States, and on the dangers related to
transnational terrorism that is lurking everywhere, if
you hear the Republican depiction of reality. Bush's
strategy is working as a double-edged sword for him.
From one side, it seems to be keeping all the criticism
of his involvement in Iraq from becoming a gathering
storm of support for John Kerry, the Democratic
presidential nominee. The other side of that edge has
thus far kept Kerry himself at bay in terms of adopting
a strident tone of criticism of Bush's performance
related to America's national security. It appears,
however, that Kerry, upon the advice of former president
Bill Clinton, has finally decided to take off the gloves
and start bare-knuckle attacks on Bush, beginning this
week. It will be some time before his sharpened attack
will show its effect in the popularity polls one way or
another.
Second, despite deteriorating security
conditions in Iraq, the American people appear to be at
a point when they would rather stay with Bush, unless
Kerry can point to a better option for the United States
in that country. He has thus far failed to do so, maybe
because there aren't any better options for the US but
to stay put. And as long as the United States stays in
Iraq, the voters seem to be leaning toward the known
quantity (Bush), as opposed to giving an untested one
(Kerry) a chance.
Third, regarding the "global
war on terrorism", there appears to be no end in sight.
Its intense phase may come to an end with the killing or
capturing of Osama bin Laden and other leaders of
al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Unless that happens, it seems
that US voters will find it hard to make a definite
judgment about whether Bush's performance regarding the
"war on terrorism" is a success or a failure. What is
certainly helping him is the fact that there has not
been a terrorist attack inside the United States since
September 2001. That reality is also making Kerry's own
criticism of Bush's performance regarding the "war on
terrorism" appear as a lot of election-related hooey.
When the late Ronald Reagan was president,
students of US presidency had coined the term "Teflon
presidency" to convey what then appeared as the
invulnerability that Reagan had acquired against his
critics, and even in terms of his ability to ride out
major crises without losing popularity - nothing seemed
to stick on his persona, thus the Teflon presidency
(after a brand of non-stick coating applied to
cookware). That Teflon presidency even survived the
"Iran-Contra" scandal, in which some high-level White
House functionaries were caught carrying out their
personal foreign policy toward Iran. Reagan was not
exactly totally uninvolved in that crisis, but it did
not negatively affect his presidency. Now the question
is whether George W Bush has developed his own version
of Teflon presidency. It is hard to come up with a
definitive answer, but the current trends point to the
possibility that he indeed has. Just look at one bit of
evidence.
When the CBS network broke the story
last week that young George Bush used his family
connections to get special treatment while he was in the
Air National Guard in the 1970s, that story itself
became embroiled in the controversy related to whether
the documents used in it were real or fake. The Bush
White House has thus far managed to avoid getting bogged
down with supplying answers to questions regarding the
specifics of what Bush actually did as a young
lieutenant during the Vietnam War.
The Bush camp
is still counting on his buddy, President General Pervez
Musharraf of Pakistan, to pull off his own October
surprise by capturing or killing bin Laden. It believes
that such a happenstance will make Bush a shoo-in
president. In the absence of that, it is hoping that the
Republican rhetoric on the "flip-flop" factor of Kerry
would continue to work to Bush's advantage.
Kerry, on his part, has thus far not focused on
Bush's performance in general, and in particular on the
low-gear performance of the US economy. When Bill
Clinton won his first presidential term, his campaign
battle cry was, "It's the economy, stupid!" Thus far,
Kerry's lack of focus on a similar or the same battle
cry has enabled Bush's Teflon presidency to maintain an
edge over him.
However, there are still more
than six weeks to go before the presidential election.
In the whirlpool environment of election campaigns, that
is a long time that could yet see a reversal of fortune
between George Bush and John Kerry.
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