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Perry/Gisleson: Is Bush Toast Yet?

Is the president irrevocably damaged at last? Yes, says MG; no, says SP

Mark Gisleson: Bush is toast. Our Wonderbread president is about to get singed by the Valerie Plame scandal. The accusations and spin are flying, but with every White House attempt to defuse this matter, Josh Marshall seems to have a counter fact. Novak denies? Marshall cites a conflicting quote. I realize that investigations into leaks rarely go anywhere (in fact, I don't think there's ever been a conviction under the act this action violated). This time, however, the facts are simple enough for the general public to follow, and the set up is a veritable whodunnit.

The Internet is all over this story and press coverage has gone from MSNBC on Friday, to 1,399 related links at Google News this morning. The most credible suspects range from Karl Rove to Dick Cheney, but even the potential sacrificial lambs are high ranking administration officials like Lewis "Scooter" Libby and the now retired Ari Fleischer.

Steve, I know you're going to try to burst my bubble, but I'm telling you now the next few months are going to be fun. Not since Watergate have the accusations been so venal, or the conspirators so easy to dislike.

Nixon's biggest crime was Cambodia, but he went down over a third-rate burglary. Bush will never be held fully accountable for Iraq, but there's a chance he's already accessorized himself by trying to provide cover for Rove.

Yum.

Steve Perry: Well, we agree that the exposures of misconduct involve gravely serious stuff. We differ in that you believe the "process" of contemporary politics is far more rational and rigorous than I think it really is. We shouldn't let the brewing fierceness of the battle for the Democratic nomination lull us into thinking the eventual winner will necessarily run a competent or vigorous campaign in the general election, or that he will have any sort of motivated party apparatus behind him. In other words, the "opposition" here is still very much a question mark to me, though I do think either Clark or Dean would land some blows.

The media are the wild card that makes it too early to say whether Bush will lose. People like you and me and most of our readers, who read about this stuff a lot, are always at risk of failing to see how the thing is playing on television, which after all is where 70 percent of the public gets most or all of its news.

I spent a little while this morning cruising the news channels and the network morning shows. There was discussion of the Plame/Novak affair, but it was fairly sanguine--another partisan squabble in government (and yes, the talking heads did emphasize this point). The story has no fire on television, and until it does, it's got no fire, period.

You might say, well, TV's got to come to the table eventually. But they don't. When did TV news come to the table on Iran/contra? Or on the real basis of this war, beyond the falsified uranium claims? I don't think the tenor of television news has ever been this uniform or this committed to cheerleading the sitting administration as far as possible. Part of it's the influence of Fox News, no question. But Fox News didn't invent the specious, punitive version of patriotism that says no good American will ask questions of his or her government in wartime. That ethic was a long time taking shape.

So, in the end, I think you're saying that there's simply too much trouble out in the open for Bush to recover. I don't think that's true. The public memory has never been shorter or more incomplete. If the economy makes a serious rebound by next summer, Bush probably still wins. But I don't know any serious economist who thinks it will. For the first time I'm willing to say, he'll probably lose. But I'm still not convinced of it.

Mark Gisleson: It's still a bit early to know how significant this is, but immediately after Clark announced his candidacy, the spinning went into overdrive. He was accused of flip-flopping and not being ready for primetime by almost the entire major media. What happened? Clark kicked butt in the polls the very next week.

Thug punditocracy has run its course. You say we're Internet junkies and our perceptions don't count, but I think the everyday Americans who take the lead in shaping grassroots political opinion have switched from the tube to the monitor. Spin doesn't make a Guardian article go away, and lies can't take down a webpage (and even when a Diebold tries to silence a critic, they just move the page to another site).

The news magazines are being very aggressive as well, and have been challenging Bush over Iraq and the economy. This is a presidency that was destined to unravel, but it took a determined David Corn and Josh Marshall to get the major media to tug on the loose string.

I am looking forward to seeing Time or Newsweek run a cover filled with headshots of administration officials with the caption "Which one(s) leaked?" Maybe we can't crucify our lord, but some of the thieves he hangs out with might get nailed. Works for me.

Steve Perry: I was reading an editorial last night in Capitol Hill Blue, which has been doing some great, feisty writing about the Bush scandals. And it was talking about the Republicans' absolute imperative, which is to do serious damage to Clark and do it quickly.

So far they've failed. But I really wonder whether they've done all they can with the Kosovo story, about a precipitous order issued by Clark decision that his Brit subordinate refused to follow; Clark's decision was later scorned by Washington and London alike.

But I don't imagine there's much more. Clark strikes me as smart enough to stay out if he had serious skeletons lying around.

But I also wonder whether the Clinton wing, the DLC, which got behind Clark's running in an open way, were thinking of Clark as a winning bet or simply a means of derailing the outsider Dean, who is not a familiar of the party poobahs. It could be that the DLC faction got behind Clark hoping that he would tie up Dean and allow someone like Kerry or Gephardt to mount a rally.

Or maybe Clark really is the party's anointed one. Is Wes Clark really a DLC kind of guy? It depends on what he believes in and the deals he's made to be in this position. And those are two subjects we know almost nothing about. We can already see the outlines of his style, how he thinks--what kind of a manager he might be. But he would be more than a manager, and we still know almost nothing about what he values or what his limits are.

Posted by Steve Perry at September 30, 2003 11:06 AM

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