THE PLANK SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
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When all the banks have been bailed out and all the debts paid off, the big takeaway for the historians from the financial crisis will be the complete and utter failure of President Bush as the nation's leader. Set aside the blame for the mortgage meltdown. Set aside whether the Paulson plan is a good idea. At a time when American taxpayers and global investors need to see a strong, confident president in the White House, they simply don't have one.
This morning, finally, comes word that President Bush will go on television to address the country tonight. In the meantime, it's been Paulson and Ben Bernanke on the frontlines, while Dick Cheney and Josh Bolten are in the backrooms trying to rally their party's rank-and-file (and, according to press reports, largely failing to do so).
Within minutes of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson had his aides cancel a trip to Hawaii and book airtime on the networks. Within 24 hours he had gone on television twice, met with Congressional and civil rights leaders, and made a high-profile appearance at the National Cathedral. And this was a man so unpopular that he had pulled out of the presidential race just four days earlier (his poll numbers had since shot up, but he was still a lame-duck president). Johnson's appearances didn't prevent the ensuing riots, but as a demonstration of grief and concern from the nation's political establishment, they likely had a dampening effect on further outbursts of violence.
I don't mention Johnson as a paragon of presidential virtue, but simply as an example of what real presidents do in moments of national crisis. They instinctively reach out to the nation in a show of confidence and leadership, even if they don't have a very good idea of how we'll get out of a particular mess. Bush did it after September 11. But there's no evidence that this time he even understands the need for such a move.
7 comments
You mean we don't have a Co-Presidency of Paulson and Bernake?
The real secret is that GWB is silently pulling the strings engaging in deep thought at the White House, and when he does address the American people the Market will soar, cats and dogs will sleep together, and the American people will rally to George. He is playing this brilliantly, and is a combination of Adam Smith, Truman, and Jesus rolled into one man. And so is McCain.
- blackton
September 24, 2008 at 2:09pm
Bush didn't do that right after 9/11. At least not until days later. That whole morning no one knew where the hell the President was or what was going on. Bush wasn't there calming us. He was hiding. Remember how the White House was stating Air Force One was a target or some such thing, and therefore the President's location was not disclosed?
What Bush did do, and did it well, was stand on the rumble and call out to a guy couldn't hear him. But that was days later. Other than that, he was lackluster in that crisis at best.
- adamvaught
September 24, 2008 at 2:32pm
Maybe he DOES understand. There is a nagging concern by many that this "crisis" is much less than it's ginned up to be, at least in terms of an immediate 700B bailout.
- gbittner
September 24, 2008 at 3:03pm
And let's not forget how he didn't show up until days after Katrina, either. The guy likes to play-act being president, but when the chips are down he's off hiding.
- mattnewman
September 24, 2008 at 3:04pm
The irony is that when Bush was asked in a debate in 2000 about how being governor prepared him for the presidency, he talked about visiting disaster sites and comforting victims, like that was the fun part of the job.
But frankly, I have to suspect it's better for financial markets and the general mood of the country to have less, not more, visibility from President Bush on the crisis. Heck, this morning I put in a mental "sell" order when I saw the pics of Dick Cheney on Capitol Hill. Really, is there any living American _less_ likely to be able to rally Congress to quick action on major legislation than the vice president? Take any fifty names from the phone book of Kansas City; I guarantee any one of them would be more likely to successfully negotiate this thing with Congress than Cheney. And that would probably be true even if Congress were entirely composed of Republicans.
- rhubarbs
September 24, 2008 at 5:29pm
Let's go Roman style for these last four months and just have a formal triumvirate.
- ackyri
September 24, 2008 at 6:50pm
I told some of my coworkers in 2002 that Americans would have supported Gumby as president after 9/11- and it turns out hat we did.
- jemerk
September 24, 2008 at 8:32pm