The Note
W A S H I N G T O N, May 25, 2004—<br> -- NOTED NOW
TODAY SCHEDULE (all times ET)
FUTURES CALENDAR
NEWS SUMMARY
Things that are vitally important:
1. The next round of public polls and the taste, smell, and feel of the political oxygen that exists until they are released.
2. John Kerry's upcoming foreign policy gambit; Ron Brownstein is waiting, and he's an impatient cuss.
3. The dominant media's lack of inclination to cut the president a break on Iraq these days. (See (1) above.)
4. The rise of Republican 527s.
Things that are meaningless:
1. Jim Rutenberg's front-page New York Times story creating moral and factual equivalency between the exaggerations and truth stretching in the various campaign ads.
2. Carl Hulse's New York Times lead on reaction to the president's speech: "President Bush's address on his strategy for Iraq failed on Monday night to convert Democrats who say the administration is mishandling the conflict and the looming transfer of power there, while Republicans said he presented a coherent plan for the weeks and months ahead."
President Bush meets with Iraqis receiving medical care in the U.S. at the White House and participates in a conversation on Health Care and Community Health Centers in Youngstown, Ohio.
Sen. Kerry attends the launch of his new campaign plane at Reagan National Airport in Washington, holds a conversation with teachers and community leaders about plans to lower gas prices and make American energy independent in Portland, Ore., and attends a fundraiser reception in the evening at the Benson Hotel also in Portland.
Ralph Nader speaks about local and state issues in Hartford, Conn.
The Senate and House are in recess until June 1.
The President's speech and the politics of Iraq:
Keying off the latest ABC News-Washington Post poll, the Washington Post's Dan Balz and Richard Morin report, "Public approval of President Bush's handling of the conflict in Iraq has dropped to its lowest point with growing fears that the United States is bogged down and rising criticism of Bush's handling of the prison abuse scandal." LINK
And yet — there's evidence that the crucial threshold hasn't been crossed. "When matched against Kerry on issues of national security and terrorism, Bush was seen as a stronger leader and more reliable in keeping the country safe and more trusted in dealing with a national crisis. Bush also bested Kerry on who is better equipped to deal with Iraq and the war on terrorism, although Bush's margins have declined in the past month."
The headline on Ron Brownstein's Los Angeles Times must-read blares, "Onus Now on Kerry's Iraq Plan." LINK
Brownstein Notes nothing "new" came out of the President's speech (save the potential Abu Ghraib demolition) but questions if John Kerry's call for better "leadership" is enough to serve as an alternative.
"By reaching out at least partially to estranged allies, the proposed U.N. resolution seems designed to blunt another principal charge against Bush's Iraq policy: the allegation by Kerry and others that the U.S. is bearing too much of the burden because the president has alienated too many other nations."
"These subtle mid-course corrections may not help Bush much if conditions do not improve in Iraq itself. But they show that the president is not waiting for a decisive change in Iraq to try to alter the terms of debate at home. And they may compel Kerry to demonstrate the same flexibility in adjusting his plans to a rapidly shifting landscape in the war that has come to dominate the presidential race."
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank leads with Bush's vow to raze Abu Ghraib. Milbank notes that Bush "did not answer the central question of exactly who would take power in Iraq in just over a month. A U.N. envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected to make such an announcement in the coming days." LINK
What the President did not do, per Robin Wright and Mike Allen: LINK
-- "provide the midcourse correction that even some Republicans had called for in the face of increasingly macabre violence in recent weeks."
-- "try to answer some of the looming questions that have triggered growing skepticism and anxiety at home and abroad about the final U.S. costs, the final length of stay for U.S. troops, or what the terms will be for a final U.S. exit from Iraq."
What the President did do: Bush "said his current plan is good enough to win, and he set out to rally Americans to his cause with rousing language that placed the conflict in Iraq in the context of the larger, more popular battle against terrorism."
Tom Shales weighs in with his review of the speech, calling it "clear enough but also dry and dispirited."LINK
"Not even the military audience gave the impression of being enraptured, and the speech was interrupted only a few times for applause."
"Besides, it's the folks at home who matter, the audience Bush really needs to impress. It's unlikely he did that last night."
Here are the key graphs from Dick Stevenson's analysis in the New York Times : LINK
"Making his task that much more complicated was the hard-fought presidential campaign, in which Mr. Bush's role as commander in chief is no longer the unalloyed strength the White House once assumed it would be."
"For Democrats, the torrent of bad news from Iraq has had the effect of denting Mr. Bush's post-Sept. 11 aura as commander in chief and simultaneously drowning out good news on the economy that might otherwise put Mr. Bush in a more commanding position."
"But some Republicans said the situation in Iraq would only focus more attention on Mr. Kerry and what they said was his unsuitability to run the war on terrorism. The political implications for Mr. Bush would be limited, said Alan K. Simpson, the former Republican senator from Wyoming, because voters did not trust Mr. Kerry to provide any better answers."
"'If it's a threat to his re-election, then the question is, What is the other guy saying?' Mr. Simpson said. 'Out in the land — and I travel all over — people are saying, 'What's Kerry going to do about it? Got any new ideas, chum?'"
It's almost as if Sen. Simpson was born to provide kicker quotes.
David Brooks writes in the New York Times that happy ending in Iraq still feels "a long way away," but nothing less than the future of freedom and democracy are at stake. LINK
"It's a huge gamble to think that the solution to chaos is liberty. But it's fitting that during the gravest crisis of his presidency, President Bush reverted to his most fundamental political belief. He began this war in Iraq repeating the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, that our creator has endowed all human beings with the right to liberty, and the ability to function as democratic citizens. He said last night with absolute confidence that the Iraqis are democrats at heart."
