Bush switches on media, energy
President Bush has clearly changed his mind about both energy policy and White House communications strategy, but his failure to switch sooner is causing him grievous political damage.
Disquiet about the Iraq war is the main factor driving Bush’s approval ratings down to the 30s, but high gas prices and failures to communicate are contributing to his woes.
There’s good news to report on the economic front — low unemployment, a strong growth rate — but $3-a-gallon gasoline has Bush’s approval rating on the economy stuck at 39 percent in the latest Gallup poll.
Bush’s appointment of Fox News journalist Tony Snow — and the apparent freedoms he’s been granted to speak out and innovate — are the latest sign that a major change of policy is afoot. This is welcome, but it comes perilously late.
Similarly, it wasn’t until this year’s State of the Union address that Bush decided that “America is addicted to oil” and began to promote a comprehensive energy policy.
Americans ought to be disgusted with the way both parties have handled energy. Democrats have resolutely blocked Bush’s past proposals and now are demagoguing the issue for electoral advantage.
Snow’s appointment is part of a sea change clearly induced by the fear of political failure. For some weeks now, the Bush White House has been engaged in an extensive outreach program for Members of Congress and the media. Also, Bush himself has been engaging in less-scripted exchanges with citizens.
Snow — who is a personal friend and a longtime colleague of mine at Fox — apparently has been assured that he will attend crucial meetings, have ready access to high officials and be able to both parry with and try to educate the media.
He’s a naturally cheerful person who’s able to put an upbeat face on the administration, and he’s quick-thinking, well-informed and dedicated conservative who’ll be able to counter Bush’s critics.
Still, Bush’s problems are so deep at the moment — and too many Americans feel too strongly negative about the president — that it’s open to question whether communications changes can turn things around.
As the liberal Democracy Corps noted in its latest polling analysis, “an incredible 78 percent in a CBS poll believe Iraq is already engaged in a civil war, and President Bush … is no longer seen as a credible messenger on Iraq.”
Meanwhile, on energy, Democrats are trying to make high gas prices an issue of Bush’s integrity by accusing “big oil” companies of “price-gouging” and “profiteering” and alleging that, as a former oil man, Bush has been colluding with them.
To cover himself, Bush urged an inquiry into possible price-gouging and took other short-term measures to temper prices. Administration officials admitted, however, that “it took us a long time to get into this situation, and it’s going to take us a long time to get out.”
And that’s the danger for Bush. America was “addicted to oil” in 2001, but Bush’s energy policy was pegged strictly to increasing supplies, not to decreasing demand.
Democrats, for their part, blocked supply increases, notably an expansion of drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and concentrated mostly on demand-reduction measures such as higher taxes and conservation.
America needs an all-out approach to solving the energy problem in which we “do it all” — that is, find more domestic oil in the short run, conserve and find alternative fuels for the long run. But that requires a willingness to compromise.
That willingness is utterly absent from both parties in this election year. Democrats are on the attack; Republicans are on the defensive. Bush may be starting to talk smarter, but it’s very late in the day.
Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.