Since the election, Bush is having to share the seat of power with the Democrats. And [White House Chief of Staff Joshua] Bolten has become his bridge to Capitol Hill.
"The election was not a happy event around here, obviously," Bolten said, sitting on a couch in his spacious corner office where light streams in through tall windows. "Everybody's disappointed, but I haven't seen a single discouraged person."
To keep the staff focused, Bolten handed out about a dozen countdown clocks that show the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds left in Bush's presidency. The clock read 1,000 days in April when Bolten started his job, saying it was time for the White House to "get our mojo back."
Six months later, the pendulum has swung the Democrats' way, Iraq is chaotic and the president's job approval rating is stuck in the 30s. There now are fewer than 800 days left -- not a long time to push the Bush agenda, especially when the president's power is slipping away.
Silver lining?
Democrats claim their Election Day victory meant the president would limp through his final two years in office.
"I don't believe any of that," Bolten says.
Then, in his soft, direct style, Bolten suggests a silver lining to the GOP defeat: In the majority, Democrats will have more of a burden to show progress, especially heading into the race for the White House in 2008. The Democrats' 51-49 majority in the Senate is slim. Republicans still control the White House. And 800 days is nearly as long as Gerald Ford's presidency.
"You'll see us accommodating to the new environment and working more closely with Democrats than we have in the past," said Bolten, a 52-year-old self-described "policy geek" who has been spending time on Capitol Hill helping draft the GOP's new game plan.
"But I do not see the president compromising on principles. There may be people in the conservative base who fear that he is going to turn on his principles, but I think they will see fairly readily that he won't."
Is there a contradiction here? First, Bolten says that the GOP defeat is a positive for the Bush White House and the Republicans since the Democrats now have to show the American people that they can make progress. Then Bolten is saying that while the Bush White House is willing to work "more closely with the Democrats than we have in the past," President Bush will still refuse to compromise on "principles." If the Bush administration refuses to compromise on the Democratic Congress' legislation, does that make it the Democrats fault for not showing progress against an obstructionist Bush White House? Because that is what Josh Bolten is saying here.
This CNN story is really a GOP "feel good" pep story--even though we lost badly, we can still feel good for trying to win one for the Gipper! At the same time. Bolten is trying to shift the debate towards the Democrats for taking control of the legislative agenda, while portraying the Bush administration as the underdog in fighting against it. This new marketing spin is for laying the groundwork on the 2008 presidential elections--blame the Democrats for six years of Bush failures, while a new crop of Republican saviors, can we all say John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, will save America from those evil, treasonous Democrats. And the mainstream media will swallow it all--hook, line and sinker--once all the happy talk of bipartisanship between President Bush and the Democratic leadership in Congress dissolves into serious partisan bickering over the major problems of Iraq, the budget deficit, and tax cuts.
But for now, let's enjoy all the happy-happy-joy-joy talk coming out of Washington. It is not going to last for long.
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