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White House Notebook
At the White House, 'The People' Have Spoken -- Endlessly
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, June 4, 2002; Page A15
What do the American people think? Ask President Bush.
"The American people know this about me," he said on the subject of pre-Sept. 11 terrorism warnings. "Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people."
What do the American people think about the war on terrorism? "The American people understand that some days there will be moments of great drama on the TV screens, and sometimes there's going to be kind of a lull in the action," Bush said yesterday in Little Rock, invoking the American people three times in one speech. "The American people, much to the chagrin of the enemy and much to the delight of a grateful president, understand that we face a new threat."
How about his handling of Enron and its pension debacle? "The American people know that my administration has acted the right way," Bush affirmed.
The best energy policy? "It's a combination of good conservation and an increase in supplies," and "I think most of the American people understand that," he said.
The American people do not know for sure why the president keeps saying this. But the president and his aides have used some variation of the phrase hundreds of times, to defend the administration's policies on everything from the Middle East to income taxes.
This is no verbal tic. By invoking the American people (not the informal "Americans") when confronted with a thorny issue or a hostile question, Bush and his aides give the impression that the matter is some inside-the-Beltway intrigue that is out of step with public opinion.
"It's an effective shorthand," said Jeff Shesol, a former Clinton speechwriter who taught a course in presidential rhetoric at Princeton University this year. "It's suggesting that in fact you may have an argument but we've got the people." Shesol admits Clinton speechwriters used the phrase, too. "We're not proud of it, but the American people know our heart was in the right place," he said.
But how does a president know what the American people believe? Earlier this spring, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer hinted the source may be opinion polls. "The American people, as shown by all the data, powerfully, continually support the president at record-breaking levels," he said.
This from the president who said he would govern by "principle, not polls" and who mocked the Clinton administration for polling. Yet, according to the new issue of the American Prospect magazine, Federal Election Commission filings show that the Republican National Committee spent $236,000 on Bush's three pollsters in the first quarter, on pace to spend nearly $1 million this year. (The RNC says no more than $150,000 was relevant to the White House.)
"Polls do give you as accurate a reflection as you can get of what the public thinks," Fleischer allows. Besides, he adds, invoking the American people "beats the alternative, which is to say what the people of a foreign country believe."
As Bush deals with issues such as Enron and the terrorism warnings, the phrase has grown more popular. In a single briefing recently, Fleischer, spoke for the American people no fewer than seven times, including:
"The American people will be very leery of any politician who seeks to turn the sorrow of victims into their own political gain. . . . The American people know that this president is determined to protect this country. . .The American people know that this administration has a lot of meetings that take place at classified levels. . . .I think the American people have a general sense of the process the president uses to obtain the information he needs."
Even when asked about the propriety of the GOP selling a White House photo of Bush on Air Force One on Sept. 11, Fleischer invoked the same authority. "The American people recognize that that photo represented the president doing his job on behalf of the country," he said.
The American people may have noticed the phrase creeping into the vocabulary of top Bush aides. "The American people . . . understand there's a need for action, and they want Congress to put partisanship behind them," counselor Karen Hughes said. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham remarked that "the American people know that we are too dependent on foreign oil, and they know the most promising means of reducing that dependence is to open up ANWR," the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to drilling.
The fullest report by far on the state of the American people's thinking came when Bush, addressing a GOP luncheon in West Virginia, stipulated the following:
"The American people are incredibly patient and resolved."
"They know that we have succeeded in one phase of our war in Afghanistan."
"They also know that the stage we're now in, which is hunting down the cave dwellers, is going to take a while."
"They understand that this is a dangerous phase of the war."
"They also understand that we are not preoccupied by one or two people, that while bin Laden thinks he can hide in a cave or Mullah Omar thinks he can run, it's just a matter of time."
With such a harmonic convergence of views, it's no wonder, as Bush said that day, "that I stand in awe of the American people."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company |
