To: JohnM who wrote (35759 ) 3/26/2007 11:22:28 AM From: JohnM Read Replies (1) | Respond to Here's the Kevin Drum piece I had in mind. It opens with a startling observation as to how isolated Bush is in Washington. By Bob Novak. Which is interesting in and of itself. Then Drum moves to the comment that interested me, from John DiIulio, an early appointee in the WH."Gonzales never has developed a base of support for himself up here," a House Republican leader told me. But this is less a Gonzales problem than a Bush problem. With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress -- not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.that this is just the governing style of George W. Bush and will not change while he is in the Oval Office. In eight months, I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis....On social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking -- discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue. washingtonmonthly.com
