Evan Thomas: back in a taxable bubble
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Elections — Comments (20) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
“It's 'Bush in a Bubble.' Both Hersh and the Newsweek duo paint a picture of a
President who locks himself into his own little dreamworld.”
Newsweek's Evan Thomas is the grandson of ACLU-founder and American Socialist guru Norman Thomas. Norm gained early fame by denouncing an "immoral, senseless struggle among rival imperialisms." That was World War I. Then he ran for President as a Socialist six times in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Kind of like a Lyndon LaRouche before it was kewl.
The spawn of the spawn, Evan, has this weak teamed up with Newsweek's White House dude, Richard Wolffe, to pen Bush in the Bubble, a sloppy piece which borrows from this Seymour Hersh bit in The New Yorker.
read on...
The opening paragraphs of Bush in the Bubble inadvertently makes the case that Jack Murtha's recent tirade was driven by Murtha's ego; where Bush the elder and the scads of Presidents eagerly sought Murtha's advice on military matters, this President ignored him. This galled the imperious Dem who enacted his revenge.
Yet 13 years later, when Murtha tried to write George W. Bush with some suggestions for fighting the Iraq war, the congressman's letter was ignored by the White House (after waiting for seven months, Murtha received a polite kiss-off from a deputy under secretary of Defense).
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan noted that Murtha was "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party." While this was true, it was just a remark. Thomas and Wolffe portray it was a White House strategy gone awry:
When that approach backfired, President Bush called Murtha a "fine man ... who served our country with honor." The White House has made no attempt to reach out to Murtha since then.
When conducting a war is it wise to seek counsel of one you believe wants basically to surrender, or at least to abandon the battle?
They search through historical figures to find a parallel to the President, eliminating everyone from Churchill to Reagan as more apt to consult with their political adversaries and conclude that Bush is most like… oh, you know… Nixon.
Thomas writes of President Reagan's willingness to reach out across partisan faults, to contrast him with President Bush: "Reagan even had House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill over for his birthday." On Meet the Press last January, Thomas invidiously uttered: "Reagan would have been impeached but people thought he was senile." What a dunderhead! (He also told Russert that "Nixon and Clinton, you know, were impeached." Nixon was not.)
But this "Bush in a Bubble" story has been published before.
From ole Pulitzer Sy's NYer piece:
The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.
“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.”
From the Newsweek bit:
White House officials, as well as one of his closest friends (also speaking anonymously so as not to complicate relations with the president), say that Bush remains sure that he is on the proper course in Iraq and that ultimately he will be vindicated by history.
It's "Bush in a Bubble." Both Hersh and the Newsweek duo paint a picture of a President who locks himself into his own little dreamworld, admitting outside oxygen into his atmosphere only insofar as he digs the temperature. Hersh blames the President's Christianity, but fortunately, Thomas stays secular in his harangue, perhaps still dodging the fallout from Jon Meacham's singularly pedestrian scribble about the birth of Jesus Christ in Newsweek a few holiday seasons ago. (Of course, he should also be a little guild-ridden from his role in publishing Michael Isikoff's false Koran-flushing tale, the on which sparked riots leading to the deaths of dozens of people. (It's the old "Isikoff lied, people died" episode.)
Someone suggested that Thomas "wants Bush to grow in office." (Remember, though, that Evan Thomas told Don Imus in March of 2004: "The media, I think, wants Kerry to win.") Thomas writes in his latest piece: "[T]he record so far suggests that Bush is not likely to change in any fundamental way in the three years that remain in his term." He might still hold out hope, though, that this President will see the light and raise taxes.
But for what reason did he publish this week's tripe, aside from filling space with another recycled Bush hit piece?
It could well be that the entire endeavor was pointless. That Thomas (and Wolffe) – "With Holly Bailey, Daniel Klaidman, Eleanor Clift, Michael Hirsh and John Barry" – had no point. The article is a meaningless comparison of the President and past Presidents/historical figures intermingled with pabulum we've seen hanging around in the smoke for months.
But alas, I fear the article was an excuse to publish its concluding words:
True mandates for hard choices come from reaching out and compromising. Bush's father understood that. Breaking his own "read my lips" promise at the 1988 Republican convention, he raised taxes in 1991 as part of a fiscal-reform package that was essential to the 1990s economic boom. The tax hike probably cost the senior Bush a second term in 1992. But it was the right thing to do. It's very unlikely the son would do the same.
GET THAT ONE! To demean the current President, they are willing to credit the elder President Bush with the "Clinton Boom." That really ought to miff those on the American left. In truth, Bush the elder's vow-breaking tax hike was an act of political cowardice rather than bravery and it delayed a recovery which could have led to his reelection.
Then again, perhaps Evan Thomas learned his fiscal policy from grandpap.
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My father was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, and Bush hasn't written me to ask about Iraq yet. Imagine!
I am sure that if Bush had bothered to question every veteran in America he would have had plenty of answers to the questions he faces now.... a lot of answers, different answers, but Murtha's are important because the press agrees with his.
I have one of those and he didn't ask me about my thoughts either :(
How about the Clinton-Gingrich spat that the media blamed on Gingrich not getting a good seat on Air Force One? How come nobody then said Clinton was being too insulated from or high-handed with Congress? A picture of a bawling Murtha in a diaper on the front page of the paper would do wonders ...
Bush has reached across the aisle -- far more than would please most conservatives -- and he's basically gotten his hand chopped off every time...
Did anyone even know who Rep Murtha was before he became the useful idiot flavor of the week?
Did anyone care?
""Reagan even had House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill over for his birthday.""
Gee, I thought W. had old Teddy over for movies at the White House soon after the inaugural in 2001. For all the good it did. This latest chapter in the Thomas spin writing saga only confirms my good decision years ago to never again pick up a copy of Newsweak.
Despite his politics. He seems astute enough on the chat shows, not rabidly partisan, and he likes John Paul Jones.
But the news magazines are silly, slanted and stupid; I haven't read an American one outside the laundry room in two years.
P.S. As far as slurring Evan via his grandfather, "(No) Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood." So there.
A couple quotes on AFP taken from an NBC News interview:
"I feel like I'm getting some really good advice from very capable people and that people from all walks of life inform me and inform those who advise me," he said. "I feel very comfortable that I'm very aware of what's going on."
Followed by a fabulous dig:
Asked whether he read weekly news magazines, Bush replied: "I really don't."
"I'm interested in the news, I'm not all that interested in the opinions," said the president.
Take that, Evan Thomas!
What is the excuse for lefties who have been trying to relive the 1960's for the last thirty years while the world has passed them by?
Asked whether he read weekly news magazines, Bush replied: "I really don't."
"I'm interested in the news, I'm not all that interested in the opinions," said the president.
When you are President of the United States, you don't have to spend too much time in waiting rooms. That's about the only time anybody reads one of those magazines.
for not reaching out[ whatever the hell that means ] to Murtha but Murtha is not wrong for failing to reach out to the President. Reagan was dunb and detached and Bush lives in a bubble, where does that put the psychotic Bill Clinton? Where does it put Thomas's judgement? This kind of egomanical seclusion comes from living a lifetime of asking questions but not having to answer them, and if you're wrong it doesn't count, and a lifetime of second guessing people. A cheap and poor man's wisdom.
In a coordinated effort that includes our good Republican friend Grover Norquist and the Chamber of Commerce the administration is resisting legislation that would require businesses verify all workers are United States Citizens and would increase penalties for businesses that hire illegals.
Norquist position: such a requirement puts too much pressure on businesses.
I'm confident no such law will pass under this current administration.
It's already a law that they have to do that. Anyone who has started a job in the last 5 years has had to fill out an I-9 and produce docs.
Rush quoted this article on his show today!
this message to return you to the real world :-)
...since the entire substance of Evan Thomas' assertion was taken from unnamed sources "inside the administration", third party innuendo, and Democrat talking points? The only administration official who was sourced at all was Andy Card, and that was to cite him for being blind to Murtha's attack from the left.
Is this what journalism is today? Put a characacure of the President in a bubble on the cover of a major magazine. Then support the article's main contention with irrational and vain leftists like Murtha, and real or fabricated narsacistic sources from inside the administration who don't have the political courage to go on the record.
I'm all for the First Ammendment citing "freedom of the press," but what about when the press abuses that freedom in a time of war?
The President said in today's interview with Brit Hume that of all the past presidents, he reads and thinks about Abraham Lincoln the most. Maybe he should study how Lincoln reacted to the seditious press during the Civil War.
Unlike the 1860's, I'm sure that we have some 21st century warships that Evan Thomas would find quite cozy until the end of the War On Terror.
How about confining him to the USS Ronald Reagan? Wouldn't that be poetic justice?
as an obvious shill even though he was an eyewitness to the lead up to both wars. The real bubble is the 90% for McGovern and Kerry colleagues of Thomas that talk to each other and ONLY to each other, or to disgruntled officials whose brilliance Bush failed to acknowledge.
...that can't understand why Bush was elected in the first place, because they don't know anyone who voted for him.
As for Woodward, they're throwing everything at him now, from "he's the President's patsy" to "he doesn't have to work" to "he gives positive spin in exchange for access."
My, my, my. It's taken them 30 years to forget that Woodward essentially gave the press the power equivalence of the fourth branch of the government, but they've forgotten nonetheless.
about Murtha's motives. How DARE Bush ignore a self-important "senior" House Representative.
If Pelosi and Reid (and the other Dem usual suspects) didn't rush before the cameras in opposition to everything Bush says, the Dems might get consulted more. I don't think Bush has much patience for dealing with whiners and naysayers.
Dems need to either lead, or get out of the way.