MB Civic

By Howard Kurtz | Friday, May 12, 2006; 8:03 AM | The Washington PostSome conservative bloggers like to accuse liberals and mainstream media types of suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome.

I’m starting to wonder whether those on the right aren’t struggling with Bush Depression Syndrome.

Every day I read a new article, column or blog by a conservative who doesn’t just fear that the Republicans might lose the House this fall, but feels the GOP–the president and Congress–have brought it on themselves. That they have abandoned conservatism, stand for nothing, gotten too enamored of the perks of power, become part of the problem.

There is, in short, a sense of betrayal in much of what I read by those who, not all that long ago, were strongly defending the president.

Politically speaking, of course, Bush has had a rough year: Iraq, Social Security, Katrina, Miers, Abramoff, Dubai, gas prices and so on. He’s now at 31 percent in the polls. But it’s not impossible that things might improve, that the economy will continue to chug along, that a long-awaited corner might be turned in Iraq. More damaging in the larger sense, I think, is that many conservatives (according to the polls) and conservative thinkers (according to the daily commentary) seem to be withdrawing their support from the Bush administration.

Is there an antidote for Bush Depression Syndrome? Some sort of magical pill? If Karl Rove and the gang manage to make the Democrats and national security the issue and the GOP holds onto Congress, will that work like a heavy dose of Prozac, lifting the gloom in conservative hearts?

I quoted from Kate O’Beirne and Rich Lowry yesterday. In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan , who worked for Bush’s reelection, is the latest to accuse her party of letting its supporters down:

“Republicans inside and outside Washington are right when they say Republican leaders take a daily pounding in the press. They do. They’re right when they say this causes attrition. It does. They’re right when they say history handed the Republicans a unique challenge in 9/11 and after.

“But it’s also true that the administration and the Congress are losing their base, and it isn’t because of the media . . .

“If you are a normal person with the normal amount of political awareness, you might see it this way:

“The Republicans talk about cutting spending, but they increase it–a lot. They stand for making government smaller, but they keep making it bigger. They say they’re concerned about our borders, but they’re not securing them. And they seem to think we’re slobs for worrying. Republicans used to be sober and tough about foreign policy, but now they’re sort of romantic and full of emotionalism. They talk about cutting taxes, and they have, but the cuts are provisional, temporary. Beyond that, there’s something creepy about increasing spending so much and not paying the price right away but instead rolling it over and on to our kids, and their kids.

“So, the normal voter might think, maybe the Democrats. But Democrats are big spenders, Democrats are big government, Democrats will roll the cost onto our kids, and on foreign affairs they’re–what? Cynical? Confused? In a constant daily cringe about how their own base will portray them? All of the above.

“Where does such a voter go, and what does such a voter do? It is odd to live in the age of options, when everyone’s exhausted by choice, and feel your options for securing political progress are so limited. One party has beliefs it doesn’t act on. The other doesn’t seem to have beliefs, only impulses.”

Is Noonan fantasizing about a third party?

From the other side of the spectrum, Slate Editor Jake Weisberg offers a unified theory presidential failure:

“Bush is often charged with undermining federal workers by politicizing what are supposed to be objective and analytic functions. He has done this, among other places, at the CIA, the FDA, and NASA, where a 24-year-old college dropout was until recently in a position to order senior officials to make references to the Big Bang compatible with the possibility of ‘intelligent design.’ Politics per se, however, is not the enemy of effective public-sector management. Those presidents who have run the federal government most effectively–I would cite FDR, JFK, and Clinton–have balanced their policy wonks with capable hacks while cultivating youthful idealism and more positive feelings about public service.”

Just a coincidence, I’m sure, that those are all Democrats.

“Politics, more than money, is what creates accountability and motivates performance in the executive branch. But for the government to work, the hacks have to be fundamentally competent. Former FEMA Director James Lee Witt was a Clinton buddy from Arkansas, just as Michael Brown was a Bush crony. But unlike Heckuvajob Brownie, Witt knew how to run the agency in a way that would make his boss look good to voters.

“Bush’s stated management model–appointing good people, delegating authority to them, and holding them accountable for results–reflects some common-sense notions he picked up at Harvard Business School. His actual management practice, however, has not followed that model. In practice, Bush tends to appoint mediocre people he trusts to be loyal, delegates hardly any decision-making power to anyone beyond a few top aides, and seldom holds anyone accountable. These failures are related. If you don’t give people real authority, you can’t reasonably hold them responsible for what follows. What has grown up around the president as a result is not an effective political machine, but a stultifying imperial court, a hackocracy dominated by sycophants, cronies, and yes men.

“Under Bush’s actual management system, decision-making is concentrated in the White House political office, with Cabinet secretaries and the heads of agencies functioning as figureheads and mouthpieces. That this disempowers and often humiliates nominally top officials has not been lost on potential recruits, which is why Bush has so far been unable to persuade a top Wall Street executive to replace John Snow as treasury secretary.”

Yesterday’s USA Today scoop is basically the lead story everywhere in America.

“Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike demanded answers from the Bush administration on Thursday about a report that the National Security Agency has collected records of millions of domestic phone calls, even as President Bush assured Americans that their privacy is ‘fiercely protected,'” says the New York Times .

“The president sought to defuse a tempest on Capitol Hill over an article in USA Today reporting that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have turned over tens of millions of customer phone records to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But Mr. Bush’s remarks appeared to do little to mollify members of Congress, as several leading lawmakers said they wanted to hear directly from administration officials and telecommunication executives.”

“Revelations that the government collected the phone-call records of millions of Americans drew calls yesterday for a congressional investigation and fueled questions about President Bush’s choice for CIA director,” says the Philadelphia Inquirer .

“The Bush administration Thursday reacted defensively to news that the secretive National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping, had obtained millions of domestic phone records in an effect to detect terrorist activity in the U.S since the Sept.11 attacks,” says the Chicago Tribune .

“A fierce debate erupted Thursday over the legality and appropriateness of a massive secret database built by the National Security Agency that contains the phone records of tens of millions of Americans,” says USA Today .

“At the White House, President Bush said the administration acted within the law and “fiercely protected” Americans’ privacy while doing everything possible to prevent terrorist attacks. ‘Al-Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans,’ he said. ‘We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans.’ He didn’t address specifics of the program and walked away without responding to reporters’ questions.

“On Capitol Hill, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy expressed outrage. ‘Are you telling me tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?’ said Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. ‘These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything.'”

Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House blames those who slipped a reporter the information:

“There are apparently no limits to which the cadre of leakers who are working in our intelligence agencies will go to undermine legitimate national security interests in furtherance of their own, private agendas. The revelations in USA Today about the massive collection of telephone numbers by the NSA – not eavesdropping on calls, not gathering people’s names or addresses — was leaked solely to discredit General Michael Hayden and derail his nomination for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Well, maybe. But how does he know the motivation of sources whose identity we don’t know?

AJ Strata wants the press punished:

“Here is why this reporting is dangerous. Of course the leftwing nuts want to point out the brave groups ‘speaking to power’, so they alert the terrorists to shift all their communications over to Qwest because Qwest is not partnering with the NSA to help find potential 9-11 terrorists here in the country:

“Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants. Qwest’s refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest.

“USA Today just tipped off the terrorist how to avoid detection and put the people in Qwest’s areas in danger because now it is known those areas have the least protection and should be targeted! What are these people THINKING! Someone needs to go to jail.”

Matt Stoller at MyDD directs his anger elsewhere–at the phone companies:

“This is a disgrace. An absolute disgrace. Shame on ATT. Shame on Verizon. I’m glad I use Sprint and don’t have a landline. And if I were a mayor or a Governor, I would try to move contracts away from these companies and towards Qwest or other telco players. At the very least I’d make local subsidies contingent upon not spying on my constituents.”

Not another new poll claiming that Bush has hit a “new low.” But actually, it is a new low. Harris has the president at 29 percent.

Jeff Jarvis undergoes media culture shock upon returning from London:

“After a week and a half of reading British papers, something has been bugging about reading American papers again. This morning, it hit me when I read this sentence in a New York Times story about the jury instructions in the Enron case, allowing jurors to find Lay and Skilling guilty of ‘deliberate ignorance.’ There followed a discussion about Skilling not employing the ostrich defense and then The Times felt compelled to add this:

“By allowing the so-called ostrich instruction, referring to that bird’s burying of its head in the sand . . .

“They treat us like idiots, that’s what bugs me. That is the perch American journalism has built for itself and they have no idea how much it irritates the public to be treated as if we don’t know a damned thing and thus we need them to explain everything to us.”

Finally, Andrew Sullivan writes about sex:

“Google has a new feature called Google Trends . It tracks the number of searches for various topics online, and also gives you some regional analysis of where those searches are taking place. A reader clued me in. And here’s a somewhat revealing discovery. Who’s looking for ‘sex’ the most? The countries with the most searches for that word is – surprise! – Pakistan, followed by Egypt, Iran, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Hmmm. It couldn’t have anything to do with all that Muslim repression, could it? Arabic is the most popular language for ‘sex’ searches. Islamism, like Christianism, doesn’t conquer sex; it just fetishizes it and forces it underground. The most sex-obsessed Christian country? Poland. Congrats to the Vatican . . .

“Of course, I do realize I just ruined productivity today in a few offices across America.”

Not that my readers would rush off to check out such a . . . hey, where’d everybody go?