Neville Chamberlain: when you really screw up, even the best press secretary can’t save you

When Scott McClellan retired as Bush’s Press Secretary, I speculated that he had to go because he’d lost his credibility. Oliver Willis implies that it had more to do with simple desperation. After reading his take, I’m inclined to agree that Team Bush was simply looking for something, ANYTHING, that might reverse the President’s downward slide.

Something besides amending their policies, I mean.

Willis points out that McClellan is being scapegoated to some extent for the president’s low approval numbers, when in fact the problem is that the president’s policies have failed. Willis compiles an impressive list of policy failures, to which I would add a few items:

1. Massive corruption. Not just Jack Abramoff, but also long-term no-bid contracts, ties to Enron, and payola for reporters.
2. An expensive, confusing prescription drug plan that still leaves many seniors with high costs.
3. Unbridled arrogance.
4. A gigantic budget deficit.
5. Blatant dishonesty on several issues.
6. Wiretapping Americans without a warrant.
7. Alienating a large chunk of his most ardent supporters with his positions on immigration and homeland security.

Dishonesty and arrogance aren’t policy failures, but they do make people look at your record with a more jaundiced eye.
Note also that Bush’s immigration position isn’t a policy failure, and neither was his position on the Dubai port deal. However, those whom he alienated probably look at his other positions with a good deal more skepticism. And the port deal put his entire homeland security policy in the spotlight, leading many to question why he hasn’t devoted more resources to cargo inspection, protection of chemical and nuclear plants, airport security, etc.
Most of Willis’ items had more effect on Bush’s popularity, and the most recent failures have had the most obvious effects. But I think that the effects are cumulative. Some policy failures, like the yawning budget deficit, didn’t hurt Bush too much early on. But they took on new significance when people could no longer say, “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

The 1996 and 2004 elections showed that presidents can survive quite a few setbacks and mistakes in the right political climate. And if Bush’s record of failure were only half as long as it is, he would certainly be right in laying a good portion of the blame for his poll numbers on Scott McClellan. But given Bush’s record, it’s hard to see how having a better spinmeister would have made much of a difference.

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