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Times Watch for
April 28, 2004
Bush Lacks “Visionary” Agenda?
The headline read “Second Time Around, Bush is Forgoing a Visionary Agenda.” Stevenson focused on the lack of bold domestic proposals in the Bush re-election campaign, and noted the small bore of proposals suggested by the president in recent appearances before specialized audiences.
Stevenson gibed: “A White House that had gone to great lengths to distance itself from anything smacking of the previous administration found Mr. Bush's new focus on a ‘think small’ agenda suddenly being described with what for many Republicans is the most stinging possible adjective: Clintonesque.”
This may capture some rough resemblance in this year’s presidential trips across the country, but only if you exclude the political fact that Clinton never wanted to risk causing a single American military casualty after his Somalia debacle in 1993. How politically wise would Stevenson suggest the president was if he tried to bite off a chunk of very ambitious domestic policy in the middle of Iraqi reconstruction?
In the ninth paragraph, Stevenson finally located the obvious: “Mr. Bush hardly lacks for compelling and defining themes as he campaigns. He is, after all, a wartime commander in chief facing a treacherous battle in Iraq and the challenge of the broader fight against Islamic terrorists. And he is trying to portray himself as having shepherded the economy through a recession and other troubles into a tentative but strengthening recovery.”
For the complete Stevenson story, click here.
• Richard Stevenson | George W. Bush
Linda Greenhouse Wants a Smackdown
Greenhouse began by questioning the entire doctrine of executive privilege: “The Supreme Court argument about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy task force on Tuesday finally came down to this question: Is the presidency entitled to special treatment?”
Greenhouse did offer labels for the litigants – the liberal Sierra Club and the (formerly?) conservative gadfly Judicial Watch – and noted the case is “a politically charged election-year dispute over the Bush administration's efforts to avoid making public the names of energy industry officials whom it consulted when developing its energy policy in early 2001.”
But Greenhouse seemed to be rooting for a little less Supreme Court and a lot more “McLaughlin Group,” insisting: “While the argument was lively enough in its exploration of the niceties of civil procedure, it must have been a baffling letdown to any spectators drawn to the courtroom by the various controversies swirling around this case such as whether Justice Antonin Scalia's duck-hunting trip with Mr. Cheney should have required him to recuse himself or what role disgraced Enron executives might have had in shaping the panel's recommendations.” She later underlined: “The list of names of industry officials who consulted with the panel has the potential to embarrass an administration that has included a number of top officials with ties to the industry, including Mr. Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton.”
Unsurprisingly, despite some parallels – which were discussed in the courtroom yesterday – Greenhouse didn’t arrive at the words “Hillary Rodham Clinton” or the secrecy of her nationalized-health-care task force until paragraph 23.
For the complete Greenhouse story, click here.
• Linda Greenhouse | Dick Cheney | Antonin Scalia
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org