Bush at the U.N.: Platitudes at the podium

By Michael J.W. Stickings

President Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly. And it was -- drum roll, please -- the same old same old same old. As Steve Benen puts it, "[f]or 20 minutes, the president said exactly what he was expected to say". You know, 9/11, campaign of murder, extremist ideology, great ideological struggle, nuclear weapons, terror as a weapon. And that's just one paragraph. He went on to mention a world beyond terror, freedom and justice, the forces of freedom and moderation, democratic changes. As well as to address directly the people of Iraq, the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran, the people of Syria, and the people of Darfur. All of which sounds good, and reads well, but, given reality, Bush's words, his exhortations to peace, are little more than, if nothing else than, platitudes, the same ones we've come to know so well. We don't have to read this president's lips. We already know what he's going to say.

This address, Steve reminds us, comes at the end of a 19-day White House p.r. campaign -- an "offensive" designed, whatever the spin, to boost Bush's popularity and the Republicans' electoral fortunes:

And what have we learned in these 19 days? First, we learned that the news networks will give Bush all the airtime he wants, whether he has anything new to say or not. Second, we learned the Bush doesn't, in fact, have anything new to say. Third, we learned the president's team is under the impression that simply repeating the same talking points, and using the same arguments as part of the same election strategy, is enough to help tip the scales a little in the GOP's favor.

And fourth, that they may actually be right.

That fourth consideration leads to a USA Today report that Bush's approval rating has increased to 44 percent, "his highest rating in a year". Steve Soto explains:

Bush is focusing on his Daddy Protector image because it's the only selling point he left with anyone, especially the cultists. Bashing the media and Democrats for being against him is Bush’s way to drive up his numbers with the base and get those approval ratings to a safe enough number so that the wingers don’t stay home on Election Day. The president commands all the news cycles, and Democrats lack a single voice of opposition that can get an alternate message into the same news cycle. Neither Harry Reid nor Nancy Pelosi are suited to that task, yet it is critical that both of them designate one member from each house to rebut everything Bush says every day and get the opposing view into the same cycle...

The only way for Democrats to maintain the momentum necessary to take back the Congress is to battle Bush for every news cycle between now and the election, and get the alternate message out there every day so that Bush cannot spin his message without rebuttal. Democrats need to focus the media back towards terrain more favorable to them, because the media will not do it themselves.

Quite so. It is incumbent upon all of us, including those of us in the blogosphere, to stay focused, to keep this election campaign focused on national politics, on issues like Iraq and Katrina, on Bush and the Republican Congress. Each one of us, large or small, can make a difference -- a difference that truly matters come November.

(See also Taylor Marsh and The Heretik.)