Wanting Presidents To Fail

A little previously unreported history:

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

“We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him,” Greenberg admitted.

The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: “They don’t want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails.”

But see, it’s all right to want a president to fail as long as that president is George Bush, and not The Messiah.

5 thoughts on “Wanting Presidents To Fail”

  1. Actually, it’s not only OK, it’s healthy for the Republic for there to be a substantial opposition that wants the President to fail. What else keeps him on his toes? Pernicious and unfair as was the Democrat/MSM slime of GW Bush over Katrina, I wouldn’t remove the conditions that allowed it to happen. Fierce criticism — even unfair criticism — tones up the President, improves his focus, helps clear away ethical murk and deadwood.

    I mean, people have noted elsewhere that one reason Barry O may be having troubles in the White House is because he suffers from a lack of previous criticism. Everyone has just nodded their head and grinned you go you articulate black man you and his focus, his awareness of his own strengths and weaknesses, his appreciation for the limitations and methods of discourse with friends and enemies — in short his general middle-aged leadership abilities — are weak as a result.

    Decrying criticism of The Leader is fascism, plain and simple. The Left was never sincere in its deployment of the “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” line. They just knew that argument would sink in with the lovers of liberty to their right.

  2. I think there is bipartisan consensus that James Carville is a w*nker.

    Also, context is important – at 7:30 AM on September 11, 2001, the primary threat to the nation were shark attacks, rouge stem cells and Chandra Levy’s corpse. Obama’s context is global economic collapse.

  3. Duncan, you might want to ask the inhabitants of the Khobar Towers about that, or the crew of the USS Cole…

    …and Obama’s context at this point is a global economic collapse that he is doing everything possible to accelerate.

  4. at 7:30 AM on September 11, 2001, the primary threat to the nation were shark attacks, rouge stem cells and Chandra Levy’s corpse.

    Forgotten about the dot-com bubble, have we? I can understand that. The nation recovered very quickly from that earlier credit bubble, thanks to the moderate and sensible position taken by the President, which was to whack tax rates, keep spending stable, and thereby run a moderate deficit for a while.

    Pity his successor hasn’t learnd the lesson, huh? I mean, this is like the patient survived an earlier bout of diphtheria with only mild discomfort, because a modern physician diagnosed and treated him promptly and effectively, but now he’s at death’s door from a head cold because he went to a witch doctor instead, who bled him, then dosed him with arsenic and lead.

    Obama’s context is global economic collapse.

    Well, no not yet. But he’s working day and night on it. Frankly, the biggest danger to the Republic in March of ’09 would seem to be those brilliant theorists on Team Obama who seemd to have spent all their PhD years deconstructing texts and understanding multicultural issues, instead of (say) perusing the economic history of the 19th and 20th century.

  5. perusing the economic history of the 19th and 20th century.

    Actually, a major part of the problem is that their economic theories are derived from some guy who back in the 19th century spent far too much time in the British Museum sitting on his hemorrhoids.

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