Matthew Dowd's not-so-miraculous conversion
Is the former Bush pollster a true believer turned disillusioned critic, or was he an opportunist from the get-go?
By Sidney Blumenthal
Apr. 05, 2007 | As he tells it, Matthew Dowd's conversion from true believer in George W. Bush to disenchanted critic is a chapter in a "Pilgrim's Progress" through the wilderness of this world. His long quest for agape, as related to a New York Times reporter, begins about a decade ago with Dowd in the Slough of Despond, "frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides," when suddenly a great-hearted figure appears who lights a candle in the darkness. "It's almost like you fall in love," Dowd professed. But his dream turns to dross and his faith into doubt. Bush is not the deliverer but the deceiver. "I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up. That it's not the same, it's not the person I thought." But Dowd is unsure whether Bush is a changed man or a captive. "He's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in."
Whether Bush has strayed or been led astray, the fellowship he promised is lost. Dowd does not offer to save Bush, but only claims to seek salvation himself. His trials and tribulations -- "one of Mr. Dowd's premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic," according to the Times -- have seared his soul. But these are elements of a story, in which the afflicted Dowd appears utterly passive -- not the full story.
He contemplates writing a public confession, an Op-Ed piece, that a man he has wronged, Sen. John Kerry, is virtuous. He would title his article of atonement "Kerry Was Right," but decides not to submit it. He considers joining the protesters in a march against the Iraq war, but once again cannot bring himself to put his foot forward. Yet the pilgrim continues on his upward path. "I'm a big believer that in part what we're called to do -- to me, by God; other people call it karma -- is to restore balance when things didn't turn out the way they should have." Following his inner map guides him away from world-weary vanity. "I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work," Dowd told the Times.
As the pollster who helped bring Bush to power and sustained him there, Dowd is expert in framing stories, and he has framed his own as a classic conversion narrative. But the political consultant cleanses his story of politics, so it is hardly surprising that there are gaps in the telling and characters missing. Dowd does not offer any explanation of why Bush has changed, only how he, Dowd, perceives the changes. Bush has become remote and untouchable, but he is not the hidden God, Deus Absconditus. Who has seduced Bush into his seclusion? Who has absconded with him? His Satanic Majesty, almost always present in conversion stories, is absent here. Dowd says nothing about Karl Rove, for to bring Rove into the narrative would alter it. Dowd attempts to blot out the politics with the personal, his soul-searching obscuring his poll taking. Yet he provided the diagrams for Rove's machinations, the bright signs for Rove's dark wonders.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/04/05/matthew_dowd/
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