Talking Point on Bush's skills

[dsewell]

Today's piece in the New York Times on GWB's hands-on involvement in the campaign (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/politics/campaign/29elect.html) suggests a talking point that might be useful in approaching independents and moderate Republicans. It avoids the rhetorical tactic of portraying Bush as stupid and completely incompetent, which IMHO is a bad tactic anyway because (1) it's not true, and (2) it's unpersuasive except with people who already dislike Bush. Anyway, here's the kind of thing I plan to say:

You know, the problem is that there's basically one thing that GWB really enjoys and is really good at: campaigning. He loves working the crowds, he spends a lot of time on tactics, and he's got the best campaign strategist around working for him. If he had put the same amount of energy and skill into actually governing the country, surrounding himself with competent political and military advisers and listening to them, sorting out good advice from bad advice, we'd be a lot better off internationally and domestically. But the evidence is that he doesn't really enjoy the hard parts of being president, and it shows. He has spent more time on vacation than any other modern president, he has allowed more destructive infighting in his administration than any president since Nixon, and he has been such a poor manager of his human resources that he has allowed the talents of "out-of-favor" officials like Colin Powell to go absolutely to waste. When John Kerry said "America can do better," he was simply stating the truth, and I'll be voting for Kerry because based on the evidence of his thirty years in public life he will do a better job than GWB can.

(If you have a non-politically-correct audience, the following analogy might be appreciated: GWB is like the playboy who devotes all his wiles and charm to getting a woman into bed, but once she's there has no idea what to do with her.) (If you have a really non-politically-correct audience, you can substitute "can't get it up" for "has no idea..." in that last clause.)

[PDittie]

1. Good job, dsewell

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Interesting! I'll buy it.