Eleanor Clift Says Bush is “Way Off Track,” Needs to Behave More Like Clinton

Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift has a new article out, and she once again doesn’t have anything good to say about President Bush. In fact, she now believes that his presidency is in such a state of disarray that Bush needs to “change direction, the way President Bill Clinton did after losing both the House and Senate in 1994.” Clift seems to forget that this change of direction didn’t help the Democrats win back the Congress in 1996, which put Clinton in a position where he was forced to accede to most of the Republican demands in 1997 which included tax cuts that he fought against for two years.

Regardless, in Clift's view:

“Something is deeply askew in the White House when the priorities are so off kilter. Unless events conspire to save President George W. Bush—Iraq turns around, the economy improves for average workers (not just oil execs), and the price of energy comes down—he is heading for a full meltdown, a scary prospect when you realize he’s president for three more years.”

I guess nobody at Newsweek has informed Clift that the economy as measured by the GDP has now grown by 3 percent or more for ten straight quarters (a feat that Clinton never achieved), that unemployment is currently at 5 percent, or that energy prices have been plummeting the past six weeks. In fact, wholesale gas prices are now at their lowest levels since before summer, and are basically now back to their highs for 2004. In addition, as winter is fast approaching, heating oil prices have also taken a dive to their lowest level since July.

But, as I digress, Clift concludes:

“Talking to Bush requires what diplomats call the ‘baloney sandwich approach.’ It works like this: Your spouse has run up the credit cards. Confronting her will provoke a fight. So you flatter her, tell her what a great wife and mother she is; then present this teeny little problem the two of you can work together to solve because you love her so much. Bush’s world has collapsed in on him. It’s time to try something new, even if it’s baloney.”