Bush's Megaphone Unable to Reach Above the Din
2006-10-05
Source: New York Times
email this
print this
del.icio.us
digg this
rss feedThrough disappointing polls and bad news in Iraq, intraparty squabbling over immigration and bipartisan broadsides on port security, President Bush has been able to use the megaphone of his office to shout above the din and shape the national debate.
But the Mark Foley scandal is rendering that megaphone practically useless, just as the president is trying to turn up the volume to help his party beat back Democratic efforts to take control of Congress this November.
During his three-day campaign swing out West this week, Mr. Bush's carefully honed attacks on Democrats as soft on terrorism have been drowned out by the Foley case and its political repercussions.
In interviews this week, White House officials expressed a sense of resignation, saying they were left with few options to help their party emerge intact from a scandal that appears to further threaten the Republicans' hold on Congress.
For now, they said, they have little choice but to sit on the sidelines, watch it play out and hope that the House Republican leadership, starting with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, finds an adroit way to extricate itself from the matter.
More than anything else, officials said, they are hemmed in by the unknown, girding for still more unwelcome developments in the Foley saga that could make any sort of full-throated defense or criticism of the House leadership now seem ill considered later. Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, resigned his House seat on Friday after being confronted by ABC News with sexually explicit text messages he had sent to teenage Congressional pages.
Click here to see the full article.
