Yet another indication that George W. Bush will not soon be rehabilitated by the American public. Not only are opinion polls indicating that a solid majority of the nation opposes George W. Bush's politics and policies, but now one of Bush's chief campaign aides is in the New York Times publicly denouncing Bush. Criticism from such a source was unimaginable two, three, or four years ago. Now it is one of many voices in a growing chorus. More on the specifics, and a point to take away for the 2008 campaign and who may be the most electable Democrat, after the jump.
Matthew Dowd worked on Bush's 2000 campaign and was chief strategist for the 2004 campaign. He helped label John Kerry as a flip-flopper and now he is flipping himself.
He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a "my way or the highway" mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.
Dowd, whose son is currently in the military, sounds as if he has real regrets over his role in the 2004 campaign. It seems if that election was held today Dowd would vote for the opponent of his employer.
Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled "Kerry Was Right," arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.
"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," Mr. Dowd said. "Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election."
His descriptions of disillusionment mirror those of many who voted for Bush that year. The criticism coming from a onetime true believer who was instrumental in keeping Bush in office is damning and indicates how much support Bush has lost among his onetime supporters.
He was dumbfounded when Mr. Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Several associates said Mr. Dowd chafed under Mr. Rove’s leadership. Mr. Dowd said he had not spoken to Mr. Rove in months but would not discuss their relationship in detail.
Mr. Dowd said, in retrospect, he was in denial.
"When you fall in love like that," he said, "and then you notice some things that don’t exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say ‘No no, no, it’ll be different.’ "
He said he clung to the hope that Mr. Bush would get back to his Texas style of governing if he won. But he saw no change after the 2004 victory.
Unlike David Broder, who thought Bush's handling of Katrina restored the public's faith in him, Dowd was further disgusted by the heckuva job Bush's team did during that disaster.
He describes the administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, and the president’s refusal in the summer of 2005 to meet with the war protester Cindy Sheehan, whose son died fighting in Iraq, around the same time that Mr. Bush entertained the bicyclist Lance Armstrong at his Crawford ranch as further cause for doubt.
"I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up," he said. "That it’s not the same, it’s not the person I thought."
It was not only mismanagement that Dowd found troubling but the extreme partisanship of the way the Iraq war has been waged, the Bolton nomination, and the general myopia of the administration to outside voices. This is hardly news to anyone who reads this site for anything other than opposition research, but to have one of the main architects of the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign publicly sum up Bush's many failures is an indication that the migration of the rats off the sinking ship is approaching diaspora level.
Dowd laments Bush's inability to work with Democrats and argues elections should not be about getting the 51% of the voters to keep you in office but getting a broad mandate to govern all of the nation by speaking to all of the nation. Which is where his position in 2008 is interesting. He is not supporting McCain. Nor Rudy. Nor Mitt, nor Newt, nor Tancredo.
The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity.
Perhaps Dowd will start a "Bushies for Barack" group. In any event, it will be interesting to see how the administration handles the criticism of one of its own. There are nice quotes from Dan Bartlett in the article, but if the numerous examples of Bush dealing with dissent are an indicator of future performance, expect to see Dowd slimed repeatedly for this.