Bush still limiting entry to events to those who already agree with him...

I complained about this during the campaign, and my Republican friends kept insisting that the President of the United States has the right to limit campaign events to whomever he wishes.

Fine.

What about now?

From Dan Froomkin's column in the Washington Post:

Should Tax Dollars Fund Bush's Bubble?

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, February 8, 2005; 11:39 AM


A controversial president barnstorms through the country attending carefully controlled events where tickets are distributed by his own party, where no one disagrees with a word he says and no one puts him on the spot.

When this happened in the heat of the political season, the events and at least part of the president's travel costs were being paid for by his campaign. But now it's a post-election president spending tax dollars and ostensibly acting in the public interest.

Some of my readers think it's not appropriate.

"The president's dialogue with America on Social Security should be just that -- a dialogue, not a series of campaign events controlled by the local GOP bosses," writes John Deem of Huntersville, N.C.

"Obviously, these 'town hall' meetings, packed with W's most vocal supporters, and no dissenters allowed, are purely works of propaganda. Why is the American taxpayer paying for these 'town hall' meetings?" asks Tom Deaton.

President Bush developed the habit during the fall campaign of riding Air Force One from one protective bubble to another. That may not be everyone's idea of how to earn people's support, yet it's hard to argue with success.

But now the White House would appear to have established these bubble trips as standard operating procedure whenever the president wants to make his case to the American people.

One good test of whether this is appropriate might be to compare what Bush is doing with what other presidents have done when they decided to take their message on the road.

The Clinton Comparison


I'm no presidential historian -- and I welcome those of you who are to chip in with an e-mail -- but I do remember a bit about the last guy. And Bush himself invited comparison with President Clinton in his Jan. 26 press conference.

"I look forward to . . . traveling around the country discussing this issue -- similar to what President Clinton did," Bush said. "President Clinton highlighted the issue as an issue that needed to be addressed, and an issue that needed to be solved. He fully recognized, like I recognize, that it's going to require cooperation in the House and the Senate."

But Bush's approach couldn't be much more different than Clinton's. When Bush has one of his "conversations" on Social Security, it's with people prescreened to agree with him and he asks the rehearsed and leading questions. When Clinton had his "discussions" on Social Security, he intentionally brought opponents along with him, spoke before a mixed crowd, and let himself get grilled.

For instance, here's the transcript of an April 7, 1998 appearance by Clinton in Kansas City. He invited Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), among others, to join him.

And while the audience was laboriously prescreened, that was so that it would not be one-sided. Members were selected by a market research company to reflect the demographic and economic characteristics of the region.

By comparison, skim through the transcripts from Bush's two-day five-stop trip last week to Fargo, Great Falls, Mo., Omaha, Little Rock and Tampa.

Bush stays in the bubble because his aides figure that, just like during the campaign, events like these are an effective way of getting his message out without any downside risk. They work, they make nice sound bites and headlines, and nobody complains, at least not much.

As for the president himself, last fall's debates with Sen. John F. Kerry indicated that he doesn't much like it when people disagree with him. And one reason Bush is avoiding tough questions could be that he hasn't quite figured out how to answer them.

Consider this exchange at Friday's Tampa event, where a woman (whose question was somehow not transcribed by the White House) asked how the private accounts would fix "the red problem." She was referring to Bush's snazzy charts illustrating what he said was Social Security's "red ink."

Here's Bush's response, in its entirety:

"Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

"Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

"Okay, better? I'll keep working on it."

Keep in mind this is not an isolated event:

Run-out has become a runaround - The Denver Post

Letter from on of the Denver 3 posted on Daily Kos.

There are lots more...

Can anyone reasonably justify this practice???

-The Oklahoma Hippy