Bush Out Of The Loop On Most Issues

From the conservative Insight Magazine:

President Bush has decided to stay out of the lion's share of decisions made by his administration.

Sources close to the administration said that over the last year, Mr. Bush has chosen to focus on two issues, leaving the rest to be decided by Cabinet members and senior aides. They said the issues are Iraq and the Republican congressional campaign in the 2006 elections.

"Lots of important issues that deal with national security are never brought to the president because he doesn't want to deal with them," a source familiar with the White House said. "In some cases, this has resulted in chaos."

The White House has acknowledged that Mr. Bush was not informed of the administration’s decision to approve a $6.85 billion takeover by the United Arab Emirates of a British firm that operates at least six major ports in the United States. The decision triggered a public firestorm and strong bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill. This prompted the Dubai-owned company last week to bail on its bid to operate terminals in U.S. ports.

It makes sense that Bush would focus only on Iraq and the Mid-Term elections because (1) he's staked his entire presidency on his Iraq policy, and (2) a loss of either the House or the Senate in November would give the Democrats subpoena power, which will probably end up meaning prison time for a lot of Bush Administration officials.

By the way, here are some great words from Senator Russ Feingold:

I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide. … Too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they’ll say we’d better just focus on domestic issues. … [Democrats shouldn’t] cower to the argument, that whatever you do, if you question the administration, you’re helping the terrorists.

He makes a great point. A CBS poll that will come out today has Bush's approval number at 34%, and most polls are now showing that the American people trust the Democrats more on national security issues than they trust Bush.

What the hell are the Democrats waiting for, a sign from God? The GOP is clearly gearing up for a big fight (via Political Wire):

There's a new Tim Russert in town making sport of grilling Republicans--and they like it! Getting ready for the 2006 midterm elections, the GOP has started media training of House and Senate members to help them navigate TV minefields. They've turned to Adam Levine, a former Bushie who prepped top aides like Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld for Sunday talk shows. "It's going to be a tough election year," says Levine, "and the goal is to get everybody TV ready." A former Democrat who worked in TV-- Hardball and The McLaughlin Group--before joining the Bush team, Levine is considered the best at his trade. "He's the go-to coach for Sunday show prep," says Dan Senor, the former U.S. spokesman in Iraq. "He's got the Tim Russert thing down," added a top GOP official. Democrats seem jealous--they want their own Levine.