No Magic From the GOP Version of Penn and Teller

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/10/AR2008101002555_pf.html

By Dana Milbank
Saturday, October 11, 2008; A03




"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."


-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933




"We'll get through this deal."


-- George W. Bush, Oct. 9, 2008



President Bush peeked out the window of the Oval Office yesterday morning at the crowd awaiting him in the Rose Garden, then went back to pacing. He had little reason to be enthusiastic about the task at hand.

It was the 20th time in recent days that he had tried to calm the markets, according to a CBS News tally. The previous 19 times, the market ignored him and continued its downward plunge. And this time would be no different.

A few minutes before he walked into the Rose Garden to say that "the American people can be confident in our economic future," the Dow Jones industrials were trading as high as 8530. A few minutes after his speech, the index was at 8224.

His chore of reassuring the markets thus completed, Bush turned to more pleasant tasks. He hopped on Air Force One and flew down to Florida for the first of the day's two fundraisers. He had some urgent work to do on the Republican Party's liquidity crisis.

The country desperately needs strong leadership now, but there's none to be found at the White House. The president is voicing the right sentiments, even if his words (Thursday's "we'll get through this deal") are characteristically clumsy. He's even affecting the right demeanor, between concern and confidence. But nobody seems to care.

Maybe it's his approval rating, now trading at pennies on the dollar. Maybe it's because his credibility was shot by his administration's previous claims about Saddam's nukes and yellowcake and cakewalks and being greeted as liberators and mission accomplished. Either way, White House press secretary Dana Perino had some difficulty explaining the president's role as she briefed reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Florida.

"What's the communications strategy for the president on this crisis?" asked the Associated Press's Deb Riechmann. "I mean, we've heard from him almost every single day since the bailout was announced, yet every time he talks, the Dow goes down."

"That's not true, Deb," Perino replied, but she allowed that "the Dow has gone down every day for several days in a row."

"So you think it helps if he is talking about it all the time?"

"If he wasn't talking all the time, I can guarantee you the questions from the media would be to me, 'Why is the president not talking?' " the piqued Perino parried, adding that "it is important" that Americans "know that the leader of the free world has his full attention focused on helping solve this problem."

Except, of course, when he's raising $2 million for the GOP at the home of a Miami developer and on an island resort off South Carolina.

Even John McCain's presidential campaign manager was moved to remark on Bush's ineffectuality.

"There's very little a candidate for president -- and, after watching today, very little a president -- can say about what's happening in the stock market," Rick Davis told reporters after the president's Rose Garden statement, as a way to explain McCain's silence on the market plunge.

But maybe Bush isn't getting enough credit for his performance in the economic crisis. For years, his critics have scolded him for failing to come up with a global warming plan and an energy policy, but now he has achieved both. With the economy crashing, gas prices are down sharply on recession fears. And with industry collapsing, carbon emissions are bound to be lower.

The White House tried to add some frills to the bully pulpit for yesterday's attempt at market calming. They brought out the presidential lectern and placed it at an angle that would make the Oval Office the backdrop. The arranged planting boxes full of bronze mums framed the podium, and an aide scurried over to remove a clump that had fallen a few minutes before the speech.

Bush skipped the happy talk that has discredited so many of his war speeches and gave a frank assessment. "We have witnessed a startling drop in the stock market -- much of it driven by uncertainty and fear," he said. "This has been a deeply unsettling period for the American people."

His emotions seemed to swing with his words. He allowed himself a slight smile as he promised to "restore stability to our markets," and he shifted his feet as he warned that "anxiety can feed anxiety."

There were moments, of course, when Bush was being Bush. He accidentally said "we are exercising" the rescue plan before making that "executing," and White House stenographers saw fit to add a "sic" when he said the Treasury was doing many things "to help bank rebuild capital." He threw in the obligatory heck-of-a-job praise for his advisers ("we have an outstanding economic team carrying out this effort"), and the usual assertion that his views are unassailable ("it is the right plan").

But he avoided his tendency to sugarcoat. "Our system of credit has frozen," he said, and "key markets are not functioning." And he eschewed his bring-'em-on bravado as he pledged: "We know what the problems are, we have the tools we need to fix them, and we're working swiftly to do so."

The president turned to go, ignoring a reporter's question about whether the government could sustain its intervention in the markets. Only when Bush got to Coral Gables for his fundraiser did the market begin to trim its losses.