Transcript
MR. LINDSAY: I'm not interested in the tick-tock about what's happening in the Bush administration right now. What I think it's important to understand here is, really, sort of two things. One has to do with people's perception of who Bush is as president, where he fits in in all of this. And the second thing is the attitude of journalists covering this particular story. And I think—let me take the second one first.
What I think is everyone has been—and the journalists have been spoiling for the opportunity to write these kind of stories, because up until this point this has been an administration that's been very good about keeping all disagreements in-house. And I think what has happened right now is finally something that occurs in almost all administrations—infighting, back-biting—has, in this case, finally spilled out in public and so you're getting a great deal of commentary on it. Which is understandably so. And I think for many journalists—Steve and Karen— the impression is it's been a tougher administration to cover than normal because of it's ability to control its message, to keep its disputes in-house, and not let people sort of get a peek inside the control room and see the food fights that go on.
But I think the bigger issue is sort of where George Bush is in all of this. And I think that what runs through most of the coverage you get right now is that George Bush is, in some sense, a bystander to all these events. That's clearly the notion of let the president be the president, let Reagan be Reagan. And I think it gets back to sort of a broader issue of George Bush, and I'd sort of like to move the question back.
And that is, is this a man in charge of his own administration or not? And I think when it comes to foreign policy, the assumption is, the conventional wisdom is Bush is not in charge, that Bush has been—I mean, if you go back all the way to December of 1999, he was the candidate who flunked the foreign policy pop quiz. He didn't know enough to be president. I think, you know, the old saying is you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. That's been particularly true of Bush. And he's seen as somehow a prisoner of fighting among his subordinates.
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