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Bush takes a spill Like Riding a BicycleBy Rick Horowitz
Let's see now: He scraped his nose. He scraped his upper lip. One of his hands. Both of his knees. And of course, there was that enormous mess on his chin. Maybe he shouldn't have been making cracks about training wheels. It's time to "take off the training wheels," the president of these United States told congressional Republicans last week; he was talking about Iraq, and self-government. Two days later, the president of these same United States wiped out on his mountain bike. He was zipping around the ranch outside of Crawford, when all of a sudden, he wasn't zipping, he was ripping -- ripping off little bits of skin. From the looks of things, he must have hit the ground pretty hard. Luckily, he was wearing a helmet and a mouth guard, so his thinking and speaking functions (such as they are) were unimpaired. "You know this president," said one of his aides, desperately trying to spin gaffe into gold. "He likes to go all out. Suffice it to say he wasn't whistling show tunes." Of course not. Whistling show tunes is one of those liberal wimpy Democrat French things, isn't it? And the president's aides also made sure we knew that their boss was undeterred by his little mishap, that he picked himself up, got himself cleaned up, and finished his ride. You could even say he stayed the course. And by Monday evening, the president was standing in front of the cameras, looking almost as good as new, explaining the latest version of his Iraq policy. Nothing that a little makeup couldn't fix. His face, I mean. His Iraq policy is something else again. Putting a good face on that bucket of bumps and bruises is way beyond the talents of the White House paste-and-powder squad. But it was certainly interesting to watch them try -- interesting in a "My God, he still doesn't have a clue!" kind of way. General rule of presidential politics? It's a bad idea for an incumbent in trouble to fall off his bicycle -- even when he's not whistling show tunes. Just like it's a bad idea for an incumbent in trouble to throw up all over a Japanese prime minister. ("Hello, Dad?") Just like it's a bad idea for an incumbent in trouble to claim he was attacked by a killer rabbit in the middle of a pond. ("Jimmy Carter, call your office. Jimmy Carter, please...") It tends to make an incumbent look silly. Silly is not what an incumbent -- especially an incumbent in trouble -- wants to look. And don't forget the symbolism. There's nothing like a little symbolism to capture the moment, or even worse, to amplify the moment. The campaign bus stuck in the mud. The bone-chilling rain that dampens the rally. The lobster at the donor dinner. The symbol that locks in what we already sort of knew about the person, and about the person's precarious position. So symbolically-speaking-wise, isn't this whole episode close to perfect? Here you've got a president who's been widely accused of being a) arrogant, b) ignorant and c) stubborn -- not to mention d) breezily heedless of unintended consequences. So wouldn't you almost expect him, as head of that young pup America, prescribing the proper course of progress for the thousands-of-years-of-civilization Iraqis, to use a term as condescending as "training wheels"? (It's not quite up there with "crusade," but it'll do until something more grating comes along.) It's time to "take off the training wheels," the president says about Iraq, when the main thing keeping him upright since he took the oath of office has been the protective hand of a gaggle of senior advisers. (When they're not too busy gaggling at one another.) When even now, even after more than three years in office, the president still won't appear before a certain important investigative commission unless Dick Cheney is at his side. So I ask you: Doesn't the entire tush-over-teakettle picture just feel right? Not "right" reassuring -- "right" strangely accurate, passably pertinent. Here comes our president, barreling down the road on his mountain bike -- no training wheels for him! -- going all out, the way he likes to go. Going faster. Going faster. Posted 5/27/04. Don't
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Rick Horowitz
