Bill Kristol says Fight Back Mr President

Bill Kristol has an interesting article in The Weekly Standard. He expresses similar thoughts I have about Bush refusing to fight for his administration. Kristol implores the president to defend himslf on these issues:

• To make and remake the case for war and defend against the ridiculous 'Bush lied' charge
• The slanderous charge by Reid and other Dems that Bush manufactured and manipulated intelligence leading up to war
• To remind the public that the Dems in '98 and '02 were making the same case against Saddam and WMD but are now trying to rewrite history
  

The difference between Kristol's column and my post is the underlying reason for Bush's current weakness. Kristol questions if Bush is facing reality, and blames most of the weakness on the lack of defense on the war, the failed social security reform and the Miers nomination.

My premise is that there is more strategy than failure involved. Bush's lack of fighting back is a huge gambit for a big '06 victory that centers around the behavior of the media. While Dems can ride for extended periods of time with high numbers (unless they shoot themselves in the foot), the media will not allow the GOP to do the same without a constant pressure to whittle their numbers down by minimizing the positive and maximizing the negative.

Rove and company are experts at the sudden momentum strategy, which seems to be the only thing that works against these media hitmen. The sudden spurt momentum cannot work for longer than 1 year and that is a stretch. Usually the maximum effective range is a 9 month cycle. The Bush admin is counting on the distractions of the holidays to get them to January.

Just get to January within the 9 month, where they will begin to unveil their strategy. Also, in this particular cycle, the Dems are congealing as a united front. That is good for the strategy coming. Those Dems running in '06 must be denied the strategy of "distancing" themselves from the main pack. By allowing a small season of perceived weakness, these Dems will be emboldened to join so far they will not be able to back out when the trap is sprung.