Falling to its knees in record time, the press predicts the president will be a uniter this time -- really.
By Eric Boehlert
With a dead-even race that featured nearly endless possible Electoral College configurations, Election Day promised to bring a certain number of surprises. But perhaps none was as unexpected as the notion that President Bush, the most conservative and polarizing president of his generation, would come through the other side of the campaign as a moderate with a mandate. Yet in the days immediately following the historically close vote, that's how the political press corps often portrayed the president.
Newsweek seemed to be the most optimistic about the chances of a kinder, gentler second term, suggesting, "Bush could bring us together." The magazine's Web site posited, "With nothing left to prove, Bush's second-term presidency could be surprisingly centrist." Further, "there is every possibility that Bush's second term might prove to be different from his first, especially in foreign policy. And it won't be more radical."
That's certainly the image the White House was projecting last week. "I pledge to do my part to try to bridge the partisan divide. Today, I hope that we can begin the healing," Bush said in his victory speech. Helping the administration's cause, the New York Times on Monday left unquestioned the assertion by a Bush aide that the president's chief domestic goal is to "solve the problems of poverty, the inner city and education," as well as persuade the country that "there really is such a thing as a compassionate conservative." Internationally, "Bush is determined to prove that it is not naive or impossible to try to foster democracy in the Middle East," the Times added.
When not busy describing Bush as a would-be centrist, White House aides were anxious to claim a sweeping mandate from the close election. And as liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Media documented, it worked. USA Today headlined a Nov. 4 story "Clear Mandate Will Boost Bush's Authority, Reach," which said that Bush "will begin his second term with a clearer and more commanding mandate than he held for the first." (The first being when he lost the popular vote to Al Gore.) The Boston Globe asserted that Bush's victory grants him "a clear mandate to advance a conservative agenda over the next four years," while MSNBC's Chris Matthews insisted, "To me the big story is the president's mandate. The president has a mandate."
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http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/11/10/press_mandate/index.html
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