Newsweek’s Evan Thomas is the grandson of ACLU-founder and American Socialist guru Norman Thomas. Norm gained early fame by denouncing an “immoral, senseless struggle among rival imperialisms.” That was World War I. Then he ran for President as a Socialist six times in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Kind of like a Lyndon LaRouche before it was kewl.

The spawn of the spawn, Evan, has this weak teamed up with Newsweek’s White House dude, Richard Wolffe, to pen Bush in the Bubble, a sloppy piece which borrows from this Seymour Hersh bit in The New Yorker.

The opening paragraphs of Bush in the Bubble inadvertently makes the case that Jack Murtha’s recent tirade was driven by Murtha’s ego; where Bush the elder and the scads of Presidents eagerly sought Murtha’s advice on military matters, this President ignored him. This galled the imperious Dem who enacted his revenge.

read on…

Yet 13 years later, when Murtha tried to write George W. Bush with some suggestions for fighting the Iraq war, the congressman’s letter was ignored by the White House (after waiting for seven months, Murtha received a polite kiss-off from a deputy under secretary of Defense).

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan noted that Murtha was “endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party.” While this was true, it was just a remark. Thomas and Wolffe portray it was a White House strategy gone awry:

When that approach backfired, President Bush called Murtha a “fine man … who served our country with honor.” The White House has made no attempt to reach out to Murtha since then.

When conducting a war is it wise to seek counsel of one you believe wants basically to surrender, or at least to abandon the battle?

They search through historical figures to find a parallel to the President, eliminating everyone from Churchill to Reagan as more apt to consult with their political adversaries and conclude that Bush is most like… oh, you know… Nixon.

Thomas writes of President Reagan’s willingness to reach out across partisan faults, to contrast him with President Bush: “Reagan even had House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill over for his birthday.” On Meet the Press last January, Thomas invidiously uttered: “Reagan would have been impeached but people thought he was senile.” What a dunderhead! (He also told Russert that “Nixon and Clinton, you know, were impeached.” Nixon was not.)

But this “Bush in a Bubble” story has been published before.

From ole Pulitzer Sy’s NYer piece:

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.

“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.”

From the Newsweek bit:

White House officials, as well as one of his closest friends (also speaking anonymously so as not to complicate relations with the president), say that Bush remains sure that he is on the proper course in Iraq and that ultimately he will be vindicated by history.

It’s “Bush in a Bubble.” Both Hersh and the Newsweek duo paint a picture of a President who locks himself into his own little dreamworld, admitting outside oxygen into his atmosphere only insofar as he digs the temperature. Hersh blames the President’s Christianity, but fortunately, Thomas stays secular in his harangue, perhaps still dodging the fallout from Jon Meacham’s singularly pedestrian scribble about the birth of Jesus Christ in Newsweek a few holiday seasons ago. (Of course, he should also be a little guild-ridden from his role in publishing Michael Isikoff’s false Koran-flushing tale, the on which sparked riots leading to the deaths of dozens of people. (It’s the old “Isikoff lied, people died” episode.)

Someone suggested that Thomas “wants Bush to grow in office.” (Remember, though, that Evan Thomas told Don Imus in March of 2004: “The media, I think, wants Kerry to win.”) Thomas writes in his latest piece: “[T]he record so far suggests that Bush is not likely to change in any fundamental way in the three years that remain in his term.” He might still hold out hope, though, that this President will see the light and raise taxes.

But for what reason did he publish this week’s tripe, aside from filling space with another recycled Bush hit piece?

It could well be that the entire endeavor was pointless. That Thomas (and Wolffe) – “With Holly Bailey, Daniel Klaidman, Eleanor Clift, Michael Hirsh and John Barry” – had no point. The article is a meaningless comparison of the President and past Presidents/historical figures intermingled with pabulum we’ve seen hanging around in the smoke for months.

But alas, I fear the article was an excuse to publish its concluding words:

True mandates for hard choices come from reaching out and compromising. Bush’s father understood that. Breaking his own “read my lips” promise at the 1988 Republican convention, he raised taxes in 1991 as part of a fiscal-reform package that was essential to the 1990s economic boom. The tax hike probably cost the senior Bush a second term in 1992. But it was the right thing to do. It’s very unlikely the son would do the same.

GET THAT ONE! To demean the current President, they are willing to credit the elder President Bush with the “Clinton Boom.” That really ought to miff those on the American left. In truth, Bush the elder’s vow-breaking tax hike was an act of political cowardice rather than bravery and it delayed a recovery which could have led to his reelection.

Then again, perhaps Evan Thomas learned his fiscal policy from grandpap.
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Asked by NBC News if he reads news magazines like Evan Thomas’s Newsweek, President Bush responded:

“I really don’t. I’m interested in the news, I’m not all that interested in the opinions.”

Note that he is not concerned with the opinions of MSM clowns like the spawn of the spawn.