The White House is scrambling to develop a strategy to salvage the President’s second term. According to the Washington Post, Bush and his advisors–some of whom could be serving their final days in that capacity–are looking to the Reagan and (gasp) the Clinton administrations for guidance.

The strategy? Confront and shift. Expect big speeches by Bush justifying the loss of 2,000 American lives in Iraq and a new-found interest in the economy. Is it just me, or does this sound less like a new plan and more business as usual?

The White House strategy will unfold over the next several days, starting with yesterday’s announcement of a new Federal Reserve Board chairman and continuing today with a presidential speech on Iraq at Bolling Air Force Base. Anticipating a barrage of criticism when the death toll hits 2,000, Bush will try to put the sacrifice in perspective by portraying the Iraq war as the best way to keep terrorists from striking the United States again, the official said. He will make the same case in another speech Friday in Norfolk.

Although Bush has made this case often, aides hope the public will be more receptive in the aftermath of the apparently successful referendum vote for a new Iraqi constitution, whose official results will be announced this week. The White House also sees the economy as one of the few parcels of safe political land these days. Bush plans to follow yesterday’s Federal Reserve appointment with a call for fiscal discipline at the Economic Club of Washington tomorrow.

Let me get this straight: as the country learns the details of Bush’s false justifications for war, and as spending continues to skyrocket after the hurricane season and the ongoing unjust war in Iraq, Bush is planning on a using Iraq and spending as his strengths?

Ken Mehlman predicts that Bush will have a successful second term once all these scandals pass: “One of the great strengths of this team has been from the beginning their ability to keep their eye on the big picture and long-term [goals], while also dealing with short-term challenges.” It’s going to be hard for this team to bounce back if the team is physically dismantled in the next few days.

Bush can look to the Reagan and Clinton administrations for guidance as much as he wants, but what he is really facing is the fact that his agenda, from the beginning, is simply wrong for the country. Before September 11th, this presidency was doomed to mediocrity and a single term. His dream team was not producing real results. From the beginning they have relied not on the strength of their ideas but on their ability to lie and skirt accountability.

This has been clear to progressives for years, but now Bush is losing his base:

Unlike Clinton or Reagan, who were sustained through second-term crises by support from their respective party bases, Bush for the moment faces the complication of a revolt among conservatives. Anger over the selection of Miers instead of a proven conservative has released pent-up aggravation on the right with other Bush initiatives, including high spending on Hurricane Katrina relief, expanding Medicare entitlements and easing immigration rules.

“Conservatives bit their tongues quite frankly for the last four years,” said Richard A. Viguerie, an architect of the conservative movement. “There’s a lot of things we’re unhappy with.” If Bush does not withdraw Miers, he said, it could “doom his second term” because “it’ll be very hard to govern without a conservative base.”

Not a pretty picture for the President.

~The Stuffed Tiger