President Bush was doing classic "John Kerry" waffling today first with Karl Rove and then with India. After saying he would get rid of member of the administration who leaked a CIA operative's name, he backed up a bit and changed that to "if they leaked someone's name 'illegally'".

OK... you knew it was coming. He's not going to put part of his own posse in the pen if he can help. He's loyal to his friends. The problem he's got though was there's a perception among many the administration is doing so first rate waffling.

Most sane people knew good and well he wasn't going to fire Karl Rove short of video evidence he went into Wal-Mart with .50 caliber machine gun and proceeded to mow down the entire store in a bloody mess. Even then, the trial would have to convict him first. It's just frustrating to see them not be open and forthright on the whole situation.

A recent article BusinessWeek's website called How CEOs Would Handle Rove provides some interesting insight. Toward the end of the article, there's a statement that's most appropriate, "Sometimes the perception of a cover-up can be as damaging as the facts at issue."

Right now, regardless of what Karl Rove did or didn't do, the perception is there that he did do something wrong and there's a reporter in jail who sure as hell thinks something wrong is happening. But, the person most adept to deal with this and do all the things to move the agenda in another direction remains Karl Rove.

I imagine one of my PR professors would have something to say about this if he could talk about it.

India

The other thing the administration did a 180 on was its India policy regarding nuclear power. President Bush said the U.S. would be more than happy to help our old buddies in India work out the kinks in a nuclear power plant. It seems odd on the surface, after all the hell we've been giving Iran for their nuclear power strategy but one, we know India has nukes. It's no secret. Two, it's a power thing, no really, it is. Another country besides China that drinks a lot of oil is India.

This might cut down their consumption fossil fuels, making Bush look like an environmental good guy, a little bit. India's environmental problems are absolutely horrendous. Their great river Ganges is incredibly polluted and since the river a part of their religion, a new power source like nuclear power might help begin to clean up some of the mess. It would also provide lots of power for a nation with a billion people, which brings me to my next point.

Good relations with the only nation on earth with nearly the same population as China. China increasingly challenges America's absolute dominance as the lone superpower in the world. While the U.S. and China are bound in many ways, there are many problems too. India will be an excellent foil to the China's growing dominance in the region.

That's all for the moment. Good evening.

posted by Stithmeister @ 9:05 PM
 
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