March 8, 2004 - About three weeks ago President Bush patiently participated in the two to three hour shooting session that it took to wrap up his sixty second spot designed to kick off his advertising blitz; the most expensive ad buy in Presidential history. The President was describes as “remarkably acquiescent” in the process. An unnamed White House official is quoted as saying that Bush “has an unbelievable level of patience for these things, and you wouldn’t expect him to.”

At the same time he told the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission that he would agree to meet only one hour with the chairman and vice-chairman of the commission and answer only limited questions posed. His level of patience with an inquiry into the horrendous event that has become the central theme of both his four years as President and his campaign to retain power for another term is clearly limited. That is understandable in that he will be walking a tight-rope between avoiding anything but vague and insubstantial answers while projecting an image of cooperation with the Commission. Uncovering the errors of judgment of two Administrations that permitted the tragedy to occur is not a priority with this President.

Waving a bloody flag – using images of flag-draped coffins from the rubble of the World Trade Center in his advertising campaign – is a Presidential priority. This President has been extraordinarily protective of the families of the men and women killed in the Second Iraqi War and the ensuing occupation. He has diverted any suggestion that he should honor their sacrifice by attending the return of their flag-draped coffins as an invasion of the families’ privacy. He has protected them by banning any media coverage at Dover. But in this case the Presidential priority has overridden the privacy and sensibilities of the 9/11 victims' families.

With an unfinished war in Afghanistan, an unfinished war in Iraq, an unfinished manhunt in the mountains of Pakistan, and two developing civil wars our own hemisphere to occupy his energies the President is described by his staff as consumed by the campaign. He has poured over Senator Kerry’s voting record and it is said that he knows it cold. We are told that there will be no major decision of the re-election campaign that is not made by the President personally. That is the Presidential priority as the challenges to America mount daily.

Whether the news is of deaths in Baghdad or Port-Au-Prince; of another monthly decline in private sector employment with more lay-offs and off-shoring of jobs; or his declining political fortunes; the President has become his own spin-meister trying to adjust the public’s perception of events to fit his Reaganesque “feel good” advertising campaign. That is where the Presidential priority is and that is where it will remain through November as he focuses on his image and the public’s perception and ignores the substance of events.