Matthew Dowd: Finally Traveling at the Speed of Obvious

It may be that a week of sunshine and sloth have lulled my brain into a Vitamin D and tequila-drenched stupor, but my initial response to this is “big deal.” I suppose it’s something that Bush’s re-election campaign strategist has reached the astonishing conclusion that he worked for hacks with nonexistent social commitments; hell, I’m even willing to give Dowd somewhat of a pass for thinking that Bush “cared about education” while he was occupying whatever passes for an executive branch in Texas during the 1990s.

What I can’t abide, though, are meaningless gestures like these from someone who urged Bush to use the Swift Boat attacks for all they were worth:

“I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people,” he said, “but bring the country together as a whole.”

He said that he still believed campaigns must do what it takes to win, but that he was never comfortable with the most hard-charging tactics. He is now calling for “gentleness” in politics. He said that while he tried to keep his own conduct respectful during political combat, he wanted to “do my part in fixing fissures that I may have been part of.”

I’m sure this sort of High Broderism will be just as consequential as Lee Atwater’s deathbed conversion to the cause of civility. While Dowd doesn’t come within a mile of Atwater’s unblemished trail of sin, his record as a political strategist will always bear the weight — I would argue justifiably — of one insidious presidential campaign, for which he will forever dangle from a hook. The big difference between the two men, of course, is that Atwater is currently resting toe-up in a pine box; Dowd, meanwhile, is young, healthy and presumably capable of doing something constructive with his newly-discovered sense of conscience.

Alas.

Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008. The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity. But, he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work.”

He added, “I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.”

He’s also apparently written a “never-submitted” op-ed entitled “Kerry Was Right.” Now that’s commitment!

If we were keeping score, I’d just go ahead and declare an automatic five-point deduction for anyone who uses this article as further “evidence” that the Bush administration is falling apart. Dowd’s revelations are worse than useless.