by Frank James
If there isn’t already an old saying to the effect of “When the going gets tough, presidents get going” there should be.
An overseas trip often is a great tonic for what ails a presidency. When scandal or falling domestic popularity polls afflict a presidency, a state-visit by a U.S. president is often just the getaway needed to recharge those presidential batteries and to prove to a president that he is indeed loved–somewhere.
I was reminded of this yesterday while listening to “To the Point”, a public-radio program produced by KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif.
Sara Terry, who hosted of yesterday’s program had Stephen Hess, a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University, on the show yesterday. Hess, who served in the Eisenhower and Nixon White Houses and advised Presidents Ford and Carter, is a favorite source of many Washington reporters because he’s very quotable.
He didn’t disappoint yesterday. When Terry asked him if it’s possible for a lame-duck president having problems at home to be more effective overseas, Hess said:
It’s possible. But unfortunately for this president he’s almost equally unpopular at home and abroad.
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Presidents, the ones I’ve had anything to do with, really do like to be loved as politicians perhaps more than most people.
And one way you do it when things are bad at home is you find a place abroad where crowds cheering you and waving the American flag. Ike went to India. JFK went to Berlin. Nixon went to Poland, Reagan went to Ireland. Where can this poor man go? He’s going to be in Poland after the summit for three hours and 10 minutes and I think he rushes to meet with the president then rushes to get back on his plane. There isn’t any place in the world where people are going to cheer him.
TERRY: Actually That’s really worth thinking about. I want to just play that out a little bit… Could he go to Africa? His AIDS program on Africa has been widely hailed. Would that be a place for him to go?
HESS: Oh I should by the way say Clinton went to Africa too. I left him out of that equation. But I really wasn’t thinking of trying to find some sort of landing spot for George W Bush. But in answer to your question I don’t think he’s going to get very much sustenance abroad…
Can that be true? Is there nowhere in the world where Bush can go and attract the large enthusiatic crowds other presidents have seen in the past?