Conservatives look on the bright side of life.

Thursday, June 8, 2006

Jolly Rotten: Now that the U.S. finally has some welcome news from Iraq, the Bush administration will try harder than ever to persuade Americans that things are looking up here at home. The lack of progress on Bush's domestic agenda rules out a Rose Garden strategy. So, the White House will try a rose-colored-glasses strategy instead.

Bush desperately needs America to cheer up. As long as two-thirds of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction, the White House ploy to turn the midterms into a "choice" election won't work—too many people will choose change. If Karl Rove could have his way, he'd open the Medicare prescription drug benefit to all Americans, and offer only one drug: Zoloft.

White House strategerist Peter Wehner administered the first dose on Monday, in an op-ed that crowed about America's "remarkable cultural renewal." Tony Snow has an anchorman's unique talent for delivering bad news with a smile.

But the sunniest fellow in the Bush White House may be the new domestic policy adviser, Karl Zinsmeister. Claude Allen, Zinsmeister's predecessor, put on a happy face for the wrong reason. By contrast, the new man is so upbeat that last year, he published an entire book on the subject.

Zinsmeister is better known for his books on Iraq, including the first Marvel comic book on the war. In 2005, however, he edited a collection of heart-warming vignettes called In Real Life. The publishers' description reads like a Bush stump speech:

Compared to the Americans inhabiting TV-land and Manhattan novels, the men and women you're about to meet have carved out existences (often against the odds) that are bright with meaning. Among these teachers, farmers, businessmen, writers, cops, doctors, soldiers, and mothers—most with deep roots in the "fly-over" territories of our heartland—there is less cultural rot, a strong attachment to tradition, a deep reliance on God, an overriding preference for family, and abundant good sense and good cheer.

Of course, that's not sufficient reason to read the book. As David Plotz has repeatedly pointed out, "cultural rot" is the key to all great literature, even the Bible.

Give the Audience a Grin: But Zinsmeister's introduction is revealing, and helps explain why he should fit right in at the White House. In fact, his words may well have been the crib notes for Wehner's op-ed piece. Zinsmeister writes, "Consider some of the ways in which our collective lives have become better, stabler, sunnier, and saner over the last generation." He then provides a four-page litany of modern progress.

Like Wehner, Zinsmeister highlights a host of good news that his new boss had nothing to do with. Since 1991, violent crime has dropped to a 30-year low. Teen pregnancy is at a record low. The number of welfare recipients has dropped 60 percent since welfare reform.