Karl Rove meets Aaron Sorkin?

So there’s been some buzz about the unscripted, undiplomatic, and somewhat profane remarks of President Bush in Russia, when he didn’t know a microphone was “hot”. (Bush’s Policy Chit-Chat: Undiplomatic Prose – New York Times). Or did he? I don’t want to get all tinfoil-hat, but…

But I happened to be watching a rerun of The West Wing the other night — specifically, “The U.S. Poet Laureate“. In one of the multiple storylines, President Bartlett — up for reelection and facing Governor Ritchie, who has a reputation as a folksy-but-not-bright kinda guy — is doing a series of short spots with TV morning shows plugging his upcoming energy plan. Between sessions, chatting with the reporters, Bartlett makes a disparaging comment that implies Ritchie isn’t smart enough to handle the world’s problems. To the horror of Communications Director Toby Ziegler, the President continues speaking even though the mic is “hot” and the TV station is recording everything.

Of course the station runs the comment and everyone begins talking about how haughty Bartlett is. Then something odd happens. Although the Bartlett administration rapidly issues what they call a “non-apology apology” and considers the issue dead, the Ritchie people keep goading the press about it. Pretty soon the story becomes, not that the President said something unpolitic, but that the Ritchie campaign is staffed by whiners who can’t roll with the punches. Meanwhile the country is beginning to talk about whether it is important that the President be intelligent — a discussion that can’t help Ritchie. By the end of the episode, Bartlett has come out on top (because it was a mistake and he “apologized”), Ritchie looks like a chump, and Press Secretary C.J. Cregg has begun to wonder if Bartlett planned the whole thing to score points on the rebound. “Mr. President,” she says, “that was old school.”

Lately, President Bush has been begun to moderate his tone. The papers and the blogs are full of articles calling attention to how developing realities in Iraq have forced the President to abandon his wonted cowboy swagger and to begin working with larger groups. Reality might demand such concessions, but a softer-speaking, diplomatic Bush is not the image the President and his advisors have built up in the minds of the electorate. They depend on Americans seeing the Republicans as the can-do, tough-as-nails, America-first-always-and-only party while it’s the Democrats who do mamsy-pansy things like, you know, talk to other leaders and factor in how the world will react to our actions.

This is a dilemma. Reality requires nuance and care; domesitc politics demand brashness and swagger. How to reconcile the two? Well, one way would be to signal the base that, although the President appears to be moderating his tone, it’s really just an act to impress those foreigners. In an “unscripted”, “candid” moment, the President can reveal that, really, underneath the new vest of multilateralism, he’s really the same plain-speaking gunslinging Texan that Rove has sold him as. In other words, Bush’s “public” speech reassures the world he’s not a go-it-aloner anymore; while the “hot mic” quips reassure the conservative base that he hasn’t really changed.

So you gotta wonder…. Did Karl Rove steal a play from Aaron Sorkin?