Presidential firsts and foibles

President George W. Bush had two firsts this week: He used his veto authority for the first time, and he spoke to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for the first time since becoming president in 2001.

One would expect that with Congress and the White House both controlled by the same party that there would be relatively few bills that would get passed of which the president would disapprove. But one might expect a couple here and there to slip through -- we all know Congress can be irresponsible sometimes. And one would expect that the president would sort of be the wise and responsible one, keeping outrageous legislation from taking effect, acting as a good steward of the nation's resources and treasury. Alas, for five full years, President Bush has signed everything Congress sent him -- everything. That is, until now.

In a move that made him look like he was out of touch with most of the citizenry and that he was trying to both save face from a 2001 decision and also earn political capital with his Christian conservative base, he vetoed a bill that in short would have allowed additional research using stem cells. Bush had in 2001, through executive order, banned the use of anything other than existing stem cell lines, and he had resisted numerous calls to relent, even a personal lobby from Nancy Reagan, wife of the president whose Alzheimer's Disease might have been assisted in treatment through advances gained by research on stem cells. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter were supportive, two colleagues at opposite ends of the GOP. Heck, even Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, the majority leader, came around to see that allowing more research was a wise move, even though is a medical doctor who should have been on board much sooner.

But Bush has vetoed the bill, and the votes are not present in the Senate to override (the initial vote was 63-37). I am not sure what he gained from this as he has no more elections himself, but he is trying to reassert himself as the moral leader and the party chief.

Then, a couple days later, Bush finally accepted an invitation to speak before the NAACP, the nation's largest group of African-Americans. He received a cool reception to say the least. Under the guise of whipping up support for Congress to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Bush came to speak, something he did not do at all during his first term or even when running for re-election, something that most other presidents have done with regularity. Ninety percent of blacks voted for Al Gore in 2000, and Bush made only a slight gain in 2004, so he knows these are not his people. The body language and actions almost a year ago in New Orleans and teh Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina should also serve to illustrate that point.

Bush was introduced as the man who would sign the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, and he had a big applause line when he called for renewing the act, but that was pretty much the extent of the cheering. In fact, when he turned to a standard line he had used many times before in campaign appearances and other speeches, talking about faith and heart, he probably expected at least a holler from somewhere. Nope. Nothing. He mentioned a few of his black pals -- and they are few. Problem is, Condoleeza Rice, while very well respected by many Americans, is not a black icon, and certainly not seen as a hero by the kind of activists who would be likely to attend a convention of the NAACP. Georgia Rep. John Lewis would have lit the crowd on fire.

So this week of firsts was a one-two punch for the President, I think. The man needs to figure out what his priorities are and stop trying to look like he is the president and just be the president, someone who leads with the best interests of the country in mind and who looks respectable at al times. He had a couple gaffes at the G8 summit last week as well, when he swore when the microphone was live, and when he was seen on video giving a neck rub to German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- and she looked extremely unconfortable and moved so he would stop. It was creepy to watch.

The GOP should be paging the legends of image-making: Michael Deaver and Peggy Noonan. Stat.

-- Issaquah, Wash.