Command This

The dialogue below is from Tony Snow’s White House press briefing this morning. Pay particular attention to the sentence I’ve bolded.

Q With the President’s approval ratings as low as they are, with so much attention focused on Iraq, how concerned are you that most of the other stuff will be background noise, white noise, nobody is really going to pay much attention?

MR. SNOW: Well, if you take a look at what Americans care about — things like health care — they care about it. Americans want a system that’s going to be more patient-friendly and that’s going to meet their needs. The President will talk about that. When you ask about health care, that’s clearly important. You ask about education, always important — you’re a parent and you know. Immigration has been an issue of considerable concern within this country.

In other words, the President is going to address the areas that are foremost concern for Americans — energy and energy security.

Q I don’t doubt that he’s going to address them and I don’t doubt that they’re important to Americans. What I’m wondering about is, is he compromised at this point to an extent to which he can do anything about them?

MR. SNOW: What’s interesting is the President is going to offer some bold proposals that Congress could, in fact, enact, and in the process make itself look good and, more importantly, do the people ’s business. So George W. Bush as a President is not somebody who is going to cease to be bold because there has been — because right now people are concerned about the progress of the war. Instead he understands his obligation as Commander-in-Chief is to go ahead forthrightly big problems and come up with solutions that not only are going to have political appeal, but they’re also going to be effective in making life better for Americans.

When you have a Democratic Congress that came in two weeks ago saying, we want to get things done, we’ve got some offers that they’re going to be pretty good for them.

The President of the United States is Commander-in-Chief of the military, not of everything — not of healthcare, energy and energy security — at least not unless we’re in a war about oil, I suppose, but we’re not in a war about oil, are we?

Update, 27 Jan: Yeah, what he said.