'Think of the visuals'

When the approval ratings are in the toilet and George Bush is taking a beating on a specific issue, the White House usually responds with a high-profile photo-op that the TV news schmucks can't resist and, the White House hopes, gives the illusion that Bush is engaged in the issue.

Remember this Kodak moment in post-Katrina New Orleans?


Bush may not have been engaged enough to do anything to prevent the devastation caused by the hurricane, or even to immediately return to Washington from his monthlong Crawford vacation to deal with it -- or not to stop off in California for a fundraiser and photo-op, but he sure as shit was engaged in helping to rebuild. Or so the White House would have us believe.

Press accounts of the occasion told a different story.

Bush's motorcade wended its way through the pitch dark down Covington's largely unscathed streets to the brightly lit Habitat site — a small patch of land amid a still-sleeping, modest neighborhood turned into a makeshift TV set.

Dressed for the occasion in hard hat, work gloves and a large wraparound tool belt, the president joined other volunteers hammering nails into a sheet of plywood. The first lady, a cloth nail pouch around her waist, accompanied him. Bush spent most of his time chatting, signing autographs and posing for pictures.

But no matter. It's photo-op time again.

As the Senate debates a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, Bush is traveling to Yuma, Ariz. Yuma is the embodiment of the system that Bush frequently describes, where desperate people risk their lives for a chance to earn decent wages from U.S. employers hungry for their labor.

The president was to take a tour of the border Thursday, then give a speech aimed at driving home Monday night's prime-time address calling for National Guard troops to help strengthen the border while giving illegal immigrants in the United States a chance at citizenship and allowing more foreigners to enter the country legally to work. He also planned a round of interviews with all the television networks to help sell his ideas, which face tough opposition in Congress.

This sounds like the dog show Time told us to expect.

But the musical chairs is just the first of a two-act makeover. Friends and colleagues of Bolten told TIME about an informal, five-point "recovery plan" for Bush that is aimed at pushing him up slightly in opinion polls and reassuring Republican activists, whose disaffection could cost him dearly in November. The White House has no visions of expanding the G.O.P.'s position in the midterms; the mission is just to hold on to control of Congress by playing to the base. Here is the Bolten plan:

1 DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed-up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV." Bush has long insisted he wants a guest-worker program paired with stricter border enforcement, but House Republicans have balked at temporary legalization for immigrants, so the President's ambition of using the issue to make the party more welcoming to Hispanics may have to wait.

Remember, when you're zooming around in the desert playing border guard, try to look, you know, presidential.