When the President suddenly called a press conference week before last and began it with a tongue-lashing of the U.S. Senate for failure to move more quickly on "his" policy agenda, we, like most observers, figured the White House was trying (unsuccessfully) to change the subject to distract attention from the investor confidence crisis and the underlying threat to the U.S. economy.

It now looks like we missed the point. If a major address by Party Chairman Marc Racicot to the summer meeting of the Republican National Committee on July 19 is any indication, the GOP strategy is now to claim that Democratic foot-dragging in the Senate is in fact the cause of our economic troubles, reflecting the evil intent of Democrats to keep things as bad as possible until the mid-term elections in November.

"It seems to me," said Racicot, "that Democrats are so eager to win that they aren't really interested in helping the economy grow by making the tax cut permanent, controlling spending, expanding trade with TPA, passing the energy bill, providing terrorism insurance or quickly coming to agreement on a sensible corporate governance bill because they feel the only way they can win is if the economy is disrupted. Shame on them."

We have a hard time believing there is anybody in America who really believes "making the tax cut permanent" -- a reference to the President's proposal to ensure that a "temporary" repeal in the federal estate tax ten years from now will be permanent -- has anything to do with economic growth, other than to make it more difficult in the long run by pouring more red ink on the federal budget. Nor would passage of an energy bill, particularly the GOP's favored House version, do anything to help the economy, beyond the crude stimulus supplied by new subsidies for oil drilling. A TPA bill would help restore some badly shaken confidence in the Administration's protection-heavy trade agenda, but the White House and House Republican leaders deserve at least half of the blame for the hold-up on that legislation. And the idea that the White House or Congressional Republicans have taken the lead on corporate governance reforms is laugh-out-loud ludicrous.

The simple truth is that the Administration and the Republican Party have been thrown badly off-stride by the corporate scandals and the threat of an economic crisis, and are horribly mispositioned to do much about either issue, beyond unintentionally humorous efforts to get out in front of the posse chasing corporate malfeasance, and renewed, if increasingly incredible, claims that they have a strategy for economic growth.

But instead of making a mid-course correction in their policies to deal honestly with a rapidly worsening economy, fed by a rapidly worsening budget situation and a rapidly escalating investor confidence crisis, Republicans are trying to use the President's personal credibility to blame the opposition.

According to Marc Racicot, the Administration is oblivious to politics, and only wants to lead: "The President has done something even more important than vindicating the imperatives and principles of the Republican Party. He has set a higher standard for leadership -- one that is grounded in results, not rhetoric; in conviction, not convenience; in humility, not hubris. During his campaign for the Presidency, George W. Bush pledged to do all that he could to change the tone of public discourse in Washington and to work in good faith with others to find solutions to the problems that confront us all. The President has kept faith with that promise and the result has been substantial progress on important legislation."

It's sad to watch these fine sentiments from the Bush 2000 campaign being used on behalf of an Administration that is following, not leading, on a wide variety of issues; that uses strong rhetoric on corporate misconduct and the budget (to name just two areas) to cover the absence of strong policies; that has been more than willing to abandon such convictions as its commitment to open trade when it was politically convenient; and that has yet to humbly confess the failure of the big tax cut as the centerpiece of its fiscal and economic policies.

If the Administration truly wants to redeem the President's pledge to "change the tone" in Washington, it needs to shift policies, not shift blame.