Has the moment of political truth come for President George Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress?
Have we seen a classic case of overreaching and miscalculation? The answers will likely be given to us fairly quickly by the political fates. But one thing is certain: suddenly, there is an awful lot of political fluidity out there:
- President George Bush has his first prime time news conference tonight in one year. The main announced subject is his lagging efforts at Social Security reform. Could polls and a feeling that his support is weakening have anything to do with it?
- The House GOPers basically dumped a controversial rules change that led to a shutdown of the ethics committee amid a public relations fiasco and charges that the revised rules were slapped together to protect beleaguered House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
- Some reports suggest some top Republicans are now confident that the administration’s nominee for U.S Ambassador to the UN John Bolton will indeed be confirmed. Reports suggest talks with wavering Senators, many of them moderates. Bolton has gotten hideous press. If he’s confirmed he will be going to the UN as damaged goods and the administration will have used up a chunk of its rapidly shrinking political capital.
- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist rejected talk of compromise on averting the “nuclear option” that would eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees. Earlier, there had been talk about working towards a compromise. White House political guru Karl Rove did an interview saying there would be no compromise. Hours after that Frist did, too. Pure coincidence? (Could be..or..).
The bottom line is: there seems to be a readjustment on the part of the White House and Congressional leaders to defuse some of the crises — but not totally. Will this be enough?
Two major analysts are issuing warnings that Congress and the President are digging themselves into a deep political hole.
Former Rudy Giuliani aide John Avlon, author of the book Independent Nation — a book arguing that the center has been and remains the anchor for American politics and American political change — warns in his New York Sun column: “Congress Courts A Backlash.”
Some key excerpts:
When historians look back to judge when the Republican Congress of 2005 over-reached and provoked a political backlash, they may look at the past month as the tipping point.
Between Tom DeLay and Terry Schiavo, it’s been a bad spring for Congress. This week things look set to get worse, with the Republican leadership gearing up for a political full court press to enact the so-called “nuclear option,” ending the traditional filibuster rules for judicial nominations.
Democrats are preparing for a protracted political street fight with very little left to lose. Republicans are betting the rewards will outweigh the risks in their attempt to recast the judiciary rightward – especially with Supreme Court seats at stake. Compromise and civility are endangered species in this Congress…..
Today’s heavy-handed tactics have awakened the American people enough to send a clear message to Congress – put the hammer down, stop screaming the party-approved talking points, and start working together.
He then shows the virtual repudiation of Congress reflected in various polls…plus the danger that lies ahead on the nuclear option:”A Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday shows that an overwhelming 66% of Americans oppose changing Senate rules to end the filibuster option against judicial nominees.”
Avlon recounts some of the recent controversies involving Frist and Delay, then adds:
When a single political party controls all the branches of government, it is difficult to resist the temptation to impose its ideological agenda. But when a president and Congress overreach it can provoke a lasting backlash that leads to the next realignment of politics.
The last time a president was re-elected while increasing his party’s control of Congress was 1964 – Lyndon’s Johnson’s Democrats had just handed the conservative advocate of “extremism,” Barry Goldwater, an unprecedented defeat. Liberals thought they were unstoppable and unleashed a barrage of social legislation without any effective check from the Republican Party. The backlash began during the midterm elections of 1966, with moderate Republicans like Howard Baker and Ed Brooke being elected to the Senate and governor’s mansions across the country. In 1968, Richard Nixon became the second Republican since Herbert Hoover to win the White House – only two Democrats have won it since. The lesson is clear: Beware the arrogance of power. The American people have a way of stepping in to restore some balance.
But, he warns, the Congress’ Democratic leaders aren’t suited to benefit from public ire. So what can happen? Avlon sees more than just a Democratic/Republican party relignment:
Into this atmosphere of heated congressional partisanship and political stalemate, two thoughtful columnists – the Los Angeles Times’s Ron Brownstein and the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, this week called for a third-party revolt of the moderates. If the Senate proves determined to “go nuclear,” it may unleash a chain reaction of events that will change the political landscape more fundamentally than either party expects.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s David Broder warns Bush and the GOP heirarchy that they are now paying a price for “overreaching.” He notes that Bush wanted to make sure his second term didn’t run into the traditional second term “curse” of re-elected Presidents. Bush, Broder writes, wanted to focus on bold things:
Now Bush has run into trouble on major parts of that agenda, and his overall leadership position appears to be much weaker than anyone would have guessed on his second Inauguration Day.
This week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll put his overall job approval score at 47 percent — matching the lowest score in his 51 months in office. Whereas in January as many people strongly approved of his performance as strongly opposed it, now the highly negative ratings outnumber the very positive 3 to 2.
Having armed himself with an ambitious set of goals in order to energize his government, Bush has become the victim of overreach — the one problem he and his advisers did not anticipate…..
So Bush set forth what any president would have to consider a breathtakingly bold agenda. As Charles O. Jones of the University of Wisconsin remarked to me in January, it was particularly striking to see “a second-term president with the smallest electoral college majority since Wilson in 1916 undertake the most ambitious agenda since Roosevelt in 1936.”
Bush can count some early successes. He has signed legislation restricting class-action lawsuits — the first and easiest step in his multi-part assault on trial lawyers — and he has approved a bill tightening rules on personal bankruptcies, a boon to part of his business constituency.
But in retrospect, Bush clearly overestimated his political capital. The Post-ABC News poll at inauguration time gave him only a 52-to-46 percent positive job approval rating, much lower than Reagan or Clinton enjoyed at the start of their ill-fated second terms.
And Broder bluntly writes what many have not written about Bush’s full-court press on Social Security:”The fact that Bush is losing — and losing badly — on the issue to which he has devoted more time and effort than any other has had a negative effect on his overall standing and his political influence.” Then, after looking at the Iraq war and economy, Broder says what Social Conservatives would rather George Bush not hear — or consider:
Bush also appears to have overreached in his dealings with the judiciary. His stated goal of bringing more “strict constructionist” judges onto the bench has been perceived as a narrow political objective by increasing numbers of Americans. Other polls have shown Bush’s participation in the effort to overturn the state court decisions allowing Terri Schiavo to die was criticized by large majorities.
And current efforts by Senate Republicans, with the explicit backing of the White House, to eliminate Democratic filibusters against some Bush judicial nominees were surprisingly rejected in the latest Post poll. By a margin of 66 percent to 26 percent, the voters opposed changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush’s judicial nominees.
The public clearly seems to be telling Bush to back off his most ambitious plans.
And we’ll will ask the blunt question that comes out of Avlon’s and Broder’s analysis:
If the bulk of Americans seem to oppose key parts of what this Congress and the White House seek to do will it matter? Or is it full speed ahead by the Congress and President no matter what in an effort to almost forcibly remake America despite any general consensus that may exist?
UPDATE: Read Centerfield’s Rick Heller on Broder.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.