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Journalism of Courage
If the balance of political power in Washington changes on Tuesday, will President Bush change with it?
From the moment George W. Bush took office after winning the election but losing the popular vote, he has governed as if he became president by a landslide. Bad news8212;legislative losses, plunging approval ratings, chaos in Iraq8212;seems only to stiffen his resolve. Good news8212;a dip in the unemployment rate, the conviction of Saddam Hussein8212;reinforces his confidence that his polices at home and abroad are correct.
Yet with Bush facing the likelihood of a remade political landscape in Washington, even if his party holds on to both houses of Congress, the White House is sending signals that Bush is open to a shift in approach. After six years of virtually ignoring Democrats as he pressed his own party to do his bidding on Capitol Hill, Bush and his aides are charting a course that they say will take the president back to his roots as Texas governor, when he worked in a more bipartisan way with Democrats.
They are piecing together a domestic agenda that includes reviving the president8217;s failed bid to overhaul entitlement programmes like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, White House officials and allies of the administration said. The president has assigned Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to spearhead the effort, and the White House says it is quietly reaching out to Democrats on Capitol Hill.
But it is not clear how much bipartisanship is possible, even if Bush proves serious about it. His approval numbers remain low, emboldening Democrats, who in any case are distrustful of him. The 2008 presidential campaign is about to start, complicating political calculations on both sides. Members of both parties say Bush will be unable to accomplish much at home until he gets Iraq under control.
Even so, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said Bush was determined not to focus exclusively on foreign policy, as so many presidents have done in the final two years of a second term. 8220;I think his hope,8221; Bartlett said, 8220;is that maybe, maybe we can enter into an era where the president will not be viewed as such a threatening force to Democrats who are more eager to get some accomplishments done.8221;
Bartlett insisted that Bush was looking ahead, not back: 8220;There8217;s no cruise control into 8216;08 for this president. He believes that two years is a long time and a lot could get done.8221; Even if Republicans keep both chambers, there is universal agreement that they will do so with slimmer majorities, further reducing Bush8217;s clout on Capitol Hill.
The last two years of a second term are challenging for any president. Bill Clinton, facing impeachment, spent most of his time traveling, devoting himself nearly exclusively to foreign policy. Harry Truman was stuck trying to explain a war on the Korean Peninsula that ended in stalemate, and it took years for his reputation to be restored.
For Bush, Iraq will loom over everything. His own aides concede they had once hoped that by Tuesday8217;s midterm election, American troops would be steadily withdrawing from Iraq. Instead, 150,000 are still there. 8220;The fortunes of his last two years, in terms of his own political capital, will very much be a part of what takes place in Iraq,8221; said Senator Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who was housing secretary during Bush8217;s first term.
But one of the biggest guessing games in Washington is whether Bush will seize the opportunity to act in ways he could not with an election looming. His first decision may be whether to move on Iraq before a report is issued by a bipartisan group led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, the former congressman from Indiana. Whatever Bush does, on either the foreign policy or the domestic front, comes with the knowledge that the clock is ticking.
