PBS
Oct 19 2007

President Bush Faces Waning Political Capital in Final Year

As President Bush approaches his final year in office, he faces
lame-duck status with a Democrat-controlled Congress poised to block
his agenda. Editorial page editors from around the country assess the
president’s strengths and weaknesses.

JEFFREY BROWN: With a little more than a year left in his second
term, President Bush finds himself fending off questions about how
effective he remains when it comes to shaping the national political
agenda.

JOURNALIST: Do you feel as if you’re losing leverage and that you’re
becoming increasingly irrelevant? And what can you do about that
to…

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Quite the contrary.
I’ve never felt more engaged and more capable of helping people
recognize — American people recognize that there’s a lot of
unfinished business. And, you know, I’m really looking forward to the
next 15 months, looking forward to getting some things done for the
American people.

JEFFREY BROWN: That exchange at yesterday’s press conference came the
same day that a new Reuters-Zogby poll showed the president’s
approval rating had dipped to a new low of 24 percent.

Even so, President Bush is still winning some battles, including
today’s showdown in the House over S-CHIP, the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program, and brokering a deal with the Senate on
oversight of a warrantless surveillance program targeting terrorists.

The president’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, Michael Mukasey,
seems slated for Senate approval. And Mr. Bush appears to have forced
Congress to back down on an Armenian genocide resolution.

GEORGE W. BUSH: With all these pressing responsibilities, one thing
Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of
the Ottoman Empire.

JEFFREY BROWN: And while the president may not be putting forward
major new initiatives these days, yesterday he seemed eager to blame
Congress, controlled by Democrats, for legislative gridlock.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We’re now more than halfway through October, and the
new leaders in Congress have had more than nine months to get things
done for the American people. Unfortunately, they haven’t managed to
pass many important bills. Now the clock is winding down. In some key
areas, Congress is just getting started.

JEFFREY BROWN: Here, the president was picking his target with care:
Yesterday’s poll showed Congress’s approval rating stood even lower
than his.

Power to set an agenda
JEFFREY BROWN: And now how all this looks to four editorial page
editors: Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; J.R.
Labbe of the Fort Worth Star Telegram; Bruce Dold of the Chicago
Tribune; and John Diaz of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Well, John, I’ll start out west with you. Do you see a president who
still has the power to set an agenda and have his way?

JOHN DIAZ, San Francisco Chronicle: Well, I think, frankly, no. I
think the president — I would never say that the occupant at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue is irrelevant, but I’d say that there are — I
think the numbers we’re seeing in this poll is because there is some
real questions about whether he or Congress is willing to take on the
kinds of initiatives that the American people care about.

What they care about is things like their retirement. We now have the
first baby boomers qualifying for Social Security. They worry about
health care. They worry about climate change. They worry about a
broken immigration system.

And what they’re seeing out of Washington is a Congress and a
president that are getting in big, long fights other things like
nominations or non-binding resolutions that don’t change a thing
about the war in Iraq. That, I think, is a frustration we’re seeing
in those poll numbers.

JEFFREY BROWN: J.R. Labbe, you’re historically in Bush territory
there. How do you assess his strengths or weaknesses right now?

J.R. LABBE, Fort Worth Star Telegram: Well, I’m glad that John
included the phrase "and the Congress" when he was talking about the
president’s capabilities of doing anything from here on. Those
numbers do indicate that one in four Americans still support this
president, and I think it’s premature to say that he’s totally
ineffective in moving forward on issues.

I would agree with John that the numbers do reflect a frustration and
a concern on the part of the American people, and that includes the
Star Telegram readers here in Texas, that they are not focusing on
important issues.

But the Armenian resolution, quite frankly, was a very important
resolution here in north Texas, which is heavily military and defense
focused. Not only did they see the Democrats push for that resolution
as something that potentially weakens our troops’ position in Iraq,
but we have an awful lot of military contracts on the table with
Turkey that, not only is it a moral and military support issue, but
it’s money in people’s pockets here in north Texas if that
relationship goes south.

So there was a lot of support here in Texas for the president’s
position on that particular resolution.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, Cynthia Tucker in Atlanta, how do you see his
powers to push any agenda right now?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Well, I would have to
agree with John on this one. The president lacks the power to set an
agenda at this point, but he retains an awful lot of power to stay
the course for the things that he wants. And, also, the veto is a
very powerful tool to block things that he doesn’t want.

He can’t push any new legislation; he can’t chart a new direction.
But he retains an awful lot of determination to stay the course on
foreign policy and to block certain kinds of domestic initiatives,
even if they’re very popular domestic initiatives.

The S-CHIP program for children is very popular. Most of the public
backs it. The president vetoed it nevertheless.

And the most interesting thing is he retains the ability to get most
of the Republican Congress to line up behind him. I find that
fascinating, because the president won’t face the voters again, but
many of these Republican congressmen will. But yet they are willing
to stick with the president on unpopular things, like staying the
course in Iraq and vetoing the S-CHIP legislation, health care for
children.

So the president does maintain the power to influence Republican
members of Congress.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, Bruce Dold, do you think that things like the
S-CHIP and other things that we’ve cited in our set-up and that
Cynthia just talked about, does that show some residual political
capital that the president can use for an agenda going forward?

BRUCE DOLD: You know, I think, first, that he’s still the only vote
that counts on national security and foreign policy. And when you see
Congress try and deal with the Armenian genocide issue or you see the
Senate vote for partition of Iraq, they don’t get anywhere on it. And
I think that, again, signals his strength.

I think that’s the problem for Democrats in Congress. And you see
that 11 percent poll number is because, on the left, people are
unhappy that they have not been able to be more effective. And on the
right, they’re unhappy that they are bucking up against Bush.

Now, S-CHIP is a very substantial issue. And my newspaper was with
the Democrats on that issue. I think where you might see them wind up
is at about $14 billion, which keeps the program that you have now. I
don’t really see the S-CHIP veto, sustaining of that, as a victory
for Bush, and I do think it’s going to be very, very difficult for
him to have any kind of a forward-looking domestic agenda.

Assessing the public’s interests
JEFFREY BROWN: John Diaz, you started this talking about issues that
you think the public wants but is not seeing. What kind of things?
What kind of things do you think the public wants that perhaps could
go forward in this environment?

JOHN DIAZ: Well, I think, in this current environment, I’m not sure
that any of the things that are really the kitchen-table issues for
Americans are going to be dealt with, things like, am I going to have
enough money to retire? Is the retirement that I’m counting on going
to be there? Things like health care, things like the education of
their children, first of all, the quality of schools K-12 and beyond,
whether they can afford sending their children to college.

The problem with the culture in Washington right now is, as we’re
seeing in this discussion, is success is not defined by what you
accomplish but what you stop the other party from doing. I know my
e-mail box every morning is filled with missives from the Republican
and Democratic operatives of the issues of the day.

And I would say the overwhelming majority of those are basically
taking on the other side, as opposed to highlighting what they’re
doing. And you see words like "hypocritical," or "corrupt," or
"unethical" used to describe the other party. One of the problems
with what’s going on in Washington is their tactics of victory by the
other’s defeat seems to be working.

JEFFREY BROWN: J.R. Labbe, I’ll ask you the same thing. Look forward
for us. Do you see the ability for some compromises on some given
agenda items at this point that the president or Congress could put
forward?

J.R. LABBE: Oh, Jeffrey, I don’t know that it’s possible at this
point in time, in history, with how much time he has left. You know,
he’s trying very hard with Secretary Rice to come up with some kind
of at least peace discussions in the Middle East, but I don’t believe
that’s very high on the radar of the American people outside of the
context of the Iraq war.

There is a huge concern here in Texas, of course, about immigration
issues, but we sort of saw that circling the bowl during the summer,
and no one is anticipating that that will come back as an issue prior
to the election next year.

So it’s almost as if, around the kitchen tables at least here in
Texas, everybody’s sort of taking a big sigh and said, "Well, I guess
we’ll just wait to see who comes up next," because they’re not
anticipating that anything will get done between now and that
election.

An issue of ‘Washington fatigue’
JEFFREY BROWN: Cynthia, what about that? Who comes next? Do you think
there’s a sense of exhaustion or a sense that nothing’s going to
happen, it’s time to wait and see a year down the line?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: I do think so. I think many voters are feeling a
sense of Bush fatigue. In fact, even many conservative voters are
feeling that. I think people know that.

This administration isn’t going to get very much more accomplished.
Bush’s approval ratings are below 40 percent even here in Georgia,
which is a red state. And so I think that people are very realistic
about the limitations that he faces.

I also think people know that the calendar, the political calendar,
has become very complicated now by presidential politics. We have
members of the Senate who are now running for the presidency, and
they’re going to calculate everything that they do based on how it
will play in the presidential election.

So I think what we’re facing the next year, when very little will be
accomplished on the domestic front, and there’s still some very
challenging issues out there. One that hasn’t been mentioned very
much is the economy. People are feeling a lot of economic unease.
There is the subprime crisis in mortgages that is affecting a lot of
people, including here in Georgia. But I don’t think we’ll see very
much action on those things.

JEFFREY BROWN: Bruce Dold, I’m struck — I guess I imagine a lot of
viewers would be, too — we’re all talking about things that won’t
happen over the next 15 months, and yet we do have 15 months. You are
one of the people that said that the president does maintain some
political capital going forward. What should he do over these next 15
months?

BRUCE DOLD: Well, obviously, he’s going to have his most influence on
international issues and on anti-terrorism efforts. Beyond that,
politically, probably not much that he can do.

I think we’re seeing two trends here, one that our readers really
have dialed out of Washington. I think it’s a Washington fatigue. And
we’ve seen it ever since the Iraq week, when General Petraeus and
Ambassador Crocker gave their testimony. I don’t know that, you know,
there was a great sense of satisfaction, but people have turned much
more to local issues.

We’ve got a good Chicago tax revolt brewing now. So they haven’t been
writing as much on national issues, and I don’t think they expect
much on the big issues, like immigration.

The other thing that we’ve seen is that Republicans in Illinois —
which is a very Democratic state — are distancing themselves from
the president. They’re voting much more independently. Part of that
may be that Denny Hastert is no longer the speaker, the Republican
leader, and they don’t feel the same loyalty. But they’re also
getting nervous about the next election and trying to establish
themselves as much more independent Republicans, independent of the
president.

Focusing on Iraq, economy
JEFFREY BROWN: Bruce, it’s interesting that you set that clock back
to that week when General Petraeus testified. Why? What do you think
happened?

BRUCE DOLD: I think it was dramatic. I think there was — you know,
there was such a buildup, and then there was no real resolution in
Congress, that I think people that saw there wasn’t going to be
something dramatic that happened. They did see some sign of progress
from Petraeus and Crocker; they were somewhat satisfied with that.
And they looked back to, you know, the pocketbook issues, the local
issues that affect them, really affect them more deeply.

JEFFREY BROWN: John Diaz, what do you think?

JOHN DIAZ: Well, certainly, I would say here among our readership we
still see a lot of focus on what’s coming out of Washington.

One of the things that really struck me in this poll, Jeffrey, is the
number of people — 54 percent — who rated their personal financial
situation excellent or good. Usually when you see a number like that,
that lifts all tides for politicians, but we’re not seeing it here.

And I think interestingly some of the same issues that are sinking
President Bush are also sinking Congress. Those who are opposed to
the war are either angry at Bush certainly for his policy, but also
angry at Congress for not challenging him more forthrightly. That’s
something we clearly see at letters to the editor at the Chronicle.

JEFFREY BROWN: J.R. Labbe, we only have 30 seconds. Do you see this
move on from Iraq to other issues at this point?

J.R. LABBE: Well, what we’re seeing locally is still a lot of focus
on, as I said early, the immigration issue. Because the feds have
punted on that, many of our state lawmakers are trying to find ways
that they can address the problems.

And our big local issue here is we have individual cities who are
passing criminal alien programs, where they’re arresting illegals
that have misdemeanor warrants out and deporting them. And it has
many, many people on both sides of the issue riled up.

But our focus is still somewhat on Washington, mainly because we’re
getting used to being in a minority position when it comes to our
representatives. We went from having some of the big dogs on the
porch there, and now that the Republicans are the minority, we’re
feeling it in the ways of money not coming back to our area on big
projects.

JEFFREY BROWN: OK, we have to leave it there. J.R. Labbe, John Diaz,
Bruce Dold and Cynthia Tucker, thank you all very much.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress