Staving off lame-duck status, President Bush scored his second major victory in 10 days Thursday by signing legislation that keeps alive his controversial terrorist surveillance program.
The triumph comes on the heels of Bush successfully pressuring the Democratic Congress into funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of his term and beyond. Both measures were once considered long shots for Bush, who has managed to remain a formidable political force even as his time in office dwindles.
“There’s still some juice there,” presidential historian Stephen Hess said. “He really has tried to make his second term as meaningful as he possibly can. A lot of presidents, even subliminally, feel that they’ve done all that they can during the first term, and they spend the second term just sort of tidying up things. And I don’t think that’s been his approach at all.”
Bush’s latest victory was the extension of the terrorist surveillance program, which he signed into law in a Rose Garden ceremony Thursday. He clearly relished the moment, which came after a yearlong battle against Democrats such as Barack Obama, who ended up reneging on his pledge to filibuster the bill.
On June 30, Bush signed a bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the middle of next year. That means he will end his presidency with not only the number of troops he wants in both theaters, but also the amount of funding he sought.
Such an outcome seemed unlikely in the aftermath of the 2006 midterm elections, which saw Democrats sweep to power in both the House and Senate. At that time, conventional wisdom held that Democrats would not allow war funding to continue past 2007 and would almost certainly force Bush to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
“Democrats are cutting him a certain amount of slack, which you could say he has earned through the apparent success of the surge,” Hess said. “Also, a president is never a hapless giant, no matter how he’s portrayed. He’s got veto power, which in this case is potent, since the Democrats don’t have the type of majority to routinely reject his veto. And then there are the powers that come with being commander in chief and chief diplomatist.”
Bush often says he is determined to “sprint to the end” of his term.
“For a supposedly lame-duck president,” conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said, “he sure has a lot of quack left in him.”
