A COMMON journalistic trope in recent years held that Bill Clinton was fortunate in his enemies: Whatever his personal or political faults–and they were many and grave–they were always redeemed, or at least diminished in scope, by the tactical bungling and sheer ickiness of people like Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, and Ken Starr.
Though the Bushies loathe any suggestion that their man resembles Clinton, it’s clear that George W. Bush, too, is lucky in his enemies (with the exception of the crafty Tom Daschle, a more formidable foe than the hapless Trent Lott ever was for Clinton). The latest example of this was the shameless squawking of many Democrats last week, after the revelation that Bush was briefed in August about the likelihood of new al Qaeda attacks, possibly including hijackings.
After floundering for months, trying to find an issue on which to gain traction against Bush, Democrats thought they had received a miraculous gift–an opening to criticize the president for the very thing that has made him so wildly popular: his handling of the war on terrorism. Certainly, we do need to determine how our government failed to see September 11 coming. (And as we suggest in our editorial this week, the Bush administration should take the lead on this, lest Congress turn the investigation into a partisan spectacle.)
But the Democrats overplayed their hand, and wandered perilously close to Cynthia McKinney territory. Dick Gephardt sank immediately to Watergate-era rhetoric: “I think what we have to do now is to find out what the president, what the White House, knew about the events leading up to 9/11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time.” Hillary Clinton, apparently having forgotten that her popularity is inversely related to her visibility, took to the Senate floor Thursday, brandishing a copy of the New York Post with the headline “Bush Knew”: “The president knew what? My constituents would like to know the answers to that and many other questions. Not to blame the president or any other American. But just to know. To learn from our experience.”
Sure. Just to know. As Mrs. Clinton’s husband once memorably put it, “More rather than less, sooner rather than later”–right?
Most Democrats seem quickly to have recognized the folly of this approach. By the weekend, Gephardt had become the very model of the loyal opposition leader: “This was a failure for all of us,” he said Sunday on CNN. “We failed the American people in a very important respect. We did not protect them properly.” Senator John Edwards was similarly restrained late last week on PBS’s “NewsHour”: “I think the focus of this should not just be the White House . . . should not be political, should not be Democrats and Republicans. The focus of this should be, why did this happen, could it have been prevented, and, most importantly, to take the steps necessary to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Why the sudden switch? It’s possible that Democrats saw some polling that changed their minds about the wisdom of thumping the president over this. (Like this MSNBC/Wall Street Journal poll, for instance.) And maybe the White House’s counteroffensive, crude as it was, had an impact.
Or perhaps elemental common sense set in.
Bush has not endeared himself to his conservative base in recent months. Smart conservatives understand the political realities this White House faces–an evenly split electorate, and a prewar issue environment that generally favored Democrats. So they don’t demand perfection. And they’ve seen enough of Bush the pol in action to expect the occasional act of crass political expediency.
But the last few months have been particularly tough for conservatives, as Bush has signaled that his backbone is now reserved for foreign policy alone. He’ll sign just about any bill that makes its way down Pennsylvania Ave., no matter how incongruous with supposedly stalwart Bush principles. First came his cave on campaign finance reform. Then, after eloquently making both the economic and moral case for free trade during his campaign and in his first months in office, he wimped out on steel tariffs. Perhaps most egregious of all was Bush’s decision to sign a farm bill so bloated that it’s disgusting even by the usual standards of Beltway pork. (Would it really have been so difficult for Bush to veto such a bill? Couldn’t he have said that this money would be better spent helping our military prepare to squash Saddam than subsidizing millionaire mohair farmers?)
A demoralized conservative base isn’t a good prescription for Republican success in this fall’s elections. But wait–here come the Democrats to save the day. Can you imagine anything more likely to re-ignite die-hard GOP voters for November than Democratic insinuations that Bush knew September 11 was coming and didn’t act to stop it? And besides, what, exactly, would Democrats do to get tough on terrorism that Bush isn’t doing already? It’s not like they are clamoring to finish off Saddam right away, or drastically increase defense spending, or loosen the reins of the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department. Democrats should think twice about turning the fall elections into a referendum on the president’s handling of the war against terror. There’s a good reason why Karl Rove wants GOP candidates to make the war an issue this fall: If they do, a lot of Republicans will probably win.
Lee Bockhorn is associate editor at The Weekly Standard.
