Moxie in the Executive
BARNES, FRED
Moxie in the Executive How not to be a lame duck. by Fred Barnes In dealing with the new Democratic Congress, President Bush is said to have a big choice to make. To get anything done, he either...
...Bush did this with judges Charles Pickering and Bill Pryor...
...Fire generals...
...It should be, if they fail, they go...
...When they failed, he replaced them...
...But we're not tied down...
...Push a radical energy independence plan...
...A final gift to the world...
...But even in that short period of time, their impact would be felt...
...Democrats can block his confirmation by filibuster, but they can't stop Bush from giving Bolton a job at the State Department and then assigning him to the United Nations, where he's the most effective ambassador since the days of Jeane Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan...
...To get anything done, he either has to compromise with Democrats or ally himself with an as-yet-unformed majority coalition of Republicans and moderate-to-conservative Democrats...
...And they add significantly to overspending by Congress...
...But the idea would be to try everything conceivable, all at once, to free the United States from strategic dependence on Middle East oil and from the possibility of a crippling cutoff imposed by America's foes...
...Keep John Bolton as American ambassador to the United Nations...
...Not with a public announcement, but in leaks...
...The president, stung by the defeat of Republicans in the midterm election, may be reluctant to step out on his own...
...Apply the Kennedy model to North Korea...
...Anything they did would pale next to a nuclear attack by Iran...
...But there's a third option: take bold moves on his own, based on his presidential powers...
...The new president would have one less crisis to deal with...
...Give judicial nominees recess appointments...
...These special interest spending measures are an invitation to corruption...
...The Iranians seem to believe that they're home free in pursuing nuclear weapons with American forces tied down in Iraq...
...Both liberal notions (higher CAFE standards) and conservative ones (more domestic oil production), plus fuel diversification, lucrative subsidies for hybrid autos, more spending on research, and massive energy exploration would be included...
...Talk up the military option in Iran...
...His legacy will be determined largely by the outcome in Iraq and in the war on terror— and we may not know that verdict for years...
...But Bush has little to lose and much to gain by acting on his own...
...Here are ways the president can do just that...
...Without a line-item veto, the president can't single out earmarks for destruction...
...He'll have a perfect opportunity to do this again in his final two years in the White House— and in even more daring ways...
...Bush may need Congress's assent on this one, or at least on parts of it...
...It might give his legacy a boost, too...
...Bush's generals have failed to come close to achieving their most important task: pacifying Baghdad...
...So would the United Nations...
...His attitude is, if they're wrong, I'm wrong...
...So there's a lot Bush or any president could do if he's willing to be audacious...
...As Bush is leaving office in January 2009, he could implement the military option and take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities...
...So why not be bold and go unilateral...
...The judges' terms would run out at the end of the new Congress in late 2008...
...Terrorists might respond, but we could brace for that...
...The destruction of Iranian nuclear sites would be carried out by airpower...
...The safer tack would be to negotiate with Congress to pass legislation in hopes of enhancing the legacy of his presidency...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard...
...That should deter him...
...Leaking the details of a contingency plan for doing this would provoke international debate and put the mullahs in a less truculent mood...
...Stop earmarks...
...President Lincoln did this in the Civil War and, once he put General Grant in charge, got results...
...Bush could update this with Kim Jong Il, telling him if a rogue nuke hits the United States or its allies, the United States will hit North Korea...
...It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union," Kennedy declared in 1962...
...All they require is maximum moxie...
...Columnist Charles Krauthammer urged the president to repeat the warning that President Kennedy gave to the Soviets after they installed missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States...
...Congressional passage of a compromise measure on, say, immigration or education reform would be nice, but neither is likely to affect his legacy in a major way...
...Now he could give recess appointments to all his U.S...
...appeals court nominees, some eight of them, whom Democrats refuse to give floor votes...
...This is a no-brainer, assuming Bolton is willing...
...What he could do, however, is announce that he will veto any appropriations bill that contains earmarks...
...Congress would squeal, but it would probably back down if Bush stuck to his guns...
...The world would be aghast—but also relieved and, without admitting it, enormously grateful...
...Lincoln held his generals accountable...
...More than most presidents, Bush has been willing (and often eager) to thumb his nose at the Washington elites and break out on his own...
...That's the normal exit strategy for presidents...
Vol. 12 • December 2006 • No. 13
