Lame But Still Game
BARNES, FRED
Lame But Still Game President Bush is not about to just fade away. BY FRED BARNES On the eve of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s visit to Washington last week, a British pollster suggested...
...In fact, he’s not that lame...
...This is a common misperception about Bush (and a pet peeve of mine...
...The president is “irrelevant,” the pollster said, echoing what has become a view widely held in Washington...
...Wrong on both counts...
...These must get explicit White House approval...
...With only nine months left in his presidency and low approval ratings, Bush lacks political power...
...But because he strongly opposes that approach, a veto threat was implicit...
...Earlier this year, Bush’s budget offi ce sent a letter to every federal department barring them from implementing any congressional earmarks not authorized in specifi c statutory language...
...In Washington, the political community and the press tend to dismiss presidents in their fi nal year as powerless...
...Still, for now anyway, Bush’s power to direct the effort in Iraq is supreme...
...Though Bush is hardly renowned for his effective use of the bully pulpit, he intends to continue voicing dire concerns about Iran’s nuclear weapons program...
...Instead of seeking to change Bush’s Iraq policy, Democrats plan to tack domestic spending measures onto bills funding the war...
...In the near term, he wants to leave Iraq in good enough condition that the next president won’t be inclined to pull out of the country precipitously...
...That’s his long-term aim...
...He wants to crush al Qaeda and the insurgency, corral the militias, and establish a reasonably stable elected government...
...The suspicion is he’s simply pretending, since his power is gone...
...BY FRED BARNES On the eve of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s visit to Washington last week, a British pollster suggested Brown’s meetings with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain would be more important than his talks with President Bush...
...Economic sanctions have failed to deter Tehran...
...Bush didn’t threaten to veto their favorite remedy of setting an arbitrary cap on carbon emissions and creating a system of trading emission rights...
...Not likely...
...Democrats wanted to spend billions more and extend unemployment benefi ts...
...He can use his veto to shape or kill legislation...
...They failed because they needed Bush’s signature on the bill...
...We’ll be hearing more of this from the president: “Iran was a threat...
...They insisted that, if elected, they’d begin withdrawing troops, whatever condition Iraq is in...
...Democrats tried to limit his fl exibility on Iraq, but failed...
...Bush’s power—indeed, any president’s —comes from the Constitution, not from opinion polls or the number of months left in his White House tenure...
...He laid down principles that should be followed in combating climate change and said elected offi cials should determine the policy to follow, not unelected judges or bureaucrats...
...And he’s committed to using it...
...That’s what he said in January...
...When Bush recently announced a pause in troop withdrawals this summer, Democrats complained noisily but could do nothing about it...
...As commander in chief, Bush defi ed the Democratic Congress, the political wisdom of Washington, and public opinion in ordering the surge of an additional 30,000 combat troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy...
...For months now, the buzz in Washington has been about Bush’s ability to go about his presidential business and remain upbeat and determined...
...I’m not so sure...
...Start with Iraq...
...They made this mistake in Bill Clinton’s case, and they’re making it again now...
...He can exploit the presidential megaphone to express his views and raise alarms, and his power to issue administrative decrees is signifi cant as well...
...He’s a lame duck...
...During a TV debate last week, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did nothing to encourage hope on this score...
...So Bush will play a major role in shaping, or blocking, global warming legislation, just as he did when an Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...And Iran will continue to be a threat if they are allowed to learn how to enrich uranium...
...Bush lacks popularity, but he has plenty of power...
...Democrats scoffed...
...He is commander in chief and architect of America’s foreign policy...
...Will the next president lift this order, thus prompting more earmarks...
...economic “stimulus” package was enacted in February...
...Now they’ve given up...
...Iran is a threat...
...The media have yet to realize this...
...And Iranian offi cials have responded to the possibility of an Israeli attack on their nuclear sites by hardening and hiding the plants...
...He didn’t mention a veto...
...Bush’s aim now is more modest: speak out loudly in hopes of infl uencing Europeans and others to back tougher measures to force Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions...
...Bush has two goals in Iraq...
...But they usually aren’t...
...The order covered the majority of the thousands of pork-barrel earmarks passed by Congress...
...Last week, he delivered a speech in the Rose Garden on global warming...
...Bush, however, believes they’d change their mind upon receiving their fi rst intelligence briefi ng in the Oval Offi ce about threats around the world...
...Its aim is to stall the implementation of many earmarks, perhaps forever, and to kill many others...
...Certainly Bush has...
...He wants his successor to conclude, in other words, that Iraq is worth America’s support...
...At one time or another, every president fi gures out that executive orders are underrated as a tool of White House power...
...Nonetheless, they must take Bush’s view seriously if they want to pass legislation...
...Of course it’s true that presidential orders can be revoked by subsequent presidents...
Vol. 13 • April 2008 • No. 31
