Good news, bad news, and some disinterested analysis

Sandy Levinson

1. The good news: There are now fewer than two years remaining in the Bush Presidency.

2. The bad news: There remain 730 days of the Bush Presidency.

Disinterested analysis:

In trying to figure out what the last two years of the Bush Administration will be like, espcially with regard to domestic policy issues, I have found myself wondering about what may a limit to the Darryl (no relation) Levinson thesis that I have strongly endorsed over the past year or so. That thesis, of course, is that the congressional members of the President's party roll over and play dead with regard to significant oversight or opposition even to what they believe is misguided policy. I continue to think that that is largely true as a firsti-cut explanation for the 108th and 109th Congresses that were totally controlled by the Republicans.

But things might be considerably more interesting in the 110 Congress, and not only because a bunch of Republicans clearly believe that too-close identification with "their" President might be fatal to their own chances for re-election. (And isn't it interesting that two of the three Republican senators who are running for presidency, Brownback and Hagel, have split with Bush on his conduct of the War?) Rather, I find myself wondering how much Bush really cares all that much about the health of the Republican Party, as against burnishing his own now-dreadful legacy.

A George Bush who might run for re-election might also have relatively little incentive to compromise with Democrats and instead draw firm lines in the domestic sand that could be useful in the coming campaign. But there's not going to be a coming campaign. He's out on Jan. 20, 2009 (oh happy day!), and presumably he wants to leave as something other than the most reviled president in our history. So how might he do that? One answer is by returning to his 'Texas governor" strategy, where he was indeed, relatively speaking, a uniter and not a divider, who in no very strong way pandered to the DeLay wing of the Texas Republican Party. (One of my own confessions is that I left my ballot blank in the 1998 gubernatorial election, since the Democratic candidate attacked Bush from the right (!) because he had commuted the death sentence of a mass murderer simply because the murderer clearly did not commit the particular murder for which he has been sentenced to death. According to Gary Mauro, it didn't matter, because he had confessed to other murders (for which he had not received the death sentence).) In fact, Bush did the right thing, and he hadn't done so much that was clearly wrong that I was willing to swallow hard and vote for Mauro. So I left my ballot blank. When Bush was handed the White House in elected in 2000, I assumed, both because of the "objective situation" and his demonstrated proclivities as Governor, that he would be a center-rightist. We know that didn't happen, in part because of being convinced by Rove and others that a "play to the base" strategy would be most successful. And so it was, for a while....

But playing to the base, when one isn't running for re-election, is a terrible strategy if one is trying actually to accomplish anything and burnish one's reputation, especially, obviously, if Congress is now controlled by the Democrats. So the long and short of my "disinterested analysis" is to ask exactly what incentive Bush has to continue to be Mr. Obdurate with regard to Democratic proposals? Why exactly shouldn't he sell out conservative congressional Republicans, who increasingly have nothing to give Bush beyond the ability to uphold his vetoes? But to leave the White House in 2009 as a combination of "Mr. Iraq disaster" and "Mr. Naysayer to progressive Democratic legislation" (much of which, incidentally, will have the support at least of "blue-state Republicans" panicked about the upcoming election) doesn't seem to all that attractive a possibility.

It is possible, of course, that Bush has deep convictions on domestic policy issues (such as stem cell research). It is also possible that he has deep convictions about sacrificing his own "historical interests" in being other than one of the five-worst presidents of all time (contending with Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, and James Madison). But, to put it mildly, Mr. Bush does not seem to be into self-sacrifice.

Bill Kristol made a great deal of political sense, alas, in 1993 when he advised Republicans in Congress to stiff-arm Clinton on medical care reform unless they wanted to hand the presidency to the Democrats for the foreseeable future. Democrats may have their own incentives not to compromise with Bush on the grounds that they want to lay the grounds for a 2008 campaign based on a "sweeping clean" of of the Bush legacy. But, as already suggested, aren't Bush's incentives, at least in the domestic arena, to compromise like mad? Is this why he has suddenly reversed course on FISA (much to the dismay of National Review)? Is this why he is even willing to countenance what is in fact a tax increase, though quite possibly a dumb one, to pay for medical insurance coverage of those who are now without?

Needless to say, I still believe he is the most incompetent President in our history and I continue to dislike the Constitution for not giving us the ability to evict him from the White House. But I don't rule out that he may surprise us in the next two years for the most self-interested (instead of Party-interested) of reasons. So, in summary, if I were a Republican, I would be very, very scared of what the next two years will bring, as distinct from the way that I am scared simply as an American.
Posted 1:45 PM by Sandy Levinson [link]