There’s no question that George W. Bush’s presidency has been one of the least successful in American history. Even as far back as 2004, a History News Network poll showed that 81 percent of historians called Bush a failure. But even those historians gave him high marks for his cooperation with Congress. A lot’s happened since then, namely that midterm election, which gave Democrats control of Congress. Now Bush is gearing up for a showdown of 300-style proportions with the Senate over the Iraq war.
The war has grown increasingly unpopular as more American troops are killed each day, so Congressional democrats saw fit to set a deadline of Sept. 1, 2008 for the troops to come home. Sneaky devils that they are, they attached the deadline to the latest troop funding bill. Why? Put simply…
Bush doesn’t like the troop deadline (deadline = resignation in his eyes). Bush will veto the troop deadline. The American people like funding the troops (it’s that whole yellow ribbon, we love our troops thing). It looks bad when you veto troop funding. So what’s a president to do?
The president has been gathering his allies, calling the GOP congressional caucus to the White House to make sure they’ll support him if/when he vetoes the bill. He’s also taken the offensive, calling the Dems irresponsible for riding the troop deadline with the funding bill.
The Senate is on recess until April 16 (their break schedule is ridiculous, for the record), so no progress is expected for a couple of weeks. But this coming battle is dominating the news now, since it may well be the defining moment of Bush’s second term.
Like any great battle, both sides in this one have hubris and neither will back down. If Bush vetoes the bill, it’s likely the Dems won’t be able to gather enough Republican support to override the veto, effectively removing the troop deadline from any future discussion. But Bush still goes down as the guy who vetoed troop funding, putting an “asterisk” on his record, in the words of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (so now the president is like Barry Bonds?).
Either way, this officially marks the end of Bush’s alliance with Congress, a standout feature of his presidency. Long gone are the days when Congress would back his measures no questions asked (see: Patriot Act). He’s fast becoming a lone wolf in Washington, lacking the political allies to pass legislation. If Congress shows their spine in this fight, we can expect them to do even more if Bush nominates federal judges, tries to extend the war, legislates on a social issue or even changes the name of a food. He would become a lame duck before a new president is even nominated. This power shift on Pennsylvania Avenue would solidify Bush’s ranking as a failure, putting us under one of the weakest presidents ever. And a weakening presidential power system could change the face of politics, putting more power in the hands of our Congressmen — and that means more power closer to us.