The chattering classes can afford to relax about North Korea because we know the real target is Iraq. At a breakfast briefing earlier this month with a Defense Department official, the moderator asked the lawyers, lobbyists, business types and journalists in attendance for a show of hands: Would America be at war with Iraq within a year? Just about every hand went up. Most pundits and policymakers in Washington figure the Bush administration will take military action against Iraq within six months–just in time for the fall elections. That would smash Democratic hopes of turning the country’s attention to domestic issues where Bush might be vulnerable.
Yet Democrats don’t dare suggest that Bush might be wagging the dog and exploiting the war on terrorism for political gain. Patriotic fervor for Bush as war president is still at a fever pitch. He may garble words as he did this week, confusing “devaluation” with “deflation” and sending the Japanese yen into a nose-dive. But he has had no trouble communicating since September 11. Bush’s “axis of evil” remark is destined for the history books, alongside President Reagan’s “evil empire.” A President’s Day poll of greatest presidents ranked Bush third, behind Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.
Democrats comfort themselves with the conviction that Bush’s stratospheric poll ratings cannot be sustained. But in the dark of night, they worry that maybe this guy is for real. He’s no Jack Kennedy, but he may be too close for comfort. When Kennedy met with Soviet President Krushchev, the intelligentsia worried that Kennedy, a dilettante playboy, was in over his head. Even former President Truman fretted publicly that Kennedy wasn’t up to the job of being president. The rest, of course, is history.
Bush’s approval ratings will come down. In one poll, he’s at 75 percent. “We’re tanking!” quips an aide. Bush is vulnerable on the environment and his handling of the economy, but the reputation he once had as a shallow party animal was left behind in the dust of the World Trade Center. Bush will continue to keep the war on terrorism front-and-center. He believes in it, and it works politically. Whether he has coattails that can help Republican candidates this fall is another question. A survey done by the Pew Center suggests there is no carryover, but that doesn’t seem to perturb the White House. “I wouldn’t be pouring any champagne if Republicans take the Senate and keep the House,” says a Bush strategist. For Bush, who packages himself as a compassionate conservative and a centrist, having such retros as Tom DeLay and Trent Lott at the top of the heap is a nightmare. If the Democrats are in charge, Bush would be in a stronger position with the voters, who seem to prefer divided government.
Former President Bush’s victory in the Gulf War and his sky-high poll numbers were a distant memory when he was running for reelection just 18 months later. But voters won’t forget September 11. The third anniversary of the terrorist attacks will occur just weeks ahead of the 2004 presidential vote, and Bush will keep those memories fresh. “He’s not beating the war drums for political purposes, although it serves his political purposes,” says an administration official. “It’s his belief. We’re not going to attack North Korea. We are going to attack Iraq, not today, not tomorrow, but we’re not going to let that sit. He will do it because he has the ability to do it–militarily, strategically, politically and personally. The man tried to kill his father.”
We have not had a total war since World War II, and it could happen again if Bush continues on the path he has set toward reshaping the geopolitical world into an American global empire. Reminded of Colin Powell’s words that nobody has yet come to him with a plan to topple Saddam, the Defense Department official cautioned his questioner, “Just because it’s hard, don’t assume we won’t do it.”
The president who used to get that deer-in-the-headlights look is now so confident that he could be his own worst enemy. Afghanistan was easy. But war without end is not a policy; it’s asking for trouble.
IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE
GOP Whip Tom DeLay wasted no time in congratulating Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi for the way she kept her troops in line for a string of votes on campaign-finance reform, any one of which could have killed the bill. “Very, very impressive for your maiden voyage,” DeLay told Pelosi the next morning. Overhearing the compliment, Democrat Barney Frank quipped, “It’s been a long time since Nancy Pelosi was a maiden.”
The tensest time for Pelosi occurred during the debate over an amendment that would have exempted the National Rifle Association from the reform bill’s ban on interest-group advertising for candidates sixty days before an election. The NRA was scoring the vote, meaning the gun group would include it when they ranked lawmakers’ standings with the group. Some Southern Democrats enjoy 100% ratings with the NRA and didn’t want to tarnish their record. If enough defected, the GOP could prevail. Delay knew full well the problem this posed for Pelosi. She could see him looking up at the Speaker, signaling him to keep the vote open as long as there was hope of gaining converts. When it became clear he had lost, Delay moved his hand across his throat to cut off the voting. Pelosi had “hammered the hammer,” noted a New York Times editorial.
