[Dialogue] What Bush Threw Away

[jim rippey]

Here are my excerpts of today's E.J. Dionne Jr. column in the Washington Post.  The full article is at 
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17262-2004Nov1.html?referrer=email

What Bush Threw Away, By E. J. Dionne Jr., wp 1102-04


In the days after Sept. 11, Democrats put aside their suspicions of Bush and rallied to his side. "We will speak with one voice," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle declared on that awful day. "All of us stand with the president," said Sen. Joe Biden. And stand with the president we all did.... Back then I thought Bush had an enormous political opportunity that matched the nation's interest: to build a wide, sustainable, Eisenhower-like Republican majority. The country was waiting for a call to service, sacrifice and solidarity. It didn't want the old ideological politics.

But Bush interpreted his prodigious approval ratings not as an opportunity for something new but as a chance to push the same ideological agenda he was pursuing before Sept. 11. It was a chance to create a Republican majority in Congress in the 2002 elections. It was a chance to push through even more tax cuts, and never mind the deficits created by all that new spending. If the Senate, facing the 2002 elections, could be badgered into giving the president broad authority to wage war against Saddam Hussein, why not short-circuit a more searching debate and just grab the power?.... 

And thus were the last vestiges of the unity achieved on Sept. 11 wiped off the face of our politics. If holding power meant reaching this ultimate in guilt-by-association (and more respectable conservative commentators were offering similar thoughts in a more respectable way), then go right ahead and use bin Laden to win the election. The mess can be cleaned up later. But the mess will not be easily cleaned up. Unity will not be easily restored. The willingness of the president's camp to slander the opposition will not be easily forgotten.... It's a shame, really. Bush could have been a great president. He was for several months. He chose instead to be the leader of a party and a faction. However this election turns out, that's what he'll still be on Nov. 3.