Bush's Relations With Capitol Hill Chilly
Despite President's Efforts to Reach Out, Democrats and Republicans Are Wary
By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 13, 2007; Page A05
Every few weeks, President Bush invites House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and their GOP counterparts to the White House for a discussion of Iraq and other issues of the day. By the accounts of those in the room, the meetings are gracious, formal -- and rarely productive.
Sitting at a table in the Cabinet Room, Bush generally offers an opening statement, turns to Pelosi and then Reid for their views, and usually gives Republicans the last word. Vice President Cheney often sits in, saying nothing. There is usually little genuine back-and-forth before the leaders emerge for a media stakeout outside the West Wing.
The meetings underscore the chasm that continues to divide the White House and Congress, even as the president has tried to reach out more aggressively to a branch of government he seemed to disdain for much of his first six years in office. Despite months of forced bonhomie -- prompted by the GOP loss of Congress last fall -- little trust has grown between Bush and the congressional Democrats, according to officials at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The trouble for the White House is that increasingly, the mistrust may not be not limited to Democrats. As evidenced by a contentious Bush meeting last week with House moderates complaining about Iraq policy, Republican lawmakers are increasingly leery of a president whose war policies many believe are leading the party to ruin in the 2008 elections. The result is that the president finds himself in an uphill struggle not only to win a few domestic victories on his way out of the Oval Office but also to maintain necessary GOP support for continuing the war in Iraq.
"They talk about reaching out, but the administration is having difficulty now that there is no longer one-party government," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), one of Pelosi's closest advisers in the House.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democratic leaders have been disappointed by the tough rhetoric coming from the White House on Iraq and Pelosi's recent trip to Syria. He and Pelosi had a "very positive" lunch at the White House soon after the election, Hoyer said, in which both sides expressed a real desire to work together, but today "the speaker believes that has not necessarily occurred."
In an interview Friday, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten said he believes the president is beginning to develop a working relationship with Reid, Pelosi and other Democrats, and dismissed concerns about the president's wavering support among Republicans on Capitol Hill. "I could have seen a scenario in which Republicans would be blaming the president for being in the minority status and trying to distance themselves aggressively from the president, and I don't see it happening," he said.
Bolten said he understands that there are disagreements among Republicans and praised what he described as the constructive tone of last Tuesday's White House meeting with GOP congressmen concerned about Iraq. "The only thing that went wrong with the meeting was when someone had the poor judgment to talk about it outside when it was clearly meant to be an in-the- family discussion," he said.
But one conservative House Republican with close ties to the leadership said the concerns expressed by the congressmen in the meeting were widely shared across ideologies. "That wasn't the Tuesday Group speaking," he said, referring to an organization of moderate GOP legislators. "No, that's the Republican sentiment."
Even as Iraq dominates the debate, the White House is working hard behind the scenes to salvage a domestic agenda, sending key Cabinet secretaries and aides to negotiate on issues such as agriculture and energy. Last week brought the first major bipartisan deal of the new Congress -- a House plan to clear trade deals with Peru and Panama and possibly larger deals as well. Officials also think they may be close to a deal on immigration in the Senate, where lawmakers from both parties have been closeted for weeks with senior administration officials to craft a bill that would create a system of guest workers, enhance border security and create a pathway to legal status for those here illegally.
"We are trying to build some trust where trust didn't exist," said Candida Wolff, the White House's legislative affairs director.
Despite the forceful rhetoric he has aimed at Capitol Hill in the war funding debate, Bush has also been on something of a charm offensive. He has wooed Democrats he never bothered to woo before while trying to repair relations with Republicans who say the White House takes them for granted. His staff has made more time in his schedule for informal sessions with groups of lawmakers, and Bush has applied his personal touch with key leaders, inviting Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to ride on Air Force One when the president visited a charter school in Harlem.
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