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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (156868)	7/1/2001 2:02:33 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 769667

The First 162 Days Sunday, July 1, 2001; Page B06 EXCEEDING expectations: That was the first story line for the Bush administration. You remember -- this was an administration of adults. Competent, accomplished, leak-free and disciplined, they were political craftsmen, or maybe above politics altogether. But that was months ago. Now the polls are slipping and the story line has changed: Through arrogance and ineptitude, the Bush people have lost control of the Senate and the agenda. They're enduring bipartisan spankings on oil drilling in Florida and the Great Lakes. From here to 2004 will be one slow slide. As with most such Washington caricatures, there's some truth in each, but a lot that gets left out. No doubt President Bush and some of his advisers overestimated early on the similarities between Austin and Washington. Congress proved less wieldy than the Texas legislature. Reality trumped ideology on matters as diverse as energy conservation and hobnobbing with the North Koreans. But Mr. Bush won the tax cut, mostly on his own terms. If he gets from conference an education reform bill with real testing and accountability provisions, he will have two sizable domestic accomplishments in his first half-year or so -- not bad for a minority president working with a divided Congress. A question going forward will be what else the president wants -- what does he really care about? He can be a blocker, of course, as President Clinton often was -- in Mr. Bush's case, of campaign finance reform, workplace safety and HMO regulation, minimum wage hikes. But he proclaims other big plans: defense reform, NATO expansion, Social Security overhaul, government support of religious charities, a more conservative judiciary, an energy policy tilted toward production. The president's relative level of commitment to these is unclear, and each will inspire intense opposition. One roadblock to future success will be his first accomplishment. The tax cut, if unchanged, will leave few resources for other initiatives, such as transforming the military. Much of the next three years may be spent with Mr. Bush and the Democrats each accusing the other of playing games with lockboxes and other accounting devices while hoping no one notices their own side's fiscal tricks. That's especially so if the economy continues to weaken -- which itself may have more to say about Mr. Bush's success and popularity than any policy question. © 2001 The Washington Post Company