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

To: kvkkc1 who wrote (183689)	9/19/2001 7:58:58 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769670

See my edit.....

To: kvkkc1 who wrote (183689)	9/19/2001 7:59:42 AM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 769670

September 19, 2001 A New Presidency So much for Florida, and Jim Jeffords's Senate betrayal too. Those teapot tempests happened in a different country a long time ago. In the wake of last week's terror attacks, most Americans are putting their trust in President Bush and want him to succeed. This gives him an historic opportunity to assert his leadership, not just on security and foreign policy but across the board. The White House temptation will be to subjugate everything else to the priority of getting bipartisan support for the war on terrorism. This is the mistake the President's father made during the Gulf War, agreeing to raise taxes in 1990 because he felt he couldn't challenge the same Democratic Congress he needed to vote for war against Saddam Hussein. His father, of course, had the disadvantage of having to build support for his war effort and only reached a 90% job approval rating after he won in the Persian Gulf. George W. Bush now finds himself in far better political circumstances, with nearly universal public support before he undertakes any military action. The public will not soon want to hear from critics who appear to be angling for partisan gain. This means that for the next few months Mr. Bush will have enormous political capital to do whatever he says must be done to help the war effort and buttress national strength. But the lesson of history is that Presidents must spend political capital or they will lose it. And when they spend it and win, they accumulate even more capital. Moreover, the assault on U.S. territory has altered the national dialogue in a way that makes Mr. Bush's agenda far more achievable. Domestic matters are less pressing than national defense, and cultural disputes will give way to the goal of re-energizing the national and global economies. The welfare-state issues that often benefit liberals, in short, are being replaced as priorities by the more fundamental questions of peace and prosperity. First and foremost Mr. Bush has an opportunity to rebuild the nation's defenses. This seemed impossible only eight days ago, but now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is likely to get all the money he needs. Much of that will go, as it should, for urgent military tasks. But Congress is also likely to agree to a major downpayment on modernizing a military still operating under Cold War modes of thought. Throughout history the periods of greatest military innovation have been wars. Now is the time to push for money for next-generation weaponry and electronics that will keep the U.S. well ahead of not just terrorists but all adversaries. Democracies are reluctant to spend money on defense in peacetime, but in a war they will give the military whatever it needs. Americans also know that a strong economy is essential to any war effort, and this also gives Mr. Bush a big opportunity. In particular, the phony "trust fund'' constraints on fiscal policy have fallen with the Trade Center towers, opening as much as $150 billion a year in surplus for pro-growth tax cuts. The temptation here will be to settle for a lowest common denominator stimulus, for the sake of bipartisanship. But Democrats will be wary of opposing measures that Mr. Bush insists are necessary for growth. Already Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, has said he's willing to look at new tax cuts. In return for spending that Democrats surely want, Mr. Bush has a chance to insist on faster tax-rate cuts that would increase the incentive to invest not just next week but for years ahead. This will help restore business and stock-market confidence. The transformed political landscape should also boost other Bush initiatives. Turmoil in the Mideast helps make the case for more domestic energy production, including drilling for oil in Alaska. With the world economy slumping, trade also needs a lift and so Mr. Bush's request for free-trade negotiating authority is likely to be easier. Mr. Bush can also now demand a complete government as soon as possible, including judicial nominees. Last week the Senate whipped John Negroponte through to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, after months of Democratic stalling. If nothing else, Mr. Bush can insist that the Senate give his nominees quick up or down votes, so he can appoint others for the jobs. As for judges, we suspect Democrats in the Senate will hesitate to carry out Borkings that clearly undercut Mr. Bush's leadership. We aren't saying that a crisis should stop political debate, and over time it surely won't. But the bloody attacks have created a unique political moment when Americans of all stars and stripes are uniting behind their President. Voters will have less patience for Washington's partisan parlor games. Mr. Bush won't help himself if he seems to be exploiting this moment of national unity for narrow partisan goals. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't use the moment to press a broad agenda that he believes is in the national interest. We recall visiting Mr. Bush in Austin in December 1999, when he was planning his Presidential run. One of us asked him why his father had lost his bid for re-election. The son's answer was that when his father was at 90% approval after his Gulf War victory, he didn't spend the political capital on a big agenda. We trust the current President Bush remembers that lesson.