Just spotted this headline in the early edition of tomorrow's Post at the supermarket.
Hopes for Civility in Capital Dashed
Tone of Discourse Worse Than Ever, Partisans Say
By Dana Milbank and David S. Broder
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 18, 2004; Page A01
Thirty-seven months ago, President-elect George W. Bush stood in the Texas House chamber and called for the nation's leaders to "put politics behind us and work together" after the bitter Florida recount.
"I am optimistic that we can change the tone in Washington, D.C.," he said after the Supreme Court cemented his victory. "I believe things happen for a reason, and I hope the long wait of the last five weeks will heighten a desire to move beyond the bitterness and partisanship of the recent past. Our nation must rise above a house divided."
But as Bush begins the final year of his term with Tuesday night's State of the Union address, partisans on both sides say the tone of political discourse is as bad as ever -- if not worse.
Democrats complain that they have been shut out of all legislative action and that those who challenge Bush have their patriotism questioned and may be accused of aiding terrorists. Republicans counter that Democrats seem intent on blocking all Bush initiatives and are running a presidential primary campaign based on personal attacks on the president.
There have been moments of civility, such as the crafting of bipartisan education legislation and the national unity that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But those moments have been overtaken by bitterness.
Early in the term, "I had high hopes for Bush" changing the tone, said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), a voice of civility in Congress. "We were on the high road then, but now I think we've hit an all-time low."
Just this past week, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who collaborated with Bush in drafting the education bill, delivered a blistering speech calling the Bush administration "breathtakingly arrogant," dishonest, "vindictive and mean-spirited." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) fired back that Kennedy's "hateful attack against the commander in chief would be disgusting if it were not so sad."
Democrats blame Bush and his Republican allies in Congress. "President Bush said he wanted to change the tone in Washington, and I think he has: I think it's gotten worse," Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) has said. "I think it's more acrimonious, I think it's more confrontational, I think it's far more bitterly partisan, and I think he has a big share of the responsibility for the fact that it is what it is."
Republicans, though not blaming Bush, generally agree that civility has not improved. "Since the Clinton years, everything has become a shootout at high noon, and there are many fewer mornings in America," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan.
What went so wrong with Bush's pledge to change the tone? Lawmakers and officials from this and previous administrations say the push for civility was derailed both by structural evolutions in the U.S. political system and by a lack of will among the nation's leaders -- who, naturally, blame each other.
Republicans, and even some Democrats, say there is little that Bush could have done to restore civility. With the two parties at near parity and more ideologically polarized than at any other time in modern history, every issue has the potential to provoke a showdown, and the opposition has little incentive to cooperate. But it is also clear that Bush did not make his pledge to change the tone a top priority.
Democrats, and some independent observers, say that if Bush had been serious about changing the tone in Washington, he would have sought to reach common ground with his opponents, and not just use civil words while forcing an unyielding agenda on them. Starting with Bush's first tax cut and extending through the response to terrorism and the Iraq war, he has been uncompromising, they say. "It's his way or no way," said Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate minority whip. "He's a man who campaigned on having a better relationship, and it's exactly the opposite of what he said he would do. I've never served with anybody who is so uncooperative."
Thomas E. Mann, a government scholar with the Brookings Institution, said Bush surrendered any hope of restoring civility when he decided to push his undiluted agenda despite the historically close 2000 election. "He had opportunities to make some headway in that regard, but in every case he decided he had higher priorities," Mann said. "He might have considered some changes from campaign platform. Instead, he picked one issue, education, but for everything else, he played hardball."
White House officials, for their part, believe Bush has made good on his pledge to change the tone. "From my vantage point, I think it [the tone] is different and better," said Bush's communications director, Dan Bartlett. "Our expectations were we'd focus on what we could do to change the tone," Bartlett said. "Has every entity in Washington followed that lead? No, but the president's obligation is to uphold that standard himself."
Bartlett noted that Bush put a Democrat in his Cabinet -- Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta -- and worked with Kennedy on education. "He's constantly going to talk about what he's for or who he's for, not what or who he's against," he said.
There is some evidence that Americans perceive Bush has, indeed, brought more comity to the capital. In the December Washington Post-ABC News poll, a majority of Americans, 58 percent, said Bush had done more to unite than to divide the country. On the question of whether Bush had "brought needed change to Washington," the public was split: 47 percent said yes, 48 percent said no.
Still, even some in the administration say -- anonymously, of course -- that Bush could have done more. "Efforts to improve the public tone of debate are inseparable from having healthier bipartisan cooperation," one senior administration official said. Instead of emphasizing tax cuts and other polarizing elements of his agenda, this official said, Bush could have built "trust and goodwill" by pursuing more broadly appealing initiatives. But in the White House, one former Bush aide said, "they relished the 'us versus them' thing."
Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, wonders whether Bush was ever serious about fundamentally changing the tone when he vowed to do so in 2000. "It struck me that it was the right thing for a candidate to say, because it was what many people hope to see happen," Gingrich (Ga.) said. "I was curious whether, in order to make it happen, he would move to center, as [President Dwight D.] Eisenhower transcended normal partisanship." Gingrich quickly learned that Bush would not follow the Eisenhower model.
Bush's allies say a more conciliatory approach to governing would only have weakened the president and strengthened the opposition, which was already in a sour mood because of the Florida recount. "Had he changed his agenda because of the election circumstances, it would have meant a weak presidency," said Vin Weber, a former GOP House member who is close to the White House. "It would have damaged him with his own base and not gotten him that much help from Democrats."
Democrats are particularly critical of Bush for his response to the 2001 terrorist attacks after the first few months of national unity. They say he used his popularity to bully them on the budget, taxes and the environment. "The tone changes as long as you're having a monologue," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a former Clinton aide. "If you question them one iota, they challenge your patriotism."
Democrats were stung by the fight with Bush over competing versions of homeland security legislation, which became part of the 2002 campaign. Bush claimed that his opponents in the Senate were "more interested in special interests . . . than they are in protecting the American people." They resent his celebration of the GOP's "positive" campaign of 2002, including a Georgia Senate race in which a Democratic incumbent who lost three limbs in the Vietnam War was portrayed as aiding Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Since regaining control of the Senate that year, the Republican leadership in Congress has used its control of both chambers to exclude all Democrats from the conference committee writing energy legislation. On the Medicare prescription drug legislation, all House Democrats were banned from the conference committee, as were all but two Senate Democrats. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House minority leader, said Republican leaders "are disenfranchising 130 million Americans" who live in districts represented by Democrats.
Republicans, in turn, say it is the Democrats who are making cooperation impossible. Republicans are still furious over the Democrats' secret recruitment of Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), shifting power from Senate Republicans in 2001.
Republicans have their own list of complaints, such as Democratic filibusters that have blocked Bush judicial nominees and initiatives such as energy legislation and efforts to limit class-action and medical liability lawsuits.
"The Democrats have gone to extreme lengths, more than we ever used to do, to block things," said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to the White House.
Like many Republicans, Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), the House majority whip, says the Democrats in Washington have been persuaded to be less civil by the success of presidential candidate Howard Dean, who has incessantly attacked Bush on the campaign trail. "I can't think of a situation where there has been so much criticism of the incumbent by the other party's presidential candidates," he said. "Now you listen to the Democrats, and Bush is evil personified."
Whatever the cause, most people involved in the debate agree that Bush's pledge to restore civility will likely not be met until one party or the other gains a true governing majority. "You look at closeness in 2000; each side has been in a position to say, if we just do this or that, we can get back on top," said Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate majority whip. "If either party were to get a substantial advantage, you'd get a higher level of cooperation. If we expand our majority this year, there will be a greater number of Democrats ready to cooperate, as opposed to the crash-and-burn psychology of the moment."
The situation in the House is much the same. Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a Bush ally who sometimes gets scolded by conservatives for his efforts to work with Democrats, notes that the shift of a mere 48,000 votes in the 2002 elections could have given control of the House to the Democrats. "We could do with a little more deft touch," he says of his fellow Republicans, "but there is no interest among Democrats in making the place work smoothly because they think that by holding us up so we fail, they have a real shot of taking the majority back."
Many lawmakers and veterans of previous Congresses and administrations say the challenge Bush faces in restoring civility in Washington is far greater than the situation he confronted as governor of Texas, with its relative homogeneity and conservative politics. These lawmakers and officials point to changes in Congress since the mid-1970s that have made civility and cooperation exceedingly difficult. Redistricting has led to the loss of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, ideologically polarizing the two parties and producing far more party-line votes. At the same time, the competition for television air time rewards lawmakers who are more inflammatory.
All of these factors leave both Democrats and Republicans predicting more vitriol, at least through November's elections. LaHood, the moderate Republican from Illinois, predicts a year of "one-upmanship" in Washington. "This will be as political a year in Congress and as nasty as we've seen," he said. "I think we're in for a long, hard, partisan session." |
