I always thought politics was about cooperation and compromise on some level, and yet the Bush Administration has been getting its way for some time with only the most minimal nods made toward toward bipartisan cooperation . That’s obviously changed somewhat with the results of the recent election being absorbed.
What was the motivating political instinct for the belligerent 'My way or the highway" attitude of the Bush Administration over his term as President. What was the realpolitik calculation that made this non-cooperative attitude seem like a good idea?
Bush has been somewhat bipartisan. Two of his most controversial legislative achievements – the Patriot Act and the No Child Left Behind Act – were both supported very strongly by Democrats at the time. In fact, the NCLB Act is much more in line with what Ted Kennedy (then the head of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee) wanted than what Bush wanted.
Well, if you’ve lived your whole life cushioned because of a rich daddy and his friends who fix all your screwups…well, nobody has ever made him play nice before, and he had six whole years of bending over the whole country. It’s new to him, I’m sure he’ll master it as soon as he sees a subpeona (ie. never).
Whatever. Bush was known for working well with Democrats in Texas when he was Governor. Of course, those Democrats were probably more conservative than national Democrats and were more willing to be bipartisan themselves.
Perhaps we should also ask why Democrats chose not to be at least somewhat bipartisan during the last six years?
Bipartisan compromise means occasionally doing something you don’t want to do in order to achieve agreement on some other goal you want. It’s natural for most people to not do something they don’t want to if they don’t have to. Bush, for the first six years of his Presidential administration, was in a political situation where he didn’t have to make any agreements with the Democrats.
The No Child Left Behind Act, HR 1, on the other hand, did have overwhelmingly bipartisan support: R 183–33, D/I 198–8. The Patriot Act, HR 3162, somewhat less so, with Republicans voting to approve 211–3 but Democrats/Independents 146–63.
But the 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act, HR 3199, also doesn’t pass the “majority support” bipartisanship test, with Republicans approving 214–14 and Democrats/Independents rejecting 43–157.
IANAPresident Bush, but if I had to guess, I’d say that it was a combination of the facts that 1) cooperation and compromise are political tools that are useful for getting opponents to agree to let you have some things your way, and the republicans didn’t need the Democrats agreement to have things their way, and 2) the republicans have a large established support base that supports them because “they vote Republican”. Striving for moderation would offend this electorate and lose support from it, and the potential alternative gain in support from moderates is an unknown factor, perhaps not percieved as worth sabotaging their existing support or their actual goals for.
His triumph in the 2000 Election, wherein he very nearly captured 50% of the popular vote was certainly a beginning point. But in 2004, he acheived a crushing landslide of a mandate, ensuring that 51% of the population was utterly devoted to The Leader and the rest weren’t Real Americans. The recent elections were merely a mid-point adjustment, happens all the time, and besides, all the Dems elected were really conservatives and his approval ratings only reflect a failure to communicate. That’s what we have here, a failure to communicate.
In six months, when the Sunni and Shia are dancing around the maypole together and singing “Kumbayallah”, and our heroes return triumphant, I hope to lead the effort to have the GW Presidential Library located in Baghdad.
That’s what he always said when he was calling himself “a uniter, not a divider.” Which he hasn’t done in quite some time.
As noted, Bush got a lot of what he wanted in the early years, often without substantial Democratic opposition. Maybe, later on, they got tired of the whole “if it’s up to you guys, we’ll get attacked again” thing.
The White House and the Congress got a long to a better degree than most people realize. However, when you have a fairly commanding majority in both houses, there are limits to how bipartisan you need to be. FDR wasn’t that bipartisan, nor did he have to be.
Bush would compromise with Dems when he needed their support in the past, since they didn’t have a legislative majority, however, he got to set the tone of things. What did this cost him? Nothing. If he hadn’t done this, it’s not like the Dems would be extra-nice to him now. The Dems have to work with him, he’s President, however sore they may be that Bush didn’t let their opinions win out every time over the past six years can’t really factor in, because with the veto he insures they have to compromise with him just as much as he has to compromise with them.
Sure, if they control the White House and both branches of Congress, other wise the comparison isn’t apt because it isn’t the same situation for the Dems as it was for Bush the last six years… Contrary to popular belief, the Democrats didn’t reverse their situation overnight, before the election Republicans controlled both houses of congress and the White House, now they control both houses of a congress. Any simple observations as to how legislation gets passed in this country makes it quite obvious that a certain White House resident that you love so much still has to be at the table if you want to get anything done whatsoever. Or they can spend two years in grid lock (which isn’t necessarily bad from the stand point of a voter, unless said grid lock involves government shut downs ala the Clinton years.)
FWIW if people took a step back (which most can’t) you’d recognize most legislation isn’t that partisan, nor is most of the work the government does. The Democrats and the Republicans worked together significantly throughout the first six years. Did Bush roll them over when a controversial piece of legislation came up that they opposed? You bet he did, that’s partisan politics, and while I said most legislation isn’t that partisan, some of it is extremely partisan and you can’t really expect much less than using your position of power to its fullest advantage. Because said positions of power do not last forever, as history has shown us many times, if you don’t play your hand then you’re not really playing the game very well.
The Dems should certainly use their muscle, but they still don’t have near as much as the GOP did for the last six years or so. Of course the Dems actually have controlled the Senate earlier in Bush’s Presidency, and amazingly his legislative initiatives seemed to get through the Democratic Senate from time to time too, weird, huh?
Because he didn’t need to and it was good politics for him not to. Under Rovian political philosophy, you play to the base and screw everyone else. If not working with Democrats makes them mad, so what? The True Believers love you for it.
I suppose there’s nothing unusual about a politician being exposed for hypocricy, but it’s worth noting that for all the lip service Bush gave to being “a uniter, not a divider,” he sure did plenty of dividing and showed no interest at all in uniting. The more cynical machiavellians might say that Bush didn’t really have to work with the Democrats, which is essentially true, but the fact that he didn’t, even though he said he would, amounts to a breach of promise. Bush promised to do this during the 2000 election but neglected to, once he took office, so he took advantage of the voters who wanted to see him do that. He lied to them.
Considering the nature of the Republican Party, I can’t imagine a Republican president with a Republican Congress actually listening to the Democrats. But considering the nature of the Democratic Party, I can’t imagine a Democratic president with a Democratic Congress ignoring the Republicans. The reason for that is that the Democratic Party is fractious by nature; liberal and conservative Democrats have always fought with each other, which makes it difficult for a Democratic president to get anything passed, because if the conservative Democrats don’t like the way things are going, they’ll just shift their power to the Republicans in Congress. To make sure this doesn’t happen, conservative Democrats have to be appeased, and moreover, so do Republicans. This kind of government makes me more comfortable, because with total Democratic control, neither party is really in control. With total Republican control, the Republicans are in control, and the Democrats are shut out in the cold.
Cripes, remember President Clinton’s health care initiative? A unified Democratic Congress could have gotten that thing passed, but it certainly wasn’t unified. That’s also why President Clinton chatted with Orrin Hatch on the Senate Judiciary Committee before submitting higher court nominees: he wanted to avoid fights, so he showed respect to the opposition party and the process in order to get things done. When the Republicans took Congress, they ran roughshod over Clinton’s nominees, not even bringing them up for a vote in committee. I’ll be interested to see whether Patrick Leahy’s Judiciary Committee is quite so obstructionist as it was during the Clinton years. Because of what I mentioned above, I have a feeling that, while it will no doubt flush a good number of Bush’s appointees, it will be less obstructionist than the Republicans were between 1994 and 2000. That’s the nature of the beast.