Asia Times Online


	July 3, 2001	atimes.com

Front

Bush's ship of state losing speed
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Less than six months into George W Bush's presidency, the ship of state appears to be losing speed and becoming increasingly rudderless.

Despite major legislative victories on tax cuts and education, the latest opinion polls show a steady erosion of public confidence in Bush himself, with barely a majority of respondents saying that they approve of his performance, a shockingly low level for a president so early in his term.

Questions about specific administration policies show that strong majorities now have more confidence in the Democrats than Bush's Republicans to pursue the national interest, particularly in such politically explosive areas as health care.

And, despite a major scare campaign to elicit support for far-reaching measures to increase energy supplies, a clear majority of the public appears deeply skeptical of both the administration's rationale and its plans - especially those, such as drilling in protected areas and reviving the nuclear industry, which pose environmental risks.

Friday's announcement that Vice President Dick Cheney is now suffering from an irregular heartbeat and will have to go to the hospital for tests and treatment for the third time since last November's election, seems emblematic of the loss of momentum. Cheney, dubbed Bush's "prime minister" due to the unprecedented power and responsibility he has been given in the administration, has been seen as perhaps the only figure capable of maintaining order among the bureaucratic heavyweights with diverse agendas in the Cabinet, and managing relations between the Republican Party's corporate and populist wings.

Until Vermont Senator James Jeffords' defection last month, Cheney's was also the deciding vote in a Senate split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. By giving the Democrats control of the Senate, Jeffords dealt a crushing blow to Cheney's legislative importance - not to mention administration control of the Congressional agenda. Moreover, Cheney has been forced - uncharacteristically - on the defensive this month due to his stonewalling of Congressional investigators who want to know the identity of industry executives he consulted informally while he was preparing the administration's energy plan. Now he faces new questions about whether his heart can take the stress of his job.

But if Cheney's star is fading, Bush's is not shining any brighter. That is reflected not only in the polls but also in the scorn that he draws, increasingly, from a range of forces - including Republicans. While some right-wingers expressed gratification over Jeffords' departure as an overdue purge of disloyal "moderates", most party honchos were furious at the White House for needlessly alienating the senator and thus handing control of the legislative agenda to Senate Democrats.

While Cheney and company had hoped the Senate would take up their energy program, the Democrats, with the support of a handful of Republican moderates, are beating them over the head on health care and patients' rights. Moreover, Democratic control of Senate committees means that that the administration is no longer getting the kind of sympathetic treatment on Capitol Hill hearings to which it was becoming accustomed.

But it is not only Jeffords and the Democrats who are tormenting the administration. Right-wing Republicans are openly worried that Bush is going wobbly in key areas of national defense and foreign policy. A key moment came earlier this month when Bush announced that the US Navy would cease using the controversial bombing range at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, for military exercises as of May 2003. Right-wing lawmakers reacted with fury, claiming that Bush was acting no differently from the reviled Bill Clinton: sacrificing national security to politics.

"I cannot agree with a politically motivated decision, which unnecessarily puts the lives of our men and women in uniform at risk," charged Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. "Military training in Vieques is vital."

Others warned that Bush's rationale - "They don't want us there." - would set a bad precedent for strategic US bases overseas, such as Okinawa, where the US presence is controversial at best.

Several days later, after Bush held his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, right-wingers and even some Democrats were stupefied by the president's declaration that he had looked into the former KGB officer's "soul" and found him "trustworthy".

"Are these the pronouncements of a man maturing into the Leader of the Free World or a guy who's been watching way too much Barney?" "Los Angeles Times" columnist Arianna Huffington asked, referring to a syrupy-sweet television show for toddlers.

Indeed, foreign policy and national security are becoming a major and embarrassing focus of contradictions within the administration. While right-wingers can console themselves that Bush remains rhetorically firm on two of their top priorities - national missile defence (NMD) and global warming - the president's position actually appears to have eroded over the past month or so. His tax-cut package appears to have inadvertently delivered a major blow to Republican hopes for a big increase in the defense budget, including major down payments on NMD development and deployment.

With the economy still slowing and thousands of corporate layoffs being announced virtually every day, the administration's sunny projections of fiscal surpluses well into the future look increasingly unlikely. Even Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld admits that the government simply may not be able to afford the kind of investment in new weapons that he would like to see.

As for global warming, the patent lack of popular enthusiasm for Cheney's ambitious energy plan, combined with the apparent intention of the European Union (EU) and probably Japan to proceed with ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and Bush's own admission that the problem is real, have pushed the issue much higher on the public agenda. Democrats believe the president faces a "no-win" position on the issue at this point.

The administration also seems stuck on another major priority, one designed to please its corporate backers: The chances appear to be fading that Bush will get Congress to approve "fast-track" - now called "trade promotion" - authority this year to negotiate new trade and investment agreements.

Meanwhile, his trade representative, Robert Zoellick, is left to deal with an ever-growing number of serious problems. Despite months of talks, Zoellick appears to have completely failed in bridging the gap between all but a handful of Congressional Democrats, who oppose any fast-track bill which does not include specific sanctions against trading partners that violate certain labor or environmental standards, and right-wing Republicans adamantly opposed to such sanctions. While one compromise bill surfaced in the Senate this week, the basic impasse seems as far from being resolved as when Bush took office.

At the same time, Zoellick is under fire from free-traders angry about his decision to launch a process that could result in sanctions against steel imports, while the World Trade Organization's ruling this month against a US$5 billion tax break for US exporters threatens, in Zoellick's own words, the equivalent of a "nuclear" trade war between Washington and the EU, which brought the case.

Last week's surprise 285-143 House of Representatives vote to bar Mexican trucks from operating beyond a 30-kilometer zone from the border - a clear violation of the 1995 North American Free Trade Agreement - added yet another fire which Zoellick must extinguish in order to get the corporate free-trade agenda back on track.

(Inter Press Service)

back to the top

©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.

Building B - 5th Floor, 102/1 Phra Arthit Road, Chanasangkhram, Bangkok 10200, Thailand