The president has said, in no uncertain terms, that his support for the Dubai Ports World agreement is intractable. Nearly all of the congressional leaders, from both parties, have said their opposition is equally rigid. Is there a way out? A growing consensus suggests Congress will have to blink first.
Slate’s John Dickerson said lawmakers, particularly Republicans, won’t have a choice.
Maybe Republicans have valid reasons for not trusting Bush, but it’s foolish for them to think they can separate their fortunes from his on this issue. When Republican-leaning voters go to bed at night, they don’t find comfort in the fact that Bill Frist is protecting them. They pin their hopes on George Bush. If Bush is weakened, they’re not likely to be comforted by the fact that Bill Frist is still at the helm of the Senate defending the homeland.
The New York Daily News’ Thomas DeFrank agrees, though he suggests there are lingering hard feelings among Republicans on the Hill. He quoted a senior Republican operative saying, “[T]his is what happens when you’ve spent five and a half years telling your Republican friends to go screw themselves.”
Now that Bush has placed his political reputation squarely on the line and played the national security card to strengthen his hand, however, it seems unlikely a Republican-led Congress, even one sorely annoyed with the White House, will humiliate its leader.
“It seems to be turning around already,” a top Republican congressional aide claimed yesterday. “Every day that passes makes [a rejection] less likely.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) told Bloomberg something along the same lines. “I anticipate that the views of the commander-in-chief will eventually prevail, and that the country will settle back and suddenly realize — maybe not suddenly, but gradually realize — that the Administration did the right thing,” Warner said.
Maybe so, but how does the White House get from here to there?
With the uproar surrounding Harriet Miers, there was a fairly convenient way out. The Senate wanted Miers’ WH documents, the Bush gang didn’t want to share, so there was a plausible, face-saving withdrawal. The tumult is similar with the port deal, but the options are more limited.
DeFrank suggests the White House will stall a little and convince their GOP allies to come around.
Delay is Bush’s best tactical weapon. An emerging strategy is to slide next week’s decision date by 30 to 60 days so the White House can launch the education job with Congress and the public it should have done weeks ago.
“A delay gives everybody a chance to step back from the ledge,” said GOP consultant Rich Galen.
Maybe. As of now, there are a whole lot of conservative Republicans who appear awfully comfortable on that ledge. Could the White House, along with Bob Dole’s skillful lobbying efforts, convince enough lawmakers to stave off Congress blocking the deal? We’ll see.
The trickiest part will be lawmakers’ reversals. The inflexible opposition many lawmakers have expressed will not be easily changed, especially from some of the more high-profile complaints from the likes of Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, and Bill Frist. Even if the members’ concerns were fully addressed, what are they going to say? “We were upset, but now the president has convinced us that we didn’t know what we were talking about”?
Stay tuned.