Questions surrounding the president’s warrantless-search program are probably going to dominate the next couple of weeks. Unlike most governmental scandals, both sides seem to believe they have an important message for the American public, which will ultimately translate into votes in November.
Congressional Dems are taking the offensive, scolding the Bush administration for its apparent law-breaking. The White House and its allies are also taking the offensive, arguing that its domestic surveillance program should be popular with the electorate, pesky details like the law notwithstanding. On the surface, one of these sides seems politically delusional. It’d be better if it were clear which.
The president knowingly and willfully circumvented the law. And yet, Bush is perhaps the first chief executive in American history to get caught flouting legal limits — and then bragged about it. Walter Shapiro wrote in Salon this week that some Democratic campaign consultants believe Dems are pursuing this at their own peril.
Typical was my lunch discussion earlier this week with a ranking Democratic Party official. Midway through the meal, I innocently asked how the “Big Brother is listening” issue would play in November. Judging from his pained reaction, I might as well have announced that Barack Obama was resigning from the Senate to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door. With exasperation dripping from his voice, my companion said, “The whole thing plays to the Republican caricature of Democrats — that we’re weak on defense and weak on security.” To underscore his concerns about shrill attacks on Bush, the Democratic operative forwarded to me later that afternoon an e-mail petition from MoveOn.org, which had been inspired by Al Gore’s fire-breathing Martin Luther King Day speech excoriating the president’s contempt for legal procedures.
A series of conversations with Democratic pollsters and image makers found them obsessed with similar fears that left-wing overreaction to the wiretapping issue would allow George W. Bush and the congressional Republicans to wiggle off the hook on other vulnerabilities. The collective refrain from these party insiders sounded something like this: Why are we so obsessed with the privacy of people who are phoning al-Qaida when Democrats should be screaming about corruption, Iraq, gas prices and the prescription-drug mess?
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, “We are stepping up our efforts to educate the American people about this vital tool in the war on terrorism ahead of the congressional hearing scheduled for early February.” Shortly thereafter, Karl Rove told an RNC audience, “President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they are calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree.” Of course it’s false, but it’s a hint of what we’ll be hearing quite a bit in the months to come.
Do Dems pursue this scandal and try to show the nation that the president intentionally broke the law? Or do they focus their attention elsewhere, emphasizing GOP corruption, Abramoff, the Medicare fiasco, and Bush’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq, under the hopes that it will pack a more powerful political punch? Is the message that Dems support aggressive surveillance, but with warrants and oversight, too subtle?
Discuss.