[Mb-civic] GOP Irritation At Bush Was Long Brewing - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

GOP Irritation At Bush Was Long Brewing

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 17, 2006; A01

President Bush's troubles with congressional Republicans, which erupted 
during the backlash to the Dubai seaport deal, are rooted in policy 
frustrations and personal resentments that GOP lawmakers say stretch 
back to the opening days of the administration.

For years, the Bush White House and its allies on Capitol Hill seemed 
like one of the most unified teams Washington had ever seen, passing 
most of Bush's agenda with little dissent. Privately, however, many 
lawmakers felt underappreciated, ignored and sometimes bullied by what 
they regarded as a White House intent on running government with little 
input from them. Often it was to pass items -- an expanded federal role 
in education under the No Child Left Behind law and an expensive 
prescription drug benefit under Medicare -- that left conservatives 
deeply uneasy.

What Bush is facing now, beyond just election-year jitters by 
legislators eyeing his depressed approval ratings, is a rebellion that 
has been brewing since the days when he looked invincible, say many 
lawmakers and strategists. Newly unleashed grievances could signal even 
bigger problems for Bush's last two years in office, as he would be 
forced to abandon a governing strategy that until recently counted on 
solid support from congressional Republicans.

The White House at times has been "non-responsive and arrogant," said 
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). "There are a thousand small cuts," he 
added, that are ignored when things are going well but "rear their heads 
when things are not going well."

"Members felt they were willing to take a lot of tough votes and did not 
get much in return," said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), an early critic 
of the port deal.

Congressional scholar Norman J. Ornstein has written that the recently 
vented anger, after being suppressed for years out of loyalty or fear, 
might be seen in psychological terms. He called the condition 
"battered-Congress syndrome."

The biggest test of dissatisfaction could come this summer if calls for 
withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq intensify. Most Republicans voted to 
authorize the Iraq war after the White House assured them that Saddam 
Hussein posed a threat with weapons of mass destruction and that the 
United States had an effective military strategy. Many now harbor 
serious doubts about the war's prospects.

Bush still enjoys a high level of personal affection among GOP 
lawmakers, but there is a deep-seated frustration with his political, 
policy and congressional relations teams in particular that has poisoned 
the atmosphere. This is one reason many legislators are among a chorus 
of Washington voices urging Bush to infuse his White House with new blood.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) recently contacted White House officials and 
implored them to bring aboard a former lawmaker as a new chief diplomat 
to Congress. Lott floated several names, including former senators 
Daniel R. Coats (R-Ind.) and Slade Gorton (R-Wash.). It "would be a good 
idea" to have someone with real stature working Congress on Bush's 
behalf, Lott said. Former Senate majority leader Howard H. Baker Jr. 
(R-Tenn.) told CBS on Wednesday that he did the same in a phone call to 
Bush Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., offering the name of former 
senator Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.).

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who won his seat in 2002 after a late push 
by Bush, told the Associated Press this week that the president should 
shake up the staff more broadly, accusing the White House of having a 
political "tin ear." That was seen by some top White House aides as a 
wake-up call, because Coleman has been such a loyal Bush backer.

The White House may be listening. In private conversations with 
lawmakers in recent days, top officials have hinted that Bush is open to 
bringing aboard new high-level staffers, including perhaps a former 
lawmaker or two. With the recent departure of domestic policy chief 
Claude A. Allen, now facing criminal theft charges, Bush has positions 
to fill and every incentive to use those openings to rebuild relations 
with Capitol Hill.

A senior White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss 
internal deliberations, said Bush is moving to hold more face-to-face 
meetings with legislators but has no immediate plans to fire any staff. 
Even before the seaport flap, Bush was holding more meetings than ever 
with individual House and Senate members, including Democrats, to 
discuss Iraq and the domestic agenda, aides said. Bush, Vice President 
Cheney and other officials are also raising millions of dollars for 
lawmakers seeking reelection and other congressional candidates.

One reason some lawmakers said Bush should shift gears quickly is the 
changed power structure in the House. For the first five years of the 
administration, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and then-House 
Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) used a top-down management style to 
push the Bush agenda through. With Bush at the top of the ticket and 
very popular with the GOP base, most lawmakers fell in line.

The election of Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to replace DeLay as party 
leader has created a more unpredictable and freewheeling Republican 
caucus. Boehner won by promising to return power to chairmen and 
rank-and-file legislators who tend to be less compromising -- and less 
concerned about accommodating the White House.

The blowup over the Dubai deal illustrated the new environment. Bush 
infuriated members by threatening to veto any congressional effort to 
prevent an Arab company from taking control of terminals at six U.S. 
seaports. Instead of falling in line, they felled the deal by joining 
with Democrats for a 62 to 2 committee vote against Bush. It was the 
breaking point for many members. Afterward, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III 
(R-Va.) was quoted in The Washington Post as saying, "This is probably 
the worst administration ever in getting Congress's opinion on anything."

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) is a prime example of such perceived slights. 
He was handpicked by the White House to challenge then-Senate Minority 
Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in 2004. Thune entered the race under 
heavy White House pressure and won in part by promising to protect South 
Dakota's Ellsworth Air Force Base from being closed.

But when the Pentagon targeted Ellsworth for closing, Thune's complaints 
to White House senior officials were coldly dismissed, according to 
people familiar with the conversations. "Why are you whining?" was how 
one person familiar with the session paraphrased the White House response.

Thune declined to comment on the base closing but said, "I think 
Republicans want to be helpful, but the administration needs to help us 
to help them."

The tipping point for many lawmakers was last year's debate over the 
Bush plan to restructure Social Security by offering personal savings 
accounts. For years, House Republicans had sent word to Karl Rove, 
Bush's top strategist, and others that any efforts to dismantle the 
Social Security system could prove disastrous to them. Regardless of the 
merits, the legislators would say, older Americans vote in high 
percentages in congressional races and would likely punish the party if 
it tinkered with the popular program.

House Republicans in particular were already panicking about the 
Medicare prescription drug benefit they had passed more than a year 
earlier. The program was seen as too costly for conservatives and too 
confusing for seniors. Yet a majority of Republicans voted for it under 
intense lobbying from Bush and GOP congressional leaders, and several 
regretted it.

"Bottom line, there is a lot of buyer's remorse," said Rep. Tom Feeney 
(R-Fla.). If the vote were held today on the Medicare prescription drug 
benefit, he said, as many 120 Republicans would vote against it. "It was 
probably our greatest failure in my adult lifetime," he said.

So when Bush sprang the Social Security plan on them, many Republicans 
balked. Eventually, congressional Republicans revolted and killed what 
Bush had trumpeted as the top domestic priority of his second term. 
Another common complaint about the White House is that it asked 
lawmakers to take politically risky votes and did not bother to provide 
cover when Democrats started attacking.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a Bush ally who dismissed concerns about an 
inattentive White House, said he regrets voting for the No Child Left 
Behind bill in the first term.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031602430.html?referrer=email
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