Bush ending 2005 in upturn
President Bush has executed a positive turnaround in his political fortunes through a combination of forceful advocacy, fortunate events and help from his critics.
His average approval rating in polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com (RCP) bottomed out at 37 percent just prior to Veterans Day. Now, it’s 42.6 percent — not great, but heading (for him) in the right direction.
The reversal seems to be attributable to his vigorous defense of his Iraq policy, plus a decline in gasoline prices and favorable economic news and evidence that Democrats are mired in defeatism about the war.
He’s also been aided by fading memories about the factors that depressed his ratings in the first place-the Katrina hurricane, the indictment of White House aide Lewis Libby and $3 a gallon gasoline.
Bush’s nationally televised “fireside chat” on Iraq Sunday, following a successful election in that country last week, should permit him to finish out 2005 at or just below his 48 percent RCP average at the end of 2004, controversy over “domestic spying” on terrorist targets notwithstanding.
Bush has some explaining to do about why he decided to skirt the law prohibiting warrantless National Security Agency monitoring of domestic phone calls rather than asking Congress to change it.
In his press conference Monday, Bush dismissed a question suggesting that Bush believed he has “unchecked power” to fight the war on terrorism. But there is a long record of such assertions, limited only by the courts so far, to imprison and try enemy combatants and even limit access to presidential records.
It seems defensible to me to monitor the U.S. end of international calls between terrorist suspects without a court order if time is crucial. Bush is not tapping the phones of war protesters Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore, after all. But could he? Congress should establish what limits, if any, the administration accepts.
Democrats definitely have helped Bush recover by calling the Iraq war unwinnable, as party chairman Howard Dean did, and by recommending immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, as did Rep. John Murtha (Pa.) followed by House leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).
According to the Dec. 15 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, voters oppose immediate troop withdrawals by a margin of 68 percent to 27 percent. According to a Fox News poll released last week, voters disagree with Dean by a margin of 51 percent to 38 percent and say, by 57 percent to 12 per cent, that U.S. and Iraqi forces will prevail over insurgents.
That poll, released prior to Bush’s Sunday “chat,” showed that only 25 percent of voters said they had a better understanding of Bush’s war policy after his first four speeches on the subject.
In Bush’s fireside address, he spelled out a concise goal: “a democratic Iraq that can defend itself, that will never again be a safe haven for terrorists and that will serve as model of freedom for the Middle East.”
Where Bush has previously concentrated on the idealistic purpose of Middle East democracy, he starkly spelled out the consequences of “pulling out of Iraq before our work is done.”
A true surge in Bush’s popularity won’t occur until he begins withdrawing troops from Iraq in substantial numbers. A top U.S. official there told me that was possible in 2006, but Bush reiterated that he won’t be bound by artificial timetables.
Bush has bet his presidency — and his place in history — on a favorable outcome in Iraq. Whether he ultimately succeeds or fails, it’s clear he’s ending the first year of his second term determined to see the mission through.
Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.