George Bush’s Political Capitol

George Bush gave reporters a confident lecture on the “political capitol” he had earned by being reelected. I cringed at his misunderstanding.  Actually, he’d used up most of his political capitol to get reelected. The capitol he spent had accrued to him because the public bought into the idea that he could keep them safe in these uncertain times. Before the attack on the World Trade Towers his capitol was very low.That tragedy gave him a huge jolt of capitol. His success or failure at prosecuting the war against terrorists would determine whether the capitol would increase or get spent down. As Bush stood in the crater of the Twin Towers with fire fighters and rescue workers and projected a real aura of authority the capitol swelled. He had something like a 90 percent approval rating. He used that capitol to make a strategic gamble which will be debated for years by historians (and which will take longer than ever to judge because of his administration’s penchant for putting public documents under lock and key).Bush decided to bypass Afghanistan and only half heartedly attempted to catch or kill Osama bin Ladin, the architect of the New York attack. He put most of his eggs in the Iraq basket and successfully, if erroneously, convinced most Americans that the attackers had sallied forth at Saddam Hussein’s order. Bush also harped on what turned out to be nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Now in the face of a an Iraqi civil war Americans have caught on to this legacy of disingenuousness, if not outright duplicity, and Bush’s capitol has withered to historic lows. Even his Republican Congress is abandoning him. Yesterday a key committee voted 62 to 2 against the Administration’s plan to allow a UAE firm to manage American ports. Bush’s three million vote margin of victory was threadbare. Up to his reelection the happy face Bush put on his war kept a bare majority of the voting population with him. Knowing this the Republican Party went to extraordinary lengths to prevent African Americans, ex cons, big city residents and others not likely to vote for Bush from casting a vote unless they could easily prove their right to vote.Even in Duluth, Republicans aggressively discouraged homeless citizens from voting because Minnesota was one of the states ripe for Republican picking. After his reelection Bush’s misunderstanding of his diminished capitol sent him off on a Quixote-like mission to “reform” social security. It didn’t wash. He had been reelected by the voters minds to fix Iraq and keep us safe. They didn’t trust him with much else. And then Hurricane Katrina blindsided him and exposed a grevious lack of preparedness and competence.Although Democrats were disconsolate after Bush beat John Kerry their depression was premature as I wrote in a column suggesting that things would soon look up. In fact, a Kerry victory would probably have damaged Democrats as they took on Bush’s Iraqi tarbaby. That won’t happen now. As Colin Powel warned George Bush. If you break it you will own it. 

 

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