In an audacious act of political alchemy, the Bush administration turned the terrorist strike in Saudi Arabia to its advantage. The bombings are evidence that Al Qaeda remains a threat, that the war against terrorism is ongoing, and–by implication–nobody should question a wartime president. “It’s heads I win; tails you lose,” says a Senate Democrat.
The Bush alchemists are equally effective on the home front. Dividend-tax relief for high-rollers appeared headed for the dustbin of history until Bush took to the hustings promoting it as a “jobs and growth bill.” Even the bill’s supporters have a hard time justifying its passage as a vehicle to create jobs. The Congressional Budget Office assessed the bill as having only a marginal impact on the economy, either positive or negative, they weren’t sure which. The CBO is not a socialist enterprise; it’s headed by a Republican appointee.
I got a call from a producer for the NPR show called, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” a lively spoof of contemporary life and politics. What did I make of Bush’s shift in rhetoric from “a little bitty” to “itty-bitty” in describing the smaller of the tax cut proposals before the Senate? I’d say it’s a sophisticated nuance engineered by Karl Rove, Bush’s resident Machiavelli. It doesn’t take a wordsmith to figure out what Bush is getting at. He’s demeaning the lesser amount while characterizing the larger tax cut he wants as “robust.” Red-blooded Americans like to support what’s robust as opposed to a sissy alternative. What’s next in Bush’s rhetorical repertoire? Teeny-weeny? Itsy-bitsy? The images are not very subtle. Pollster Frank Luntz who’s made a career out of tailoring words for politicians, says he has never come across another politician who used “little bitty” or any variation thereof unless they were reading to grade schoolers.
Bush defines presidential rhetoric. Since most people get their news through sound bites, the technique serves him well. Operation Iraqi Freedom endures in the world of cable despite the chaos and continuing insurrection in the country. “Jobs and Growth” rolls off the tongue of television anchors even though the growth is mainly for large fortunes since millionaires are the biggest beneficiaries of Bush’s tax cut. Whatever the label, it becomes the reality. Those who dare oppose Bush’s questionable economic policy run into another convenient sound bite. They’re guilty of “class warfare.”
Bush travels the country demanding that Washington exercise fiscal sanity when he’s the biggest inmate on the loose. His tax cut is irresponsible and will jeopardize Social Security, but it is smart politics. It keeps the Republican base activated, and it silences the Democrats by casting them as whiners and naysayers and denying them the government money for programs that serve traditionally Democratic constituencies. “The Democrats in Washington are irrelevant,” says a Senate Republican. “They might as well follow their Texas cohorts and leave town.” At least the Texas lawmakers, in fleeing across the border to Oklahoma, got the media to pay attention to the heavy-handed tactics of the Republican majority. Congressional Democrats are more inclined to make nice with Bush, as Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson did this week when he relented on Bush’s tax cut in exchange for modest assistance to cash-strapped states.
One Democrat unafraid to say the emperor has no clothes is Florida Sen. Bob Graham, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Graham used the attack in Saudi Arabia to point out the folly of expending so many resources on invading Iraq, which he believes never posed a direct threat to America and was a distraction in the ongoing battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorists. What Graham is saying is right, but because he is running for president, the Bush spin machine dismissed his comments. The White House is also blocking release of the September 11 report recently completed by a joint House and Senate committee. There’s no smoking gun, and most of the information has been made public before, but reissuing it might remind voters that the Bush administration didn’t do all it could before 9-11, or even afterward, in terms of securing the homeland.
Bush came to Washington with the primary objective of getting tax cuts. That’s the domestic agenda of this administration. There is nothing else. The tax cut that Bush almost certainly will sign into law this year will be the third largest in history, and he will come back for more next year. Nobody ever loses if they support tax cuts. The whole thing backfires only if the economy collapses, unless of course Bush manages to turn that to his advantage, as well. It was all the fault of those little-bitty lawmakers.
