100 Days on the Job, Still No Hard Choices

By ERIC COHEN

April 29, 2001 12 AM PT

Eric Cohen, former managing editor of The Public Interest, is a resident fellow at the New America Foundation

WASHINGTON —

President George W. Bush, in his address to Congress last February, stated that “an artist using statistics as a brush could paint two very different pictures of our country.” After his first 100 days in office, one could, in similar fashion, paint two very different pictures of Bush’s presidency and the Republican Party he leads.

The first picture is one that Bush would like: a post-Cold War, post-Bill Clinton, conservative reformation in the making. It is the picture of a New Republican leader with the wisdom to remake his party from within, putting to rest the anti-government zeal of the Newt Gingrich years in favor of wise government, wisely implemented. It is the picture of a triumphant tax cutter, who has forced Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) into ideological retreat, getting them to agree to a $1.2-billion tax cut that Democrats not long ago would have called a “risky tax scheme.” It is the picture of a political innovator, whose inaugural address reconnected the nation’s politics to the nation’s conscience and whose faith-based initiative is perhaps the boldest attempt at a national moral reformation since President John F. Kennedy’s patriotic challenge of 1961. It is the picture of a commander in chief who, during the China crisis, passed the first significant test of his judgment under pressure, balancing principle and pragmatism, toughness and deftness. It is, in short, the picture of a man of both great humility and great confidence, a leader who is chronically underestimated and consistently up to the task.

The second picture is one that Bush would not like: It would portray a party at its crest, artificially held together by the issues of the past and afraid even to attempt its own boldest ideas. It is the picture of a party with two rival cultures: the first a culture of religious believers, pro-life activists and home schoolers, who believe America has lost its moral bearings; the second a culture of oilmen and big businessmen, who believe America’s greatness rises and falls with the stock market and that all virtue resides among the victors of the marketplace. It is the picture of a party that has abandoned school choice, hollowed out its faith-based initiative, appeased China and largely avoided the most contentious social issues. It is the picture of a party that acquired power by chance--losing the popular vote in the presidential election; staring straight in the face of a recession heading into 2002; and wrong in the eyes of the public on wedge issues like the environment and health care. All it has is tax cuts, the one thing that holds all the party’s constituencies together, for now, but which most Americans believe will favor the wealthy, not them.

Interestingly enough, the nation’s attitude toward Bush’s 100 days in office mirrors this ambivalence. Sixty-three percent of Americans approve of Bush’s performance, but three of five believe he cares more about protecting big business than he does about ordinary people. Sixty-eight percent believe he has a strong vision for the future, but only 47% say he understands “the problems of people like me.” This sometimes satisfied, sometimes skeptical, sometimes worried public sees a president who has done a fine job, so far, but whose two major victories--on tax cuts and China--remain of ambiguous significance and whose greatest tests, of course, are still ahead.

For the moral conservatives, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic. While he has not put their issues--abortion, bioethics, the entertainment industry, school choice--at the center of his agenda, Bush has held firm where he has been tested. He did not back down from his appointment of John Ashcroft for attorney general, despite the bitter challenge from many Democrats. He was quick to ban abortion funding overseas, and after some deliberation, he has made it clear that he will not support federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells. He has constantly reaffirmed his commitment to building a “culture of life” and maintained close ties behind the scenes with social conservative leaders and intellectuals. Where this will all lead, however, remains an open question. The first real test will come when Bush has to make his first appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On foreign policy, the Bush record is more ambiguous, despite the near-universal praise the president received for his handling of the crisis set off by the midair collision of a U.S. reconnaissance plane and a Chinese jet fighter off the coast of China. Despite his tough talk during the presidential campaign about our lack of military readiness, Bush has seemed reluctant to increase military spending even for present needs. During the China affair, he seemed to make a radical shift in strategy, responding at first with Reaganite toughness and moralism, then retreating to the “diplomatic realism” of Henry A. Kissinger and Colin L. Powell.

On the economy, there is, despite the heavy rhetoric, little difference of vision between Bush Republicans and post-Clinton Democrats: Both believe the surplus actually exists and that most of it should be used for “saving Social Security”; both, in the end, wanted tax cuts of only marginally different sizes; both are free-traders, believing that “economic engagement” will make America more prosperous and the world’s tyrannies less tyrannical. Whether this consensus will remain if a recession hits--or if the Democrats win Congress in 2002--is unclear. But for now, economic differences are more about political jockeying for position than great matters of substance.

The real battle lines in American politics, as the Ashcroft hearing and the now famous red-and-blue map of the electorate make clear, are over moral issues, like abortion, sex education, religion’s role in public life, fetal-tissue research and so on. Bush’s faith-based initiative may be the forum through which these fundamental conflicts come to life, pinning the religious vs. the secular, orthodoxy vs. flexidoxy, traditionalism vs. moral freedom.

Taken together, it seems all too likely that Bush came to office in a calm-before-the-storm moment in American politics. William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, compares this moment to the election of 1960: a placid, non-ideological election that had nothing to do with the ideological upheavals and great challenges of the later decade. Today, big issues loom ahead--China, human cloning, genetic testing, high-stakes terrorism--that were barely mentioned during the campaign or not mentioned at all. For now, it seems, we remain locked in the ideological assumptions of the Cold War and the Reagan era, lulled into a false sense of post-ideological bliss by the gilded (if unsavory) Clinton years, fighting the battles of the past or finding reason to squabble over trivialities, while the issues of the future are skillfully tabled by each party’s resident pollster.

This age of confusion and bliss will not last forever--good feeling never does--and, sooner or later, Bush will have to make hard choices. When he does, the age of civility he has worked so hard to create may quickly crumble.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Great Divide?

Republicans have different wish lists for the Bush presidency. Is there a party crackup in the making? Will the GOP coalition behind Bush hold?

Moral conservatives have gotten...

Atty. Gen John Ashcroft

A ban on overseas abortion funding

Increased role for conservative leaders and intellectuals

The Office of Faith-Based and Community initiatives

But they still seek...

Vigorous pursuit of pro-life and bioethics legislation

Regulation of the entertainment industry

School-choice measures such as vouchers for religious schools