Bush Fails to Recapture the Nation’s Post-9/11 Unity

It’s a truism that the world of Sept. 10, 2001, is gone, vaporized in the attacks of the next day.

But the world of Sept. 12 is gone too.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, Americans came together in shock and sorrow and resolve. Members of Congress, from both parties, symbolized that powerful connection when they stood on the Capitol steps and sang “God Bless America” hours after the attacks.

Last week, on the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, they tried that again. Not that many legislators showed up. The ones who did couldn’t decide whether they wanted to hold hands. The whole thing fizzled out.

The symbolism couldn’t be much plainer. The national unity that emerged from the rubble of New York’s twin towers is gone too. Even President Bush’s nationally televised speech commemorating the attacks, a surprisingly pointed defense of his decision to invade Iraq, drew angry criticism from Democrats who said he politicized the anniversary.

Across the range of national security issues, the two parties now agree on virtually nothing. The war in Iraq is dividing Congress and the country more than any military commitment since Vietnam. Full-scale confrontations between the White House and most Democrats joined by some Republicans are gathering over the rules for the warrantless National Security Agency wiretapping Bush authorized in 2001 and the procedures for bringing to trial detainees in the war on terrorism.

These conflicts hardly seem remarkable in an era when the two parties wage political war about almost everything. And yet from other angles, the degree of division over national security five years after Sept. 11 is extraordinary.

The struggle against Islamic radicalism is not like the Vietnam War, when a meaningful share of Americans questioned our stake in the outcome. Virtually all Americans recognize the nihilism symbolized by Osama bin Laden as a threat to our values and interests. In that specific sense, the fight against Islamic extremism is much more like World War II, when almost all Americans condemned the goals, methods and beliefs of our fascist enemies.

Given that starting point, it was not inevitable that America would divide so sharply over the strategy for combating that enemy. Looking back, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq amid ambivalence at home and widespread resistance abroad was obviously a critical fork in the road.

Looking forward, there’s no question that Bush has the greatest opportunity to bridge today’s divisions. The president sets the tone for America’s debates, especially on foreign policy. Except for the period immediately after Sept. 11, Bush simply hasn’t placed a high priority on establishing consensus for his national security strategy.

It’s easy to understand why he felt a sense of urgency and mission about constructing a comprehensive response to the threats that crystallized on that late-summer’s day five years ago. But by pursuing a course that concedes so little to contrasting views, Bush has dissipated one of any democracy’s greatest assets: a united sense of purpose. He has also virtually ensured that America will reopen almost all of his decisions as soon as he leaves office. A narrow consensus is rarely a lasting one.

In his various remarks last week remembering the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush -- as he has before -- invoked Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. But Bush still shows no indication of having learned from their approach to building domestic support for foreign policy.

As America moved into World War II, Roosevelt named Republican Henry Stimson, President Hoover’s secretary of State, as his secretary of war. He also tapped Frank Knox, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1936, as his secretary of the Navy. And FDR sent Wendell Willkie, his GOP opponent in 1940, on a global goodwill mission.

After the war, Truman built bipartisan support in Congress by consulting exhaustively, and compromising regularly, with Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan over every aspect of America’s emerging strategy for the Cold War. They built a consensus broad enough to endure: Truman’s strategy of containment guided American policy for more than 40 years.

Neither Roosevelt nor Truman was a saint. Both sought to squeeze political advantage from their role as commander in chief. But they set boundaries on the mingling of war and politics. When Edward J. Flynn, the Democratic National Committee chairman, suggested in 1942 that a Republican takeover of the House might hurt the war effort, Roosevelt publicly rebuked him.

Bush has set a very different tone. He has provided Democrats and even skeptical Republicans little voice in shaping his national security strategy. Bush has also shown himself to be willing, even eager, to frame national security debates in ways that maximize their political impact. In 2002, Congress spent the last weeks before the midterm election arguing over guidelines for the Department of Homeland Security and authorization for the use of force in Iraq. Now the White House is pressing Congress to act on the NSA surveillance and the detainee trials just weeks before another critical election.

Let’s be clear. Debate is good. Argument is healthy. In a democracy, dissent is not only a right, but an obligation, especially during wartime. It’s pointless to deny the presence of genuine disagreements. But after all the arguments have been raised, all the dissent and disagreements aired, and all the debates conducted, political leaders’ responsibility is to build a consensus most of their citizens can accept.

Both parties have failed that test too often since Sept. 11. But the president has the greatest opportunity to create that consensus and so he bears the greatest responsibility for its absence. The hole in the skyline of Lower Manhattan, and in the hearts of many Americans, is now matched by the tear in the sense of common purpose that inspired so much of the country five years ago.

ronald.brownstein@latimes.com