October 23, 2005
Bush and the Dubious Honor of a Second Term
By Steve
Chapman
Amid all his current troubles, President Bush probably has not spent
much time contemplating the wisdom of James K. Polk. But had he
engaged in that uncommon pastime a couple of years ago, he wouldn't
have all those troubles.
President
Polk, elected in 1844, had an eminently successful first term,
achieving all of the four goals he had set out when he arrived
in the White House: reducing tariffs, creating an independent
treasury, settling a dispute with Britain over the Oregon boundary,
and acquiring California from Mexico. He also did something else
he had promised: He left office after just one term.
George Washington
established the tradition, since written into the Constitution,
that presidents should gracefully step down after two terms. Bush
might wish that Polk's voluntary departure after four years had
become the norm long before 2004. Then, instead of having his
ranch vacation interrupted when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans,
Bush could have done what a lot of his countrymen did in the following
days: sit in front of the TV watching the mess unfold, expressing
disbelief and blaming the president for everything that went wrong.
But Bush
did what incumbent presidents almost always do, namely seek re-election.
He did so even though there were plenty of gaping potholes visible
in the road ahead, from the swollen budget deficit to the insurgency
in Iraq. And he did so despite the clear lesson of history, which
is that second terms are almost always unsuccessful terms.
Re-election
tends to breed hubris, and pride, as the Bible attests, goeth
just before you step on a banana peel. Two days after defeating
John Kerry, Bush was riding high at a news conference where he
vowed to reform Social Security, curb "frivolous lawsuits"
and overhaul the tax code. "I earned capital in the campaign,
political capital, and now I intend to spend it," he declared.
"I've got the will of the people at my back."
But the
will of the people, like the October wind, can shift without notice.
It's hard to remember how formidable Bush and his party looked
when he took the oath of office nine months ago. Since then, not
much has gone right. His Social Security plan went nowhere. The
Iraq insurgency shows no signs of weakening. The climate for tax
reform looks frosty.
All that
was before Katrina, which made Bush look inept and, incidentally,
destroyed any hope of bringing the budget under control. Then
there's the Valerie Plame case, which could end with some senior
White House officials moving to a different executive branch building
-- one operated by the Bureau of Prisons.
About the
only recent triumph was the nomination of John Roberts Jr. to
the Supreme Court, which gave Bush the chance to keep his pledge
to appoint justices "who are qualified to hold the bench."
But he undid much of that good by proposing to fill the subsequent
vacancy with Harriet Miers, whose qualifications are, well, less
obvious than Roberts' were. Bush has always had enemies, but now,
even his friends don't like him.
Second terms
often follow this dismal pattern: Franklin Roosevelt had his court-packing
debacle, Dwight Eisenhower had a White House scandal, Richard
Nixon had Watergate, and Bill Clinton had Monica. If Bush is snakebit,
it's by a familiar-looking snake.
Bush is
struggling with some basic realities that go with the office.
One is that being the most powerful person on Earth tends to go
to one's head after a while, particularly when it's combined with
a second vote of confidence from the American people. This, unfortunately,
often happens just about the time the American people start to
grow bored and irritable from seeing the same face on the news
every night. Britney Spears hasn't gotten more popular from constant
overexposure, and neither has Bush.
He could
have avoided all this had he decided late in his first term to
announce that, having set the nation on the right course, he would
be content to return to private life. Then he could have left
intractable headaches like Iraq, the budget and the approaching
plague of tropical storms for someone else to suffer. And he could
have claimed one of the best jobs in the world: ex-president.
Calvin Coolidge,
who chose to take his leave after just one full term, knew the
pleasures of escaping the White House. Following the 1928 election
of Herbert Hoover, when aides presented Coolidge with a problem,
he would smile and reply: "We'll just leave this for the
Wonder Boy."
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
