WITH KARL Rove and Alberto Gonzalez having resigned, these are not the best of times for the Bush administration. As he nears the end of an abysmal second term, it is difficult to not to consider Bush, on everything except a few foreign policy issues, a lame duck. Despite these challenges, the president can recover some shards of his legacy by focusing on smaller initiatives or by starting to produce small but meaningful changes on larger issues, like Guantanamo Bay and global warming, that can acquire some moderate level of bipartisan support in Congress.
Largely engineered by "The Architect," as Karl Rove was known, Bush's guiding political philosophy has essentially been to win small but rule big. The recent and seemingly endless list of resignations and scandals plaguing the administration has revealed the pitfalls of such an ostentatious political style: underestimating opposition to over-ambitious policies, widespread consternation and a proliferation of virulent partisanship in Washington.
The administration has talked a big game in the past few years but has delivered nothing significant. Social Security and immigration reform both failed, perhaps because of poor communication with the nation, perhaps because Iraq sunk the President's popularity. An October 2005 Washington Post article speaking on this very issue is as accurate now as it was then: "A series of scandals involving some of the most powerful Republicans in Washington have converged to disrupt President Bush's agenda, distract aides and allies, and exacerbate political problems for an already weakened administration."
The "political capital" Bush talked about after winning in 2004 has been spent with few admirable results. Now Bush has the chance to choose a new path, one that involves more cautious efforts at various political problems and one that might earn more favorable opinions from posterity.
Guantanamo Bay has served as one of the most prominent negative marks on America's image to the world, mainly because of concerns that detainees have been tortured or otherwise treated outside the confines of the Geneva Convention. As early as two years ago, when asked about the possibility of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Bush replied, "We're exploring all alternatives as to how best to do the main objective, which is to protect America." Last year, he was somewhat more explicit, if still guarded, commenting, "I'd like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we're holding some people there that are darn dangerous and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts." The courts have repeatedly ruled against the Bush administration on this issue, so Bush should either close the facility outright or begin a gradual drawdown if the latter option is more politically viable.
Bush has also suffered heavy criticism over its handling of global warming. For too long it repeated the argument that more scientific research is needed to establish the veracity of the claim that the Earth is getting warmer. But lately Bush has grown more willing to acknowledge global warming as a threat, and one in which humans play an important part. He has even proposed international conferences on the matter, although reaction has been mixed from nations worried that these new schemes could disrupt existing international agreements.
For these initiatives to mean anything, Bush has to sincerely follow through, not offer them up as decorations on a crumbling house. More than anything else, his detractors frequently accuse him of political posturing on the issues mentioned here, perhaps an easy accusation to make given his limited time left on the job and the need to seem like he is doing something legitimate. Although Bush's legacy will be mostly decided by what happens in Iraq, that does not mean he should ignore other critical matters that could play a vital role in how we remember him.
There are plenty of issues that Bush can get working on before his presidency expires. Whatever the reasons for his rather horrible second term, Bush has enough time and political capital to right some wrongs. The only question is whether he has the will.
Erald Kolasi's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at ekolasi@cavalierdaily.com.
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