Bush all talk in terror war
Guest Column
Strutting about with his Stetson hat and his six-shooter, President Bush is the swaggering cowboy who is going to make us safe from the terrorists. Not content to "swat at flies," he's "smoked them out" of their Afghan caves, and "hunted them down" in the narrow alleys of Fallujah. Slowly but surely we're going to get all the terrorists "dead or alive" (not including Osama of course, who W. is "not really that concerned about"). Yet, in spite of all the bluster and bravado, when it comes to truly protecting this country from another major terrorist attack, President Bush has failed to lead.
Last week the bipartisan intelligence reform bill was killed by House Republicans. Let us pause to reflect on what this means. The 9/11 Commission, the one group that comprehensively studied our government's failures in preventing the attacks, had recommended a set of reforms designed to ensure that a major attack did not again take place on U.S. soil.
After months of torturous negotiations, a bill which incorporated most of these reforms was ready to be voted on. These measures enjoyed broad, bipartisan support in Congress, and would surely have passed by large margins in the House and Senate. However, when some House Republicans objected, Speaker Hastert killed the bill rather than let it be passed primarily with Democratic support. So much for the spirit of bipartisanship. So much for protecting us from terrorists.
And, yet, the conventional wisdom that lays the blame for the defeat of the bill on House Republicans is misguided. The truth of the matter is that it is President's failure to lead that has ultimately doomed this vital effort at reform.
In fact, when they were first introduced the administration made signs it would oppose many of its central features. After pressure from the Commissioners and the 9/11 families, the President made an about face (one might say a flip-flop), offering his timid support for the proposal. In the run-up to the vote on the bill, our "strong' and "steadfast' leader made barely a peep.
The great institutional advantage of the presidency is the ability to speak directly to all Americans. By bringing his agenda directly to the people, a president can create a groundswell of support which forces Congress to take action. When President Bush wanted his tax cuts passed he took every opportunity to publicly pressure Congress into passing them exactly as he wanted. Yet he has shown no such zeal on this measure which is so critical to protecting our nation.
If President Bush truly cared about enacting intelligence reform, we would see him at a press conference, with the 9/11 Commissioners and 9/11 widows at his back, demanding that Congress move forward on this legislation. We would see a primetime Oval Office address in which he chews out Speaker Hastert for putting partisan politics above the lives and security of ordinary Americans. We have not, and we will not, see this.
This is a bill the president never wanted, and he is all too happy to see it die. What is sad about this whole fiasco is that he does not have the courage to tell us as such and that he has no alternative plans for how to make us more secure here at home.
For all his talk about being a strong leader in a time of danger, President Bush has shown his true self. Perhaps finally people will begin to realize that canned photo-ops and trite catch phrases do not make a man strong or resolute. Perhaps they will begin to see that this is a cowboy with no clothes.
--Santosh Sagar is a senior international studies major.