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Congress is unified now, but how long will it last?
© St. Petersburg Times, WASHINGTON -- Despite years of mutual animosity, it was relatively easy for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., to bury their differences last week and declare themselves united behind President Bush's call to arms. It was far more difficult for Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and other Democrats to swallow their doubts about Bush's nuclear missile defense program and allow the Senate to restore $1.3-billion that had been cut from the budget for development and testing of the system. Democrats naturally wanted to argue that the devastating loss of American lives on Sept. 11 was proof that the real threat to the United States in the future is not a nuclear one. But knowing how fearful Americans are now of any kind of potential danger, the Democrats realized their effort to cut funding for the national missile defense would be widely interpreted as disloyalty to Bush and disregard for the safety of Americans. Therefore, Levin declared Friday that he had decided to drop his opposition to full funding for the program, at least for now. He said he retreated because he feared that a fight about it on the Senate floor "would create dissent where we need unity." Conciliatory actions such as Levin's are expected to become more common on Capitol Hill as our country undertakes a sustained military campaign to eliminate the terrorist threat to our safety and our way of life. They are reminiscent of the bipartisanship on foreign policy that the late Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg encouraged during World War II, and that prevailed among members of Congress until the Vietnam War. Still, it is hard for anyone to believe that a terrorist threat to the United States -- even as deadly as it has proven to be -- can successfully end the ideological squabbling that has dominated Congress in the past two decades. Political analysts are, to say the least, very skeptical that members of Congress can abide by a wartime cease-fire with Bush. The current generation of Congress members have little or no recollection of World War II, when Americans were united in the war effort. They grew up, instead, knowing the lessons of Vietnam. And one of those lessons was that politicians who support an unpopular war are begging to be booted out of office. Although Democrats and Republicans are united behind the president at the moment, some members of Congress privately question Bush's ability to successfully wage a war against terrorism. They also question the resolve of the American public. These doubters are going to be mighty nervous for the next few months and especially alert for any sign that popular opinion is beginning to turn against Bush's war on terrorism. If there are mass American casualties or glaring mistakes in Bush's conduct of the war, you can expect to see many doubters -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- start to abandon the president. And even if everything goes smoothly, there are bound to be differences that crop up between Bush and the Congress about the way the war is being conducted. There is likely to be some second guessing. And congressional leaders will make attempts to intrude on the prerogatives of the commander-in-chief. If you want to measure the commitment to bipartisanship in Congress, keep your eye on the issue of funding for nuclear missile defense. Republicans think that attacks on the United States have permanently undercut the Democrats' argument against nuclear missile defense. As Sen. John Warner, R-Va., sees it, the attacks on New York and Washington show the United States cannot overlook any possible threat to its shores -- be it bombs, hijackings, biological warfare or nuclear weapons. Opponents to the nuclear missile shield will keep silent only as long as the United States remains on a war footing and only as long as Bush has the nation's support. If the day comes when Democrats begin to speak out against nuclear missile defense again, you will know that members of Congress are losing confidence in the president's ability to conduct this war. - Sara Fritz can be reached by e-mail at fritz@sptimes.com and by telephone at (202) 463-0576.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Howard Troxler Jan Glidewell Sara Fritz |
