[Mb-civic] GOP Unease Spreads to Security Issues - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

GOP Unease Spreads to Security Issues
Port Deal Among Challenges to What Has Been Bush's Strength

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 1, 2006; A01

The first heading on the issues page of Rep. Mark Foley's Web site brags 
that he is "one of President Bush's strongest supporters in Congress." 
The Florida Republican voted for the president's legislation 90 percent 
of the time, according to the Web site, "the 3rd highest ranking among 
the Florida delegation."

Now the Florida delegation's third-strongest Bush supporter is on the 
front lines of the Republican revolt against the president on the deal 
to turn over key operations at six U.S. ports to a United Arab Emirates 
company. Republicans who once marched in lock step behind their 
president on national security are increasingly willing to challenge him 
in an area considered his political strength.

The signs of GOP discontent have been building in the past few months. 
Dissident Republicans in Congress forced Bush to sign a measure banning 
torture of detainees despite his initial veto threat, blocked renewal of 
the USA Patriot Act until their civil liberties concerns were addressed 
and pressured the White House into accepting legislation on its secret 
eavesdropping program. By the time the port deal came to light, the 
uprising was no longer limited to dissidents.

"We simply want to participate and aren't going to be PR flacks when 
they need us," Foley said. "We all have roles. We have oversight. When 
you can't answer your constituents when they have legitimate questions . 
. . we can't simply do it on trust."

The breakdown of the Republican consensus on national security both 
reflects and exacerbates Bush's political weakness heading toward the 
midterm elections, according to party strategists. Even as Republicans 
abandoned him last year on domestic issues such as Social Security, 
Hurricane Katrina relief and Harriet Miers's Supreme Court nomination, 
they had largely stuck by him on terrorism and other security issues.

Karl Rove, the president's political guru and deputy chief of staff, has 
already signaled that he intends to use national security as the 
defining issue for the fall congressional campaigns, just as he did to 
great effect in 2002 and 2004. But with Bush's numbers still falling, 
the Republicans who will be on the ballot have decided to define the 
security issue in their own way rather than defer to the president's 
interpretation.

The release of a new CBS News poll showing Bush's approval rating 
dropping to 34 percent, a low for him in that survey, sent tremors 
through Republican circles in Washington. Scott Reed, who managed Robert 
J. Dole's presidential campaign in 1996, called the results "pretty 
shattering." Most distressing to GOP strategists was that Bush's support 
among Republicans fell from 83 percent to 72 percent.

"The repetition of the news coming out of Iraq is wearing folks down," 
Reed said. "It started with women and it's spreading. It's just bad news 
after bad news after bad news, without any light at the end of the tunnel."

Bush shrugged off the poll numbers in an interview with ABC News 
yesterday. "If I worried about polls, I would be -- I wouldn't be doing 
my job," he said before leaving Washington for a trip to India and 
Pakistan. "And, look, I fully understand that when you do hard things, 
it creates consternation at times. And, you know, I've been up in the 
polls and I've been down in the polls. You know, it's just part of life 
in the modern era."

Yet at the White House, aides were decidedly downbeat, making dark jokes 
about the latest political trajectory and the Murphy's Law quality of 
life in the West Wing these days -- what can go wrong will go wrong. At 
least, some consoled themselves, Bush beat out Vice President Cheney, 
who was viewed favorably by just 18 percent in the CBS survey.

Others held on to the hope that this, too, shall pass.

"We've got a period of time when the news that's dominating the 
headlines is not good and some Republicans are going to feel free to 
distance themselves from the president," said a senior White House 
official who was not authorized to speak on the record. "But at the end 
of the day, I don't think the breach is deep or lasting because this is 
the president's strong suit. I think it's about this moment in time. I 
don't think it's fundamental."

If so, the moment may still last a while longer. Much of the dialogue in 
Washington right now centers on security disputes pitting Republicans 
against Republicans.

The Senate voted yesterday to clear the way for final passage today of a 
compromise version of the Patriot Act after a handful of Republicans in 
recent months insisted on changes to the law. But Judiciary Chairman 
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said he was still dissatisfied with the additional 
checks on law enforcement and introduced a new bill to set further 
restrictions on the collection of certain information in terrorism 
investigations without court orders.

Specter's committee also held another hearing yesterday into the 
National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance authorized by Bush. 
Specter and other Republicans are drafting legislation to establish 
congressional or court oversight of the eavesdropping.

And it was clear yesterday that a fresh 45-day review of the ports deal 
might not satisfy GOP critics. Two Senate committees grilled 
administration officials and the chief operating officer of the Dubai 
company at the center of the dispute. A bipartisan group of senators, 
including Republicans Norm Coleman (Minn.), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and 
Tom Coburn (Okla.), is scheduled to meet today to discuss legislation 
giving Congress final say over the deal.

Beyond the politics, several of the disputes are about institutional 
prerogatives, the sort of natural executive-legislative tension that was 
subsumed in Bush's first term after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when 
Republican lawmakers deferred to the president.

James B. Steinberg, who was President Bill Clinton's deputy national 
security adviser, said Bush "just overstepped" and alienated allies by 
not involving Congress in the matter.

"Even if you're a Republican member of Congress, you don't buy the 
exaggerated view of the unified executive theory, in which the only part 
of the Constitution that matters is Article II," on presidential power, 
said Steinberg, now dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public 
Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. "If you want them to be in 
on the landing, you have to have people there for the takeoff."

Rep. Heather A. Wilson (N.M.), who has emerged as one of the most active 
players on the NSA issue, noted that she has taken on the administration 
on a number of national security issues over the past few years but is 
now joined by more fellow Republicans. She said that owes more to 
administration mishandling than to a changing mood on Capitol Hill.

"We all agree that there has to be a single leader from the White House 
leading the armed forces," Wilson said. But "Congress has the 
responsibility to exercise oversight and ask questions," she said, "and 
I think you're seeing more members of Congress willing to do that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801607.html
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