From political capital to bankruptcy

Byron York:

Let's say you're a Republican president, a bit more than midway through your second term. You're scrambling to salvage what you can of a deeply unpopular war, you're facing a line of subpoenas from Democrats in Congress and your poll ratings are in the basement. What do you do?

You estrange the very Republicans whose backing you need the most.

That's precisely what President Bush has managed to accomplish during the two big political developments of recent weeks: the commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence and the defeat of comprehensive immigration reform. But the president's problems with the GOP base go beyond those awkward headlines. Republicans aren't mad at Bush for the same reasons that Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the devotees of MoveOn.org are; there's no new anti-Bush consensus among left and right. No, conservatives are unhappy because the president allied himself with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) over an immigration deal that leaned too far toward amnesty for illegal immigrants. They're unhappy because Bush has shown little interest in fiscal responsibility and limited government. And they're unhappy, above all, because he hasn't won the war in Iraq.

All of this has left Republicans saying, at least among themselves, something blunt and devastating: It's over.

"Bush fatigue has set in," declares one plugged-in GOP activist.

"We're ready for a new president," says a former state Republican Party official in the South.

"There was affection," opines a conservative strategist based well beyond the Beltway, "but now they're in divorce court."

The problem is there for anyone to see: Bush's approval ratings could not have collapsed to 30 percent unless a lot of his base deserted him. In a number of recent polls, his job-approval rating among Republicans has been in the low- to mid-60 percent range. "Being under 70 percent of your own party, when you're president, is a pretty weak performance," notes Republican pollster David Winston. "He should be closer to, if not over, 90 percent."

Despite all this, the president has behaved in recent weeks like a man with political capital to burn. On immigration reform, he defied the GOP base as if his well of support were so deep that he could draw out as much of it as he liked. He also gave himself the worst of all worlds in the case of Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff. By commuting Libby's prison sentence -- as opposed to pardoning him outright -- for perjuring himself to CIA leak investigators, Bush outraged his Democratic opposition while leaving his base vaguely disappointed.

...

I don't think the Libby case should hurt the President. He has in fact given Libby something better than a pardon by commuting his sentence and leaving him free to have a wrong verdict overturned. I think there is a good chance that will happen and if it does not, he can still pardon him.

On immigration, his stand should be no surprise to his base, since it is what he wanted to do before 9-11 made it politically impossible. His mistake was not realizing that it is still politically impossible and it was probably a long shot before 9-11. Much of this is because the lack of seriousness that his and past administrations have shown toward border enforcement. One of the arguments that failed to persuade conservatives and many other Americans is that the new law was needed to improve border security. The argument lacked credibility because the attempts at enforcing current law lack credibility.

The administration was not helped in the seriousness fight by the Johnny Sutton prosecution of the border agents for shooting a fleeing drug mule. Sutton's bad judgment reflected poorly on the administrations priorities when it comes to border enforcement. It has to be one of the most unpopular actions by a US Attorney in recent memory and Bush has been "forced" to defend that at a time when he is trying to make a claim that he wants to get tough on border enforcement.

Bush's presidency has been marked by a willingness to attempt bold and far reaching objectives. He also failed in an attempt at Social Security reform that history will probably prove him right on, particularly when Democrats' "reform" will be nothing but tax increases that will make things worse.

When it comes to immigration reform, the President would be wise to go for what he can get which is more border enforcement.