Bush Loses On Immigration; His Presidency Fading Fast Too
WASHINGTON — The Senate’s rejection Thursday of President Bush’s immigration plan was the latest in a series of embarrassments that have exposed Bush’s political weakness and shaken his hold on power.
The president slipped out of town for a long weekend in Maine before the Senate delivered the final blow to his immigration bill, but it wasn’t the only setback that might put a damper on his seaside getaway with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the space of a single short week, Bush was hit with more Republican defections on Iraq, more bad news from the battlefield, more subpoenas from a hostile Congress, a new assault on his signature education plan and embarrassing disclosures about his vice president.
He also found himself in a fight over executive privilege that begs comparisons to Richard Nixon’s legal battles during the Watergate scandal.
“It’s the incredible shrinking presidency. He’s lost battles in the courts. He’s lost battles in Iraq. He’s lost battles on Capitol Hill,” said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University.
“His bank account is empty and there’s nowhere to go for more. I think his presidency is essentially over.”
Light proposed a headline to sum up the week: “The president loses his legacy.”
Bush’s plan to give millions of illegal immigrants a chance to come out of the shadows was the twin pillar of his ambitious second-term agenda. His other big idea, revamping Social Security, died two years ago with barely a whimper.
The two biggest victories from his first term, tax cuts and the No Child Left Behind education law, are also at risk. Many of the tax reductions that Bush championed are set to expire, and he’s been unable to convince Congress to make them permanent.
The education law is up for renewal, and lawmakers from both parties want to revamp it. Nearly five dozen Republican lawmakers — including Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, Bush’s former housing secretary — publicly support efforts to let states ignore some of the law’s provisions.
Among those calling for major changes is Eugene Hickok, who helped oversee the law’s enforcement in his former job as Bush’s deputy secretary of education.
“I had these second thoughts in my mind the whole time,” he told The Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday.
Bush loyalists say there’s plenty of fight left in the president, and plenty of time for him to use his remaining power. Bush and his advisers have warned Congress that the president will veto spending bills that he considers excessive.
Republican lobbyist Charlie Black said a confrontation over spending next fall could energize Republicans and help Bush win back conservatives who opposed his immigration plan. In the Senate, 37 Republicans — including both senators from Bush’s home state of Texas — joined 15 Democrats and one independent in blocking the immigration plan.
“We’re going to have huge fights over spending, which my guess is he can win because of the veto power,” Black said. “If there’s a good fight over spending, they’ll be happy.”
But with his job-approval rating stuck in the low 30s, Bush might want to avoid other looming fights.
Criticism on Iraq this week from Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and George Voinovich, D-Ohio, highlighted the growing skepticism in Republican ranks toward Bush’s handling of the war, which shows few signs of progress amid sectarian violence. Democrats hope to gain more Republican allies for their efforts to bring the troops home if the current strategy fails to show results by September.
“We don’t owe the president our unquestioning agreement,” Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a Senate speech Monday.
Bush also faces a potentially draining fight over his efforts to avoid congressional scrutiny. In a move that could provoke a constitutional showdown, he asserted executive privilege Thursday in rebuffing subpoenas for testimony and documents related to the firings of U.S. attorneys.
Democrats escalated their demands for more openness after The Washington Post ran a lengthy four-part series detailing Vice President Dick Cheney’s influence on government policy and penchant for secrecy. Executive privilege — a legal bulwark intended to protect presidential confidentiality — became a familiar phrase during the Watergate era as Nixon sought to fend off investigators.
Even if Bush wins the fight on legal grounds, it could take a toll on his already battered public reputation. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused the president of “Nixonian stonewalling.”
As Air Force One carried Bush away from the steamy capital Thursday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said he wasn’t sure whether the president had plans for some afternoon recreation on the cooler Maine shore.
“I suspect he does, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of stuff going on today,” Snow said. “Business before pleasure.”
© 2007 McClatchy Newspapers
Nah Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah
George Bush, Good-Bye!
“Business before pleasure?” Who do you think you’re fooling? This guy’s spent the past 7 years on permanent vacation! Cheney’s been the one really in charge and now everybody knows it!
I don’t think Bush’s legacy has died exactly. It’s just that now it’s obvious his legacy will be as the very worst president in modern history, if not in all. I never thought I would live to see the day when I would pine for Nixon, but this crew has made Nixon look only moderately bad.
Let’s not make the mistake of identifying the regressive, fascist swing this country has taken with the Bush regime only. After all, much of the rejection of the immigration bill (co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy, don’t forget) was due to its “liberal” amnesty provisions. As for Iraq, I don’t see a critique of the notion of preemptive war, or invasion and occupation in order to appropriate another country’s resources, but rather a turning against this particular war because we are “losing.”
Good riddance to the cohesive Repugnican gang mentality that succored and supported this disastrous and evil regime, but don’t mistake rats running from a sinking ship with a revolt against the underlying fascist ideology and religious fanatacism that are still very much alive and well.
Now is the time to impeach Cheney/Bush.
“The president loses his legacy.”
What legacy? What future president would want to inherit anything GW has done or said? The only legacy he has that has definitely been a change from past presidents is his idiocy …. any takers?
Bush isn’t a lame duck president, he’s a dead duck. The problem is, Cheney is still in charge and (there lies) the danger.
(there Lies), could have spelled it (their lies).
No Child Left Behind was based on the unbelievable success of the so-called “Houston model”, and I think Bush appointed the Houston school superintendent as his first Sec’y of Education. And unbelievable it was, as soon thereafter it was revealed that the Houston hero had cooked the books, leaving out low scores and generally falsifying the entire project. Therefore, NCLB is based on a failed, corrupt system which cannot possibly work, as it never has.
EVERYTHING Bush touches turns to shiit, and fast. I’m petty enough to be glad the immigration bill went nowhere - I didn’t like the “guest worker” giveaways or the wall-building anyway, and besides, Mexican immigration is nowhere near our country’s biggest problem just now. Maybe now congress can stop wasting time on it and get on with ending the war.
Everyone who has posted a message is right. However, there is a graver danger. Bush is a cornered, wounded animal, and he can come out swinging, which spells an even greater disaster for this country and world. He can still do a lot more damage, especially if he thinks his support base has abandoned him. It is time to step in and impeach this guy along with Cheney before they do any more damage. They are dangerous and deadly as we already know.
Illegal immigrants have been invading the U.S. AKA “Little Mexico” for decades. I didn’t see the government trying to stop them. They keep wages low and rents high.
The Chimp has a lot of nerve, making taxpayers pay for the UNnecessary war on Iraq, costing hundreds of billions (or is it a trillion yet?) of our tax dollars for war profiteering for the wealthy. More nerve than brain, like all bullies.
Evelyn What say you to a “lame dork” moniker for the remainder of Bush’s term?
lillulu - Illegals “keep wages low and rents high.” Well said.
wcdevins - You “didn’t like . . . the wall-building anyway.” Don’t be confused. The Senate bill would have funded construction of a wall just half the length of the wall already mandated by law.
Not that a wall solves anything. 45% of illegal aliens came here legally, and then over-stayed their visas. A wall does nothing to prevent that.
The real solution is to fine and penalize the illegal employers. It’s self-funding. In fact, one source says there is approximately $250 billion in uncollected fines out there (which would never have been collected had the Senate bill succeeded in giving amnesty to illegal employers.)
Great name Clark kent. I love your great sense of humor. Someone could write a song.
Lame Dork-doodle-de-dah-de-da-da
Lame dork-doo __ well, never mind.
Hey, want to read about a most serious problem? go to When Does Drowning Mean drowning.
This Administration, may be dead. Lets all hope and pray, good things are starting to leap up. We’ll see.
Bob K - Thanks for the sobering news. You are of course correct regarding illegal employERS. I was a Federal labor law enforcement officer for 26 years. Under Reagan we had new rules for calculating assumed unreported tips from restaurant employees, because this was where they said a big tax income shortfall was occurring - not from offshore corporate HQs, not from tax havens and breaks for capital gains and other sops to the rich, not even because the restaurants falsified their pay records to avoid paying overtime and thus payroll taxes - but because $1.15-an-hour waitresses were hiding their tip money and not paying taxes on it. I was with our legal department when Bush got in, and most of the lawsuits we had pending (and believe me, the DOL sues very rarely, only in the most egregious cases, and only when they have a slam-dunk win) were dropped because we were bothering big business, which was perfectly capable of monitoring itself. I was told I should transfer or retire, because we wouldn’t be suing any companies as long as Bush was president. This is the Republican way - nothing is too good for big business, and labor, illegal or not, is just a commodity to be used and discarded.
wcdevins - Yes, illegal employERS. Thanks for sharing your insider’s perspective. I agree completely.
I’m now reading “Take This Job and Ship It,” by Senator Byron Dorgan. It’s about corporate outsourcing, offshoring, tax fraud and general avarice. “Benedict Arnold billionaires.” It’s sickening.
Baby Caligula not only leaves a distinguished legacy - if you can’t be the best President ever why not go for worst? - he as brought something unique to the Oval Office, the world record for making every word out of his mouth a lie, including “and” and “the”.
Some posters have referred to the wall that was supposed to be built along the border. It would be a total waste of money to build it. The two things that need to be done to solve the problem are first to get rid of the risk-free attraction of coming or staying here ILLEGALLY and second to get rid of the pressures that make these people leave their homes.
We need to enforce our existing laws and concentrate on big fines and jail terms for people who employ illegal aliens. Then we need to repeal NAFTA &c to stop US corporations from exploiting people, resources and the environment south of the border.
I’ve repeatedly written in these forums that the “illegal immigration” framing is corporate PR, and the real issue is “corporate insourcing of low-wage replacement workers,” or simply “illegal employers.” I’ve also said the solution is to fine and jail the illegal employers until they change their hiring practices, and that without jobs the migrants will voluntarily return to their home countries. No deportation. No fence.
Many agree, but others say that compassion for the migrants trumps the corporate crimes and the harm to working Americans and the country.
So, I’ve now hit on a new idea. We enforce existing laws providing fines and penalties for illegal employers, yes. But in addition we pass a new law providing that illegal employers must also pay a severance bonus of $10,000 to any illegal alien they are caught employing.
This would provide one more incentive for employers to hire U.S. citizens, and would also be compassionate to the illegal migrants who would be traveling home at their own expense. Perhaps the bonuses would only be payable in their home countries.
Any thoughts on mandatory severance pay?
I think that under existing law, what is easier is to just get judges to levy the maximum fine currently available-$25,000 per violation, and then take use most/part of the proceeds for either a) resettlement aid to immigrants directly impacted by enforcement of immigration laws(i.e. the folks that want to go home and are willing to testify against their former employers) b) a jobs/infrastructure program in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
We also need a legal aid program for illegal immigrants-so they can sue their former employers for violations of US working conditions law.
I don’t object to the idea of mandatory severence pay. That just requires new laws though. We need to think about what can be done with the existing laws too.
There are cases of Indian programmers getting enormously abused by the “job shops” that employ them. These folks are in the US with limited contacts and knowledge of the legal system-and although they are technically ‘legal’ they sometimes live under conditions little better than slavery.
Randall - You may be right. We would probably have to employ an experienced lawyer to determine which approach is most expedient.
We do know, however, that existing law is rarely being enforced. It would appear that is Bush’s doing.
I find the mandatory severance pay idea appealing. For one thing there is a certain poetic justice in requiring the illegal employers to pay the wage slaves they have been exploiting a severance bonus.
For another thing, many in Congress are torn between legislating for the common good of the American people and the country on the one hand, and having compassion for the migrants on the other hand. I know this from watching the recent Senate debate. A mandatory severance pay law seems like a way they could do both.
I also think that a direct payment from the employer to the employee is preferable to funneling the money through government programs. Certainly the migrants would prefer it. So would the Republicans in Congress, no doubt.
Who knows whether it could become law. I think it’s worth kicking around a little to find out.
jp: Good warning; well said.
claudius: Impeachment is definitely what has to come now, and Cheney first (Kucinich-sponsored HR333).
I see this comment a lot about Bush/Cheney being cornered animals who are dangerous, so we have to treat them accordingly. Interesting, though, that Seymour Hersch sees Bush, at least, as believing his greatness will only really be appreciated 30 years from now. Denial of reality seems like his way of dealing with his predicament.
wcdevins: Thanks for the first-hand account of the “takeover”.
Wcdevins, ignorance IS bliss. I am learning so much since I hooked up with Common Dreams.
Thank you for sharing that information.
See where terrorists are at it again in the UK, wonder if we are next and the dead dork will initiate his total takeover operation. We’ll see. Kem Patrick