Democrats should absolutely hold Bush's feet to the fire on the topic of terrorism, and the Washington Post story after the jump indicates why. The Bush administration is "signaling" no major change in foreign policy. In other words, for Bush, fighting terrorism will remain a "values" issue, defined by how "patriotic" you are and having little to do with actually hunting down and destroying al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31002-2004Nov6.html
President Signals No Major Shift In Foreign Policy
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 7, 2004; Page A01
President Bush faces an array of difficult foreign policy issues in his second term, but he appears unlikely to change the overall direction of an assertive diplomacy that has riled some key allies and led to rising anti-Americanism around the globe, according to administration officials and outside experts.
...
Richard Haass, the State Department's director of policy planning in the first two years of Bush's current term, said that rarely has a president faced such a challenging period in foreign policy. Besides having 135,000 service members engaged in a protracted conflict in Iraq, he said, Bush will need to continue the fight against al Qaeda, confront the prospect that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons and that North Korea will bolster its nuclear arsenal, reassess Arab-Israeli policy to account for Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat's death and find a solution to the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.
But Haass, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Bush will be constrained in his options, in part because of soaring budget deficits and record borrowing from countries overseas (known as the "current account deficit") and in part because so many U.S. forces are stationed in Iraq. "The war of choice against Iraq has narrowed choices elsewhere for U.S. foreign policy," especially the ability to initiate new wars, Haass said.
I suppose we should be thankful that Bush will, indeed, be somewhat hamstrung in his ability to start new wars. But his lack of action against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda is simply inexcusable, and completely at odds with his carefully-crafted public persona--a fact that Republicans have been extremely silent about.
As a matter of strategy (and for the good of the country), Democrats would do very well to go after Bush routinely regarding what he's doing in the fight against al Qaeda. In fact, this might be an excellent opportunity to drive wedges into the Republican party: frequently and loudly criticizing Bush for not doing enough against al Qaeda and bin Laden would put Republican Congresspeople in the unfortunate position of either defending the administration's inaction (possibly costing them in the midterm elections) or also attacking the administration (thereby causing rifts in the party and driving a wedge between Bush's supposed "war on terror credentials and Congressional Republicans). And if they say nothing, then the Democrats have the floor all to themselves on the subject of fighting terrorism, which, after a couple of years, will leave the popular impression that Democrats are more interested in defending the United States than Republicans.
What do I mean by "going after Bush"? I think Democrats should publicly ask what the Bush administration (and, should they be so inclined, their Republican colleagues in the Congress) is doing to fight al Qaeda. More, I think they should come up with and loudly recommend policy proposals for going after bin Laden and al Qaeda, defending the US homeland from terrorism, etc.
In other words, it's time for the Democrats and their policy/military wonks (such as Richard Clarke and the military bigwigs who came out to support John Kerry) to act like an opposition party.
Let's provide a real, visible alternative to Republican rule in terms everyone can understand. I think this could generate real benefits in 2006...