Today's NYT editorial entitled The Fear of Fear Itself stated succinctly the question that has had me scratching my head not just since the passage of the White House eavesdropping bill in the hours before the August recess, but since the capitulation on the supplemental war funding bill several months ago:
[What do Democrats] plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president?
How is it that our elected representatives -- nearly all of whom are professional politicians -- fail to grasp a basic political truth: Enabling this President's disastrous policies has a heavy political cost.
Let's flash back to this spring. The President has vetoed a war spending measure, objecting to "timetables" for drawing down American troops in Iraq. Efforts to achieve a compromise between the White House and the Democratic Congress have failed (due largely to intransigence on the part of the President). Faced with an imminent congressional recess, and the prospect of Republican criticism for going on vacation without funding our troops, the Democrats backed down and granted the President with what amounted to another six-month blank check to fund this disastrous war.
The political result? Congress' public approval rating plunged.
Fast forward to last week. The President has come to Congress seeking broader surveillance powers, supposedly as a result of an adverse FISA court decision. The President signals that a narrow bill that merely addresses the specific issue raised by the FISA court is unacceptable, and pushes for broader authority. Faced with an imminent congressional recess, and the prospect of Republican criticism for going on vacation without acting on a vital matter of national security, the Democrats backed down and granted the President exactly what he wanted.
The political result? That remains to be seen, but I've got my money on another drop in the polls.
Make no mistake: I am under no misapprehension that the Democrats in Congress will win all (or even most) of these confrontations with the President. Democrats do not have a veto-proof majority in either house, and lack the votes to invoke cloture in the Senate. Moreover, on issues like the Iraq war the primary weapon that Congress possesses -- the power of the purse -- is admittedly very dangerous to wield.
But that doesn't excuse them from trying. Caving after a single veto, or a veto threat, simply isn't good enough.
In the end, I believe that there are many of us in the Democratic base who can forgive our elected representatives for failing, if they've fought the good fight, taken the case to the American people, and done everything in their power to do what's right.
But the problem with Congress last week was that Democrats were afraid to explain to Americans why the White House bill was so bad and so unnecessary — despite what the White House was claiming. There are good answers, if Democrats are willing to address voters as adults.
And this was an issue I believe they could have prevailed on.
Democrats in Congress would be well-advised not to fall into this trap again. In a sense, they have more to fear from their supporters than from their Republican critics. The wave of frustration, anger and revulsion that carried them back into the majority could easily turn against them in the form of disappointment, cynicism and apathy. In short, bad policy is bad politics.