For Bush's New Direction, Cooperation Is The Challenge
By Dan Balz
Washington Post
Tuesday's electoral earthquake triggered an equally seismic reaction in Washington yesterday, one that signaled more clearly than ever that a politically humbled President Bush now agrees with a resurgent Democratic Party on the need for a change of course in Iraq. What was not clear was whether the two sides are genuinely prepared to work together to produce one.
In the wake of an election that swept Republicans from power in the House and left them on the brink of surrendering their Senate majority as well, both parties have greater incentives to reach accommodation than at any time since Bush was elected in 2000. Iraq will provide the critical test of whether either can overcome the ingrained habits and bad blood of six years of partisan warfare that have often left the Capitol in gridlock.
The president took the most dramatic step yesterday in acknowledging how much the landscape has changed. At a midday news conference he announced that he had accepted the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has come to symbolize the administration's apparent unwillingness to change a policy that has failed to bring order to Iraq and that has lost popular support at home. Bush said it is time for "a fresh perspective" on the war.
"I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made there," he said. "Yet I also believe that most Americans and leaders here in Washington from both political parties understand we cannot accept defeat."
If Bush was willing to dismiss Rumsfeld, which the president said only a week ago that he had no intention of doing, it was in part because he and his party have so much at risk. Tuesday's elections proved to be a reaction not only against the war and the corruption scandals that have scarred Congress but also against the kind of base-driven politics that Bush used in 2004 to win a second term.
That model has often elevated policies and tactics designed to energize conservative activists over an appeal to what many GOP strategists saw as a shrinking middle of the electorate. But on Tuesday, the center struck back, voting decisively for Democratic candidates in House races.
(The rest is here.)
Washington Post
Tuesday's electoral earthquake triggered an equally seismic reaction in Washington yesterday, one that signaled more clearly than ever that a politically humbled President Bush now agrees with a resurgent Democratic Party on the need for a change of course in Iraq. What was not clear was whether the two sides are genuinely prepared to work together to produce one.
In the wake of an election that swept Republicans from power in the House and left them on the brink of surrendering their Senate majority as well, both parties have greater incentives to reach accommodation than at any time since Bush was elected in 2000. Iraq will provide the critical test of whether either can overcome the ingrained habits and bad blood of six years of partisan warfare that have often left the Capitol in gridlock.
The president took the most dramatic step yesterday in acknowledging how much the landscape has changed. At a midday news conference he announced that he had accepted the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has come to symbolize the administration's apparent unwillingness to change a policy that has failed to bring order to Iraq and that has lost popular support at home. Bush said it is time for "a fresh perspective" on the war.
"I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made there," he said. "Yet I also believe that most Americans and leaders here in Washington from both political parties understand we cannot accept defeat."
If Bush was willing to dismiss Rumsfeld, which the president said only a week ago that he had no intention of doing, it was in part because he and his party have so much at risk. Tuesday's elections proved to be a reaction not only against the war and the corruption scandals that have scarred Congress but also against the kind of base-driven politics that Bush used in 2004 to win a second term.
That model has often elevated policies and tactics designed to energize conservative activists over an appeal to what many GOP strategists saw as a shrinking middle of the electorate. But on Tuesday, the center struck back, voting decisively for Democratic candidates in House races.
(The rest is here.)
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