"Osama card" gives Bush, Republicans clout
By Randall Mikkelsen - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush may be a lame duck and his Republican party a minority in Congress, but they showed this week that with deft use of the "Osama card" they can still wield a powerful political hand.
A Democratic attempt to push through new restrictions on government eavesdropping collapsed in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, after Republican opponents launched a ploy that would have forced the bill's supporters to cast a vote seeming to side with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Democrats cried foul and pulled the bill from consideration. They vowed to press on, but Republicans quickly claimed victory, predicted the measure was dead and called for a bipartisan rewrite.
Bush had also lobbied aggressively against the measure, warning that it would weaken the United States in the fight against terrorists.
"It's sort of that Pavlovian instinct, every time the president says you're soft on terror, they (the Democrats) roll over and play dead," said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In portraying Democrats as soft on bin Laden, the Republicans used a strategy conceived by Bush political guru Karl Rove after the September 11 attacks. He told party members then that "we can go to the American people on the issue of winning this war" on terrorism.
(Continued here.)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush may be a lame duck and his Republican party a minority in Congress, but they showed this week that with deft use of the "Osama card" they can still wield a powerful political hand.
A Democratic attempt to push through new restrictions on government eavesdropping collapsed in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, after Republican opponents launched a ploy that would have forced the bill's supporters to cast a vote seeming to side with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Democrats cried foul and pulled the bill from consideration. They vowed to press on, but Republicans quickly claimed victory, predicted the measure was dead and called for a bipartisan rewrite.
Bush had also lobbied aggressively against the measure, warning that it would weaken the United States in the fight against terrorists.
"It's sort of that Pavlovian instinct, every time the president says you're soft on terror, they (the Democrats) roll over and play dead," said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In portraying Democrats as soft on bin Laden, the Republicans used a strategy conceived by Bush political guru Karl Rove after the September 11 attacks. He told party members then that "we can go to the American people on the issue of winning this war" on terrorism.
(Continued here.)
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