Bush world crashes into the real world, again
From the NYTimes today:
"The Bush administration’s proposal to bring leading terrorism suspects before military tribunals met stiff resistance Thursday from key Republicans and top military lawyers who said some provisions would not withstand legal scrutiny or do enough to repair the nation’s tarnished reputation internationally."
It happened so fast. On Wednesday the President launches an aggressive effort to recast the national security/foreign policy conversation. On Thursday, leaders of his own Party and the Pentagon repudiate his new approach. From a governing standpoint, we should be pleased with has happened. From a political standpoint, it shows how extraordinarily out of touch and removed the White House has become from the rest of Washington, and of course, the country. Their political endgame this fall will be ferocious, hard-fought, well-funded and coordinated. But it is hard to spin away, and advertize away, the hard reality of a failed foreign policy and an economic policy that has benefited only a tiny few. The speedy crash of this new initiative should worry Republicans that there is no easy way out of the current mess they've made out of our government.
One interesting thing to watch next week is that the House Republicans, the most terrified group in Washington today, are standing firm with the President's already dead on arrival package. Will we have immigration reform redux, where the House R's take a narrow and base-driven position at odds with good governing and the Senate R's, leaving no room from compromise? Or will the President in this case have to bring all parties together, including the Democrats, and work out a deal to get something passed before the fall?
- Simon Rosenberg's blog
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