ONE might argue that there are three types of Republican voter. Those who like small government. Those who think the “Grand Old Party” is the stronger party on defence. And those with solidly conservative social values. Today’s free-spending Republicans have given the small-government types nothing to cheer about . A week of awful news may now help to alienate the other two.
The furore over last week’s National Intelligence Estimate, which said that the war in Iraq was becoming a cause célèbre for jihadists around the world, was bad enough. It suggested that going into Iraq has made America less safe, though George Bush continues to insist the opposite. In separate but related news, a new gang of now-retired top officers in Iraq sharply criticised the Pentagon, and particularly Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence, in public hearings. To win in Iraq, they said, will require far more troops and many more years. Taken together, the message is that going into Iraq was inherently dangerous, and Mr Rumsfeld did so haphazardly.
Now a book by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post is helping to turn the knife. He points to divisions inside the Bush administration. After Mr Bush was re-elected, Condoleezza Rice, now the secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, the president’s second-term national security adviser, apparently suggested that Mr Rumsfeld be sacked. So did Andy Card, Mr Bush’s trusted chief of staff. Mr Rumsfeld has kept his job, reportedly, largely because Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and various political handlers worried about going through bruising confirmation hearings for a new secretary of defence. Such hearings would certainly have focused on the war in Iraq.
According to Mr Woodward internal rivalries also undermined planning for the war in Iraq in 2003. Mr Rumsfeld disdained the interagency process by which the State Department, the National Security Council and others work together with the Pentagon to plan big things like wars. Mr Rumsfeld isolated himself from dissent, sometimes even refusing calls from Ms Rice (who was then the national security adviser). The book buttresses the idea of a powerful team of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld, with near complete control over Mr Bush’s key decisions on Iraq, shutting out the administration’s more cautious voices. As with the National Intelligence Estimate, the gist of Mr Woodward’s book is not new, but it offers more evidence of what many have long thought.
As if internal revolt over Iraq were not enough, a scandal at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue threatens the Republicans before November’s mid-term congressional elections. It emerged on Friday September 29th that a Republican congressman from Florida, Mark Foley, had written sexually suggestive messages to several teenage boys working as congressional pages (who deliver messages in the House and the Senate). Worse, Republican leaders had known of at least one inappropriate e-mail exchange with a teenager. Instead of investigating, one of them merely told Mr Foley to end contact. Now, the FBI is looking into the matter. Mr Foley has resigned in disgrace; his colleagues are running away from him as fast as they can.
Mr Foley’s transgressions are those of a lone, troubled man. But as the Republicans’ swagger was self-reinforcing in Mr Bush’s first term, their struggles seem to compound themselves in his second. Mr Foley has landed a powerful blow on the only strong Republican pillar remaining: social conservatives. Though they will never vote for the Democrats, a good number may be so dispirited by the scandal that they stay at home on November 7th.
Can anything lift the Republicans now? Some have speculated recently that the Republicans may be planning an “October surprise” to help them in the election—some even joking that the death of Osama bin Laden, or even strikes on Iran, will be announced. But, so far in October, the only surprises are nasty ones for the ruling party. |
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