http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/14714588.htm

Posted on Thu, Jun. 01, 2006

The scent of scandalBy David Broder
The Washington Post

In its September 2004 issue, the Washington Monthly magazine invited 16 smart political observers -- a mix of Republicans, Democrats and independents -- to predict what would happen if George Bush won a second term.

The answers were all over the lot. But no one suggested that one-third of the way through his second term, Bush would have suffered such political and policy reverses.

Last week was unfortunately typical for an administration that cannot seem to catch a break. The once-compliant House of Representatives, which in 2005 began its defiance with a refusal to bring Bush's signature Social Security plan to a vote, dug in its heels against the top priority on his 2006 agenda, a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Even as Bush and his most loyal international partner, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, met to celebrate the (partial) formation of a permanent government in Iraq, a wave of violence swept across Baghdad. And details began leaking out of an alleged massacre last November of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines who were said to be retaliating for the death of one of their buddies.

This second-term swamp is a far cry from what most of the Washington Monthly experts predicted -- or what I would have guessed.

The one commentator who got it exactly right was Kevin Drum, who runs the magazine's blog. "What do we have to look forward to if George W. Bush is elected to a second term?" he asked. "One word: scandal."

History backed that forecast. Almost every re-elected president in modern times has been victimized by scandal, from Eisenhower's losing his chief of staff to Clinton's impeachment.

Drum found additional reasons. For one thing, he said, "both Bush and the current Republican Party leadership have already demonstrated a ruthlessness and disregard for traditional political norms." He cited the lengthy roll calls in the House of Representatives during which arms were twisted to produce votes; the redistricting in Texas to gain five Republican House seats; and the hard-line secrecy imposed by the White House on executive decisions.

Second, he said, the culture of lax supervision of executive agencies by the Republican Congress encouraged misbehavior on Capitol Hill -- and made it likely the malfeasance would reach aromatic heights before it was finally detected. Look at the time it took for the Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay network to be exposed, the number of times the House Ethics Committee flinched from fully exposing it -- and you see how right Drum was.

And, finally, he said, the lack of major policy initiatives would leave a vacuum in the news that would make scandal look like the most prominent feature of the political landscape. The near-impasse in Iraq, the painfully long and ultimately unproductive debates about Social Security and immigration, the impasse on energy and health care and the unwillingness to come to grips with budget deficits -- all this background noise makes the stories of William Jefferson's freezer full of marked bills that much more vivid.

Drum concluded his essay by saying that 2005 would likely provide "the perfect breeding ground for a major scandal, and George Bush is exactly the right guy, with exactly the right personality, to step right into it."

So far, the scandal has not involved the president personally, but the stench of corruption is all around the city -- too close for comfort.


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David S. Broder writes for The Washington Post. davidbroder@washpost.com