The roots of Republican failures in Congress.
Republicans also deserve credit for financing the war, which is more than many Democrats say they'll do if they run Capitol Hill. The extension for two more years, through 2010, of the 15% rate on dividends and capital gains will also help sustain the economic growth that is throwing off record revenues to pay for the war even as the budget deficit declines. The recent compromise on terrorist interrogations may also turn out to be historic, putting Congress's imprimatur on the Presidential powers needed to fight an enemy that violates the normal rules of war. Toss in bankruptcy and class-action reform, and some free-trade agreements. That's about it for the good news.
On the liability side, the list of flops is extensive, starting with making the tax cuts permanent, repealing the estate tax and immigration reform. Senate Democrats did their part to kill the first two, but House Republicans get credit for fanning public worry about immigration and then pretending that a 700-mile fence will solve the problem.
Social Security reform was never going to be easy, and Mr. Bush's war-driven decline in job approval meant he couldn't move any Democrats. But that still doesn't excuse such prominent Republicans as Tom Davis (Virginia) and Roy Blunt (Missouri) for resisting their President's reform effort behind the scenes. So frightened were they that they never even brought the subject up for a vote.
Perhaps the most puzzling abdication was the GOP failure to do anything at all on health care. The window for saving private health care from government encroachment is closing, and both business and workers are feeling the pinch from rising costs. Yet Republicans failed to make health-care savings accounts more attractive, failed to let business associations offer their own health plans, and failed even to bring to a vote Arizona Congressman John Shadegg's bill to avoid costly state mandates by letting health insurance be marketed across state boundaries. The biggest winner here is Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign.
Republicans have many explanations for their paltry record, some of them even accurate. The troubles in Iraq sapped Mr. Bush's support, dividing Republicans while uniting Democrats who saw a chance to regain power this fall. Hurricane Katrina blew away whatever hope there was of spending restraint and changed the national conversation from GOP priorities. And Tom DeLay's ethical troubles, and eventual ouster as Majority Leader, created a leadership vacuum.
Yet none of this excuses the more fundamental problem, which is that too many Republicans now believe their purpose in Washington is keeping power for its own sake.
"I did tell the president at one point that I thought maybe all of us should go, because we had fought two wars and we ... had the largest terrorist attack in American history," Rice disclosed Sunday night while en route to the Mideast.
"And when he asked me to be secretary of state, I said, 'I think maybe — maybe you need new people.' " She did not say what the president's immediate response was.
Fielding questions aboard her plane, Rice strenuously denied a claim in Bob Woodward's new book, "State of Denial," that her relations with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once deteriorated to the point where Bush had to intervene to ensure Rumsfeld would return Rice's calls.
"Secretary Rumsfeld has never refused to return my phone calls," Rice said, noting the two talked every day as part of routine "principals' calls" involving senior officials.
"The idea that he wasn't returning my phone calls is simply ludicrous," she said.