THE OVAL OFFICE must be a lonely place these days. It is easy to imagine the president sitting in a darkened room, waiting for the phone to ring, for someone — anyone — to ask him to solve a problem, to be a leader.
Thursday’s Senate vote that effectively killed the president’s immigration bill made painfully clear how alienated Bush has become from his own party. Even with the help of some Democrats, he was not able to force passage of the bill.
The immigration bill was the one big piece of domestic legislation this year to which Bush had devoted the full power of his office. In the bill, the president attempted to please everyone — from those who dream of an absolutely secure border to businesses that fear loss of their immigrant workers. In its way, the bill was the most bipartisan proposal to come out of the White House in years.
But the bill pleased almost no one. Opponents of immigration saw it as an attempt to create a back-door amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants from Central and South America. Agricultural businesses feared that the bill’s provisions would cut off the flow of farm workers and warned of crops rotting in the fields for lack of workers to pick them.
Indeed, the bill’s provisions were so complex that both groups might have been correct.
There was a time when Bush could give Congress its marching orders and expect it to turn his wishes into law on demand. But on the immigration bill, the president was reduced to using his bully pulpit to plead with the senators to trust him on this one. The senators refused.
The vote made clear that the unlimited political capital the nation granted to the president on Sept. 11, 2001, has been spent.
Unless Bush can open a new line of political credit, the next 18 months are likely to be disillusioning for the man who, by the office he holds, is still supposed to be the most powerful person in the world.
dalelinn (Dale Linn) says...
Mr. Kelly,
I must have missed the part about how the U.S. "citizens" stopped this further attempt to do away with our borders. Come to think of it, I must have missed any news in your paper about how the "non citizens" have pretty much taken over our recreation center game room, flood our hospitals, social services, health dept., & caused the Kansas "citizens" to have to double what we are spending on education, build two new schools, & now need more space.
The U.S. citizens showed how sickened they are by how "cheap" the corporations & our elected representatives are making citizenship, here in the U.S. I guess I'm just impressed with how the Gazette can stick it's head in the sand (by not mentioning the citizens pressure on their Senators) to be politically correct. Brownback voted with McCain to advance the bill until he realized that it was a losing cause. Then he changed his vote to go with the tide. Golly, I dont remember reading that in the Gazette
June 30, 2007 at 9:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )