The Petulant President
The problem with being great at campaigning but awful at governing is that, after you win at the ballot box, you have to govern. And the problem when this odd mix of skills and weaknesses works across the board is that, when you're governing, there's no one else to blame.

So it is that we now see poor President Bush, secure in his second term and buttressed with the strongest legislative majorities his party has had for eighty years, stamping his little foot and getting increasingly snitty at the fact that his raft of irrational and unpopular proposals hasn't yet been enacted into law:

Addressing GOP donors on Tuesday night, the president said of Democratic lawmakers: "On issue after issue, they stand for nothing except obstruction, and this is not leadership. It is the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock, and our country and our children deserve better."

The Bush second term is exposing the hollow core of Republican politics. Without a clear enemy to demonize--John Kerry, Saddam Hussein, Michael Moore--there's just nothing for people to grasp onto. Bush and Karl Rove accomplished something really unprecedented last year: they managed to make the campaign about the personality of the challenger rather than the record of the incumbent. Now Bush has the stage to himself, and it's awfully lonely. His apparent priorities--ruining Social Security, perpetuating the (increasingly unpopular) quagmire in Iraq, further shifting the tax burden from wealth to work--aren't even resonating with his far-right base, which will always have more enthuasiasm for stoning promiscuous women than further enriching Paris Hilton (speaking of).

Bush's other problem, of course, is that he lacks both aptitude and enthusiasm for the actual work of governance. He doesn't do nuance, he doesn't do compromise, and he doesn't even make an effort to "sell" his policy proposals on their own merits rather than through political carrots and sticks. Bush fails to grasp that policymaking in our non-dictatorial system requires negotiation, compromise and open debate; rather than do that hard work, he just wants to change the system toward a more dictatorial model, consequences be damned.

And it's starting to cost him. On issue after issue, from stem cells to renewable energy, even some Republicans in Congress are starting to push back. This Washington Post article on the search for a Social Security "exit strategy" offers a compelling look at how the dynamic is playing out:

Senate GOP leaders, in discussions with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and political officials, have made it clear they are stuck in a deep rut and suggested it is time for an exit strategy, according to a senior Senate Republican official and Finance Committee aides.

Democrats are united in their opposition, and the Finance Committee does not have the Republican votes to approve a Social Security plan that would divert some payroll taxes to private investment accounts. But the committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue, also does not have the votes to pass a plan that would preserve Social Security's solvency without the personal accounts because too many GOP conservatives want them.
...
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) has been unwavering in her opposition, and at least three other Republicans have questioned the wisdom of moving forward. "We are stuck," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said.

House Republican leaders believe House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) could put together broad retirement legislation that could clear his committee with private accounts. But aides and GOP lawmakers say House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has told his members he remains averse to a floor vote on such a plan if the Senate cannot act.

"There is absolutely no way is he is going to put his members on a roll call where they fall on their sword on a bill with no chance of going anywhere," said one Republican House member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of crossing White House political officials.

White House officials at the highest levels recognize the problem, congressional aides say, but to pull back from private accounts now would undermine Bush's congressional allies -- such as Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) -- with no guarantee that a compromise could be reached without the accounts.
...
White House aides have been locked in a debate over whether it would be a victory if Bush settled for a Social Security deal without private accounts. Some White House domestic policy officials have suggested that the savings that would flow from reducing future Social Security costs would go a long way toward fixing the government's long-term financial problems.

But Rove, among others, has told Republicans that it would be unwise, both from a political and policy standpoint, to reduce benefits without offering people the potential of better returns through personal accounts, aides said. "It gets no easier without private accounts," a senior White House official said.

So there you have it. Karl Rove continues to push the political benefits of a proposal that does nothing for the solvency of the system and essentially trades income security for the risks of the market while kicking up administrative costs by an order of magnitude. The same sort of wishful thinking that has led to slow-motion tragedy in Iraq--most recently seen in Dick Cheney's nonsensical remarks that the resistance is in its "last throes"--is leading to bad politics at home.

Some credit is due to the Democrats, who have been unusually united and assertive on this question, as the Post illustrates.

Democrats are unapologetic. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said voters increasingly see Bush as the impediment to a compromise because the president has stubbornly stuck by a partial privatization proposal that has never gained broad public support. Besides, Emanuel added, after five years of pushing legislation through Congress with virtually no consultation with Democrats, White House officials can hardly complain that the Democrats are not there now.

"They never wanted our votes on a prescription-drug bill. They didn't want our votes on taxes, and now they want it on Social Security?" he said. "Go ahead. Have your party-line vote. We'll see how it turns out."

Sounds like a man who knows he's got some good cards in hand, and won't be unhinged by his opponent's hissy fit.