Bush Bets Big on Terror: Will Fortune Favor the Bold?

The White House is spending the weekend trying to figure out how to save its political fortunes, and possibly its legacy.

Last week, in a move widely perceived as a last-minute political gambit, the Bush administration tried to force two proposals through Congress which would radically expand its powers when spying on, interrogating and prosecuting terrorism suspects. The trick? To garner enough ‘nay’ votes from Democrats that Americans would be reminded, on the eve of the midterm elections, of how soft the party is on national security issues.

But the plan quickly met with turmoil within the Republican party.

In the House, GOP leaders succeeded in squelching — for now — Rep. Heather Wilson’s (R-NM) more moderate proposal to address the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, which they had once backed. In the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has not yet made up his mind on how to handle the open rebellion of three senators in the Armed Services Committee, who advanced a detainee treatment bill that’s counter to White House wishes.

The result: a nettle of fights no Republican wanted to have over how to resolve serious differences within their party. And all just weeks before an election which could shove the GOP into dreaded minority status in one or both chambers of Congress.

For once, the Democrats aren’t complaining about getting shut out of a debate over national security issues. “Look at the lineup for the morning talk shows this Sunday,” one Democratic staffer told me happily this afternoon. “It’s all Republicans!”

But it’s created a serious problem for the White House. To win, it has to figure out how to strike compromises with key moderate Republicans on these issues — but still have legislation that Democrats will vote against.

Can it be done? I don’t see how to split the issues surrounding warrantless wiretapping or detainee abuse in a way that would simultaneously win support from moderate Republican holdouts and alienate Dems.

Also, remember that the White House isn’t the only one with political fortunes at play here. Two of the Senate titans clashing over detainee treatment — Frist and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — want the Oval Office in 2008. Frist has introduced his own (White House-friendly) bill, which competes with the McCain-endorsed “rebel” legislation, that has already been approved by the Armed Services Committee. With the issue already in play, could Frist see an opening to beat McCain on a national security issue by advancing his bill to the floor ahead of all others? It would almost invite a Senate-wide brawl.

You can’t help but wonder: why now? How did the White House miss obvious signs of dissension within its own party? How could they make such a big miscalculation on what was supposed to be a clever election-eve ploy?

It’s just befuddling enough to make one consider that the White House might have had an alternate motive to try for this legislation now.

Far from being a cheap gambit, the Bush administration may have made this last-minute push for legal cover because it believes it could be the closest thing to a firewall against investigations — even impeachment — in case of a Democratic takeover. If the laws don’t change, and courts continue to rule against the administration, hearings and investigations move from being a left-wing pipe dream to becoming a political necessity.