WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush sprints into his second term and a new year with a stunning election victory behind him but dogged by carryover issues that will continue to roil his administration and the country.
If President Ronald Reagan was the "Teflon President" for surviving the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, then Bush in 2004 proved the "Kevlar President." Attacks on his leadership, particularly in the Iraq War, bruised him but failed to penetrate the protective shield of a wartime president and public trust of Bush the man:
-- Last January, the head of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- the administration's main impetus for war the year before -- dropped the bombshell that no such weapons would likely be found because Iraq may not have had them at the onset of hostilities;
-- In February, Bush was battered by media reports he allegedly shirked his duty as an Air National Guard pilot during the Vietnam War. Release of some of his Guard records calmed the waters, but only temporarily. They resurfaced again in September in the middle of the election and then at the end of October just days before balloting when CBS News bannered documents damaging to Bush that were soon proven to be forgeries.
-- Iraq and the war on terror dominated headlines and administration attention a month later amid allegations by a former White House counter-terror expert that the Bush administration had been lax in guarding against al-Qaida's 2001 terrorist attack and had left the country vulnerable to new atrocities because Bush was preoccupied with ousting Saddam Hussein.
Al-Qaida, meanwhile, bombed trains and train stations in Spain just before a national election there. The upshot was the party of Bush's chief ally in Spain lost to a Socialist Party led by an anti-war activist, who quickly withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq. That led to the withdrawal of at least two Central American contingents, which depended on the Spanish for logistics.
-- Frosty relations between Washington and European capitals because of Iraq continued throughout the year despite outreach efforts by Bush. A number of NATO allies, led by anti-war opponents France and Germany, stood back from helping train Iraqi police forces despite appeals from the president.
And on it ran. Iraq ebbed and flowed throughout the year.
The allegations of former counter-terror officer Richard Clarke, who was a Clinton administration holdover, were bannered again in April during hearings of a special panel investigating terror attacks, and the final report of WMD inspector David Kay popped up in October, backing up his initial assessment. If Iraq and its fallout failed to be topic-of-the-week, it was never off the front pages amid new spikes in violence between U.S. forces, Iraqi rebels and terrorist insurgents. By December more than 1,200 U.S. military personnel had died in the conflict since March 2003; more than 9,000 had been wounded.
Costs to the nation's treasury soared toward $200 billion as troop levels in Iraq stayed far above the 125,000 mark -- and were to increase to about 150,000 as Iraq neared a Jan. 30 election date.
Pushed into second place was the economy, which chugged along and added more than 2 million jobs for which Bush credited his much maligned tax cuts; the U.S.-British success in prodding Libya's Moammar Gadhafi to divest the country of WMD; legislative successes such as making some sun-setting tax cuts permanent; and a jewel in the crown, Afghanistan's successful national elections, a direct result of the U.S. invasion to oust al-Qaida terrorists and its Islamic fundamentalist Taliban protectors.
Public-opinion polling, while showing the majority of people in the United States trusted Bush in the war on terror more than Democratic Party opponent Sen. John Kerry, also showed growing anxiety over the war in Iraq.
Going into the election, the race was virtually a statistical dead heat as Kerry pilloried Bush over the conflict yet offered no concrete plan or alternative to Bush's stay-the-course policy.
"I've just got to say this, and this has been dramatically under-emphasized: Bush is the only president in the age of polling other than Harry Truman who has fallen behind for a significant period of the election year yet still managed to win," said Larry Sabato, a respected political analyst who heads the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "And he won in the midst of a bloody, unpopular war in Iraq and economic difficulties. It really is one for the books."
What's behind it: "The comfortability that a majority of Americans established with Bush in the days after 9/11 and the whole idea of terrorism, the frightening aspects of what's to come and who we want running it," Sabato told United Press International. "And you have to add that (Democratic challenger Sen. John) Kerry was too liberal, lacked leadership qualities and also had a very unpleasant personality."
Bush, early on in the election, said it was all a matter of trust. A majority of people in the United States apparently agreed as Bush highlighted Kerry's shifting positions on the war, anti-military voting record in the Senate and intent to use an international litmus test for U.S. national security actions.
Bush, who framed arguments over the economy and Iraq within the broader context of the war on terror, won 51 percent to 48 percent, chalking up 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 252. Republicans riding Bush's coattails gained four U.S. Senate seats and made a gain in the House as well.
"A president must lead with consistency and strength in these troubling times," Bush said in Wisconsin during the campaign. "Even when you might not agree with me, you know where I stand, what I believe and what I intend to do. On good days and on bad days, whether the polls are up or the polls are down, I am determined to win this war on terror, and I will support the men and women of the United States military."
The theme of leadership dominated the White House and Bush-Cheney campaign. Even when the Kay report came out and should have harmed the president, Bush insisted he acted on good faith and would not hesitate to do so again where the safety of the nation was involved.
"In our debate, Senator Kerry said that removing Saddam Hussein was a mistake because the threat was not imminent. The problem with this approach is obvious. If America waits until a threat is at our doorstep, it might be too late to save lives," Bush said in October. "Tyrants and terrorists will not give us polite notice before they launch an attack on our country. I refuse to stand by while dangers gather. In the world after September the 11th, the path to safety is the path of action."
Bush's stand-fast persona carried over into social and economic issues. Amid a Massachusetts court's decision to recognize same-sex marriages and such unions being performed en mass in California, Bush came out in support of a constitutional amendment enshrining marriage as being between one man and one woman. Democrats and gay-rights activists attacked to no avail. Polls showed the majority of people in the country are against homosexual marriage, and the issue helped gain support in the black and Hispanic communities.
Rounding out the year, Bush put an 11th-hour press on House Republicans who had balked at passing intelligence reform legislation over a dispute on language that could endanger the military's real-time access to tactical information. The dispute had prompted Democrats to claim dissension in GOP ranks and a sign of Bush's opposition to reforms, but analysts believe it was more a one-off event.
Bush also ended the year and was entering 2005 with renewed determination to keep to the schedule of Iraq elections for Jan. 30 despite increasing violence. The new year would also see fence-mending efforts with European allies, but not at the expense of the United States surrendering its freedom of action previewed recently when Bush went to Canada, another staunch opponent of the Iraq War. Bush held out a hand of friendship and vowed multilateral cooperation but emphasized the security of the United States remained paramount for his administration, and that would include pre-emptive action if and when needed.
There will also be renewed peace efforts in the Middle East following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was viewed by Bush as an obstacle to peace negotiations.
On the domestic front, Bush has vowed to tackle Social Security reform, tax reform, healthcare reform and a new energy policy. Before the year was out he met with congressional leaders and Social Security trustees to jumpstart the campaign to fix the system projected to reach insolvency by 2042.
"He's got a six-month window. That is the maximum any president gets in being re-elected," Sabato said about a legislative honeymoon period with Congress. "I think he is going to get a lot of what he wants, but it won't be easy. The legislative road is never easy."
--
(Please send comments to [email protected].)
