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early months of the Bush administration were full of speculation
about what issue was Bush's "gays in the military," the issue where
he would depart too far from public opinion and create a major political
vulnerability for himself. It wasn't the tax cut, as so many liberals
fervently hoped, or the cutoff of international aid for abortion.
It turns out it was energy.
In the energy debate, Bush repeated the classic Clinton error from
the 1993-94 health-care wars, which was to hype a crisis that didn't
exist. Yes, there was a problem in California. Yes, gas prices had
shot up nationwide. But there was no national crisis in any way
comparable to the late 1970s.
There were understandable reasons for Bush to try to talk up a crisis.
Ever mindful of his father's disastrously blasé reaction to the
1990 recession, he wanted to get out in front of the problem, and
there was a chance that California's troubles would spread. A sense
of crisis would also help sell Bush's drill-and-dig policies. But,
as Clinton learned, crises can't just be manufactured, and because
no one outside of California felt any impending sense of doom, all
the urgent rhetoric rang hollow.
If there truly were a crisis, the public probably would ditch most
of its solicitude for conservation and the niceties of environmentalism,
but in the absence of one, the Bush energy plan is out of step with
public sentiment. Unfortunately, it appears (as E.J. Dionne points
out in the Washington Post today) to have enhanced two of
his biggest political weaknesses, just as gays in the military played
to Clinton's inherent vulnerabilities (as too socially liberal and
hostile to the military). Politics often isn't about substance,
but image and stereotype. And, fairly or not, Bush is thought to
be an oil man friendlier to corporations than to caribou.
His energy plan couldn't have been better crafted to reinforce this
negative image if it had been drafted by Jim Carville and Paul Begala.
Its call for more drilling conjures images of pristine wilderness
and beaches both being defiled. And its ungainly collection of corporate
giveaways — ably dissected by the Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor
in the pages of NR — is corporate welfare pure and simple.
On top of all this, Dick Cheney's task force is bringing him ethical
headaches, and eventually he will probably have to cough up the
names of the people whom his task force consulted, with corporate
types heavily represented.
Now, of course, sometimes it's necessary to take positions that
give opponents an opportunity to pound you politically. Bush's renunciation
of the Kyoto Treaty, for instance, eliminated a serious threat to
the U.S. economy — he deserves credit for his forthright opposition
to it. But the energy plan was different. Even if all of it had
been implemented immediately it would have had little effect on
the "crisis" that was already resolving itself (the energy sector
is profitable again, so new power plants are already being built
at a rapid clip).
Make no mistake: The energy plan was a political document meant
to address a misdiagnosed political problem, and as such it represents
not a great stand on principle, but a simple political mistake.
Which is why the Bushies appear to be adopting a maneuver Clinton
often resorted to when he was mispositioned on an issue — backpedaling
like mad.
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