A Congress Gone to Pot

IN response to a recent jump in gas prices, congressional Republicans reacted in characteristic fashion. They panicked, touted bad policy, and did themselves political harm, all in a spectacle seemingly designed to disgust the conservatives who had voted them into office. This has been a familiar pattern in recent years. The talk of Washington has been about the “shakeup” in the White House and what administration official-Dick Cheney? Don Rumsfeld? John Snow?-should be sacked to help turn around the national GOP’s fortunes. We survey this scene and find ourselves asking, Is it Congress that should be fired?

President Bush deserves some of the blame for the rotten results from Congress-sometimes, he has affirmatively pushed bad policy (most recently with his “comprehensive” immigration reform), and he has made it his standard operating procedure not to try seriously to rein in congressional excess. There is no doubt that his coordination with Capitol Hill could be better, and the inability of his team to anticipate political problems-such as the Dubai ports-deal mess-has made life more difficult than it need be for his fellow Republicans. But the GOP in Congress acts as if establishing a smoother White House operation were the key to eliminating all its troubles. In reality, the locus of the national party’s malaise is as much, perhaps more, on Capitol Hill than in the Bush administration.

About the Author

Kate O'Beirne

About the Author

Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

IN response to a recent jump in gas prices, congressional Republicans reacted in characteristic fashion. They panicked, touted bad policy, and did themselves political harm, all in a spectacle seemingly designed to disgust the conservatives who had voted them into office. This has been a familiar pattern in recent years. The talk of Washington has been about the “shakeup” in the White House and what administration official-Dick Cheney? Don Rumsfeld? John Snow?-should be sacked to help turn around the national GOP’s fortunes. We survey this scene and find ourselves asking, Is it Congress that should be fired?

President Bush deserves some of the blame for the rotten results from Congress-sometimes, he has affirmatively pushed bad policy (most recently with his “comprehensive” immigration reform), and he has made it his standard operating procedure not to try seriously to rein in congressional excess. There is no doubt that his coordination with Capitol Hill could be better, and the inability of his team to anticipate political problems-such as the Dubai ports-deal mess-has made life more difficult than it need be for his fellow Republicans. But the GOP in Congress acts as if establishing a smoother White House operation were the key to eliminating all its troubles. In reality, the locus of the national party’s malaise is as much, perhaps more, on Capitol Hill than in the Bush administration.