Bush's strategic failure on S-CHIP

The brilliant Amanda Terkel -- of ThinkProgress fame -- takes to the pages of the American Prospect to debunk the Republican spin over Bush's veto of S-CHIP, demonstrating the weakness of the veto in particular and the administration's agenda in general. Terkel incisively sifts through the self-congratulatory Bush administration rhetoric to get at the truth about the veto: It was the act of a weak, failing administration, an ever-lamer duck quacking feebly in an effort to remain relevant.

The current administration simply isn't accomplishing *anything* good, and it's not even accomplishing bad things it thinks are good. A president is supposed to work and compromise with Congress, even (perhaps especially) when it's controlled by the other party. S-CHIP is a stark example of a bipartisan effort being stymied by a petulant ideologue president, and despite Bush's gloating over his veto being sustained (which isn't especially surprising -- it's historically very rare for Congress to override), his success is only in briefly preventing the improvement of the country. Quite an accomplishment. As Terkel says,

Since when did the veto become an indicator of a president's strength? In reality, Bush is playing defense, forced to rely on vetoes and executive orders. The Democratic-led Congress has backed him into a corner, refusing to take up his policy priorities and instead sending him progressive bills he opposes. Congress passes bills, Bush swats them down.

The veto is actually a tool of last resort. As Rutgers University professor Ross K. Baker told the Associated Press, "It's the veto, and the veto alone, that is the last line of defense for a president whose administration's life is waning away." Bush did all he could to threaten lawmakers, but he was ultimately powerless from stopping 69 senators and 265 representatives from voting to expand S-CHIP.

This is a story of Democrats trying to do something good -- so common sense, so obvious, that dozens of Republicans joined the effort -- and a hugely unpopular administration blocking it. The failure to override the veto isn't a problem with Democrats, obviously, and Terkel explains,

The fact that the House was unable to override Bush's veto has no bearing on the chamber's Democratic leadership. Opponents of Bush's veto actually picked up eight extra votes from the original September roll call passing the bill. Forty-four Republicans broke rank and joined Democrats to vote for the override last week, whereas just two Democrats voted to sustain Bush's veto.

Bush has no agenda. He has no mandate. He has only the power to stop progress, and his joy in doing so should only be more motivation for Americans to replace him with someone better.