The emperor's new veto

The emperor's new veto

Bush's first veto of Congress marks the collapse of his imperial presidency -- and a crisis for the paranoid style he and his party have mastered.
By Sidney Blumenthal


Photo: AP/Wide World

President Bush's first veto marks the first time he has lost control of the Republican Congress. But it is significant for more than that. Until now the president has felt no need to assert his executive power over the legislative branch. Congress was whipped into line to uphold his every wish and stifle nearly every dissent. Almost no oversight hearings were held. Investigations into the Bush administration's scandals were quashed. Potentially troublesome reports were twisted and distorted to smear critics and create scapegoats, like the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's report on faulty intelligence leading into the Iraq war. Legislation, which originates in the House of Representatives, was carefully filtered by imposition of an iron rule that it must always meet with the approval of the majority of the majority. By employing this standard, the Republican House leadership, acting as proxy for the White House, managed to rely on the right wing to dominate the entire congressional process.

The extraordinary power Bush has exercised is unprecedented. Bill Clinton issued 37 vetoes, George H.W. Bush 44, and Ronald Reagan 78. To be sure, they had to contend with Congresses led by the opposing party. Nonetheless, all presidents going back to the 1840s, and presidents before them, used the veto power, even when their parties were in the congressional majority. Just as the absence of any Bush vetoes has highlighted his absolute power, so his recourse to the veto signals its decline.