Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 24, 2004
WASHINGTON — If past is precedent, President Bush is probably in no mood
to go along with the sweeping call for intelligence reform issued this week by
the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush and his staff
have shown they don't like new ideas forced on them from outside. Over and over
again the president has resisted pressure for reform from Congress and the
public until it became overwhelming.
He resisted a congressional push to
establish a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. He resisted calls to
come down on corporate malfeasance. He even resisted forming the Sept. 11
commission, and, once its work was underway, White House staff dragged their
feet on providing documents and approving testimony by presidential advisors.
So the tepid White House response to the commission's report —
Bush praised the panel but did not endorse its recommendations — surprised
few in the capital this week.
"What Bush would like to do is say nice
thing s about how constructive this report is and hope that it goes away," said
Norman Ornstein, an observer of relations between the White House and Congress
affiliated with the predominantly conservative American Enterprise
Institute.
If it doesn't go away, the president's usual pattern is to
quietly shift course, claiming the idea as his own and proceeding as if he
hadn't resisted it in the first place. Aides insist that the president hasn't
flip-flopped and that his policy has been consistent throughout.
In the
past, that reversal has taken weeks and months. It wasn't until February,
nearly a year after the Iraq war had begun, that Bush agreed to let an
independent commission examine the intelligence failures that led to false
claims about Iraq's weapons programs.
But there are signs that
pressure will mount faster on the White House this time.
In private
conversations with the White House on Friday, congressional leaders expressed
disappointment with the administration's initi al response and urged that the
president try to get out in front of the issue. Late in the day, a White House
official said the president had ordered his chief of staff to form an internal
task force to review the recommendations.
Observers saw it as a sign
that the message was getting through faster than usual.
"With homeland
security … it took them eight months to come around," said one
congressional staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But with this
… the president will want to be seen as doing everything in his power
before the election."
The commission report puts the president in a
bind.
Many of its recommendations can be implemented by executive
order, making it more difficult for the president to delay acting or pass
responsibility to Congress. And he was clearly keeping his options open. Bush
did not embrace the panel's recommendations, but pointedly did not oppose
them.
Commission Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton described the president
as open-minded. "I think there is a lot of interest at the White House," he
told reporters Friday.
The report comes at an awkward time for the
president. With just over three months until the Nov. 2 election, Bush and his
staff are preoccupied with the campaign, which is picking up steam, and the
situation in Iraq, which he needs to keep under control. Tackling major
government reform was not on the agenda.
One result is that the report
has cast a pall over the president's vacation plans. Bush arrived at his Texas
ranch on Friday for six days of rest during the Democratic Party convention.
Administration officials acknowledged that the president and his top advisors
now planned to spend a significant chunk of the time studying the report and
considering their options.
Bush already had cut back his usual
monthlong vacation to the six days at the ranch, a weekend in Maine at the
beginning of August and a week during the Olympics later that month.
White House aides took pains Friday to insist that the president was working
even when he was on vacation. They emphasized that national security advisor
Condoleezza Rice would be with him for much of the time at the ranch.
"This will continue to get extra attention," White House spokesman Trent Duffy
said.
Ornstein suggests that it's only a matter of time before the
president gives in. That moment will come sooner, he said, if his Democratic
challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, adds his voice to those of the
commissioners and Congress and makes intelligence reform a battle cry.
"When you get Bush in a position where it looks like he's dragging his feet, he
will turn on a dime," Ornstein said. "Given the commitment of the commission to
follow up, given the commitment of [Congress] … it's
inevitable.
"If I were advising the president I would say, 'Embrace this
thing today,' " he added. " 'Praise the commission to the skies and say, we'll
do it.' But that's not his style."
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