The politics of terrorism

The most important political episode of 2002 began playing out in June. Bush had resisted establishing a Department of Homeland Security, which was originally proposed by Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman. On June 6, Bush abruptly announced on national television that he had switched sides and now embraced a new department. Why, exactly, and why then?

For weeks, the news had again been dominated by stories reporting the failures of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement in the period leading up to the terrorist attacks. Suddenly, Congress was asking the obvious question: How could this have happened?

It was not a line of inquiry the administration welcomed. Bush's speech endorsing the homeland security department happened to come on the very first day of testimony from whistle-blower Colleen Rowley, the chief legal counsel of the FBI's Minneapolis field office, who had brought her agency's pre-9/11 failures to public attention.

Not surprisingly, Bush overshadowed Rowley.

Dan Balz, chief political reporter for The Washington Post, noted the next day that Bush appeared on television as he was "struggling to regain the initiative" on security issues. While the president retained the confidence of the country, Balz wrote, "his administration is no longer immune from questions or criticism about what happened before Sept. 11, and whether everything is now being done to make the homeland safer.

"In recent weeks," Balz continued, "Bush has faced the first sustained scrutiny since the terrorist attacks." The result: "signs of declining public confidence in the government's ability to combat future terrorism."

Given this opening, did the Democrats respond to Bush's speech with partisanship? No. As they did so often after Sept. 11, they turned the other cheek. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, regularly vilified by the Republicans as a mad partisan, called Bush's remarks "encouraging." Rep. Jane Harman of California, one of the Democrats' leading voices on security, called Bush's proposal "bold and courageous."

The natural move from here would have been authentic bipartisanship to get a bill passed. After all, the differences between Bush and the Democrats were so small that Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) noted that 95 percent of the homeland security bill that was eventually approved after the 2002 elections had been written by Democrats.

But getting a department created before the election was clearly less important to the president than having a campaign issue. He picked a fight over union and civil service protections for its employees that Democrats had inserted into the bill. Republican senators filibustered various efforts to reach a compromise. In late September, Bush went so far as to charge that the Senate -- meaning its Democratic majority -- was "not interested in the security of the American people."

Because Bush succeeded in evading debate over what happened and what was known in the months before 9/11 -- and because Republicans defied tradition in the midterm elections by recapturing the Senate and gaining seats in the House -- Bush's maneuverings could be seen as brilliant politics. But it was brilliance bought at a high price. More than any single episode, the homeland security maneuver broke the spirit of bipartisanship. It permanently alienated Democratic leaders and, eventually, the party's base. This happened before the Iraq War, which is often taken as the central cause of the political divisions in the Bush years. It was not.

In no 2002 contest did the Republicans' use of the homeland security issue more enrage Democrats than Georgia's Senate race. Rep. Saxby Chambliss pilloried Democratic incumbent Max Cleland in a vicious advertisement that used pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein -- surely the ultimate in guilt-by-association -- to portray Cleland as soft on terrorism because of his insistence that the homeland security bill include civil service protections. The ad accused Cleland of voting against Bush's "vital homeland security efforts 11 times," which only meant that, in the legislative maneuverings, Cleland had insisted on the Democrats' version of the bill over Bush's.

What made the implication that Cleland was an ally of terror especially shameful was Cleland's record as a Vietnam War hero who, near the end of his tour, lost an arm and both of his legs in a grenade explosion. "I served this country, and I don't have to prove my patriotism to anybody," said an angry Cleland, who noted that Chambliss used four student deferments to escape service before receiving a medical deferment because of "an old football knee."

It is impossible to overemphasize how the attacks on Cleland hardened Democratic attitudes toward Bush -- who campaigned hard for Chambliss -- and the Republican Party. "This is something that gnaws at us," Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois said months after the election. "A decorated and disabled Vietnam veteran would be discredited because of his stand in the homeland security debate?"

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu poured Tabasco on her comments about Cleland. "He left three limbs in Vietnam. He's already served his country in more ways than any of us ever will. The president came in with a very personal and very vicious attack, using the homeland security issue to unseat a man who fought on the Armed Services Committee to give the guys in the battlefield everything they need. It didn't mean a thing to this president."

Next Page: "The president has earned this polarization. It hasn't just happened. He pushed it to happen"

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