Lame duck presidency?

WASHINGTON Five months after being sworn in for another four years and setting out an ambitious second-term agenda, President George W. Bush's political authority appears to be ebbing, both within his own party, where members of Congress are increasingly if sporadically going their own way, and among Democrats, who have discovered that they pay little or no price for defying him.
In some cases, Bush is suffering mere political dings that can be patched up, like the votes by the House this past week to buck him on withholding dues to the United Nations and reauthorizing a controversial provision of the USA Patriot Act.
In others, the damage is more than cosmetic, as in the case of stem-cell research, an emotional issue on which a good portion of his party is breaking with him. In a few instances - most notably the centerpiece of his second-term agenda, his call to reshape Social Security - he is dangerously close to a fiery wreck that could have lasting consequences for his standing and for the Republican Party.
On Monday, Bush will face another test of his clout, when the Republican-controlled Senate tries again to overcome Democratic opposition and confirm John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.
With the president's poll numbers sinking as voters grow more restive about Iraq and the economy, he faces additional big challenges in coming weeks and months, from legislative battles over energy, trade and immigration to the possibility of a divisive Supreme Court confirmation fight.
The cumulative effect of his difficulties in the last few months has been to pierce the sense of dominance that he had sought to project after his re-election.
It also has heightened concerns among Republicans in Congress that voters will hold them, as the party in power, responsible for failure to address the issues of most concern to the public.
"The political capital he thought he had has dwindled to very little," said Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University in Washington.
He added that Bush "overstated how much he had to begin with."
"Congress is like Wall Street - it operates on fear and greed," Lichtman said. "The Democrats don't fear him anymore, and they're getting greedy, because they think they can beat him. The attitude you see among Republicans in Congress is, my lifeboat first."
In recent days Bush has responded by lashing out at Democrats, casting them as obstructionists, a strategy that carries some risk given that it seems to acknowledge an inability by Republicans to carry out a governing platform. Searching for a more positive response, the administration, which has always been reluctant to acknowledge that events are not unfolding precisely as planned, intends to embark in the coming week on a public relations campaign intended to reassure Americans that Bush is attuned to their concerns, White House officials said.
Bush will offer nothing new in the way of policy, they said, but will instead reiterate his views that the war in Iraq is worth the sacrifices it has demanded and that his approaches on issues like energy and trade are the best way of addressing economic jitters.
Setting out his theme in his weekly radio address Saturday, Bush said he would "focus on ways to ensure that our government takes the side of working families, and that America prevails in the war on terror."
It is far too early to dismiss Bush as a lame duck. He remains exceedingly popular among Republicans, he has a skilled and aggressive political team around him, and he has had a way in the past of teasing full or partial victories from dire-looking situations. Even if he has to wheel and deal, he stands a good chance of signing an energy policy bill and a trade agreement with Central American nations this summer.
But he has already had to postpone plans to move on to his next big initiative, an overhaul of the tax code. Barring some crisis that creates another rally-round-the-president effect, analysts said, Bush's best opportunity to drive the agenda may be past.
To many Republicans, Bush's problems are real, but not unexpected given his willingness to take on politically difficult issues like Social Security and immigration. They said that divisions within the party are manageable and that Bush's doggedness and personal appeal among lawmakers ensure that he will continue to drive the debate on Capitol Hill and around the country, even if he does not get everything he wants.
"More is being done than it appears," said Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, pointing to the enactment this year of laws overhauling the bankruptcy system and limiting class-action lawsuits, as well as Bush's success in moving more of his judicial appointments through the Senate.
But, King added, "it's still going to be difficult on Social Security and immigration. He will be in control of the agenda, but that control is not going to be as emphatic as it was in the first four years."
Democrats said Bush's problems are of his own making, and stem from a tendency toward unyielding insistence on doing things his way and viewing bipartisanship as nothing more than winning over a few Democrats to get legislation passed.
"Their domestic agenda is really stalled, and they're pretty much looking for an exit ramp," said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon. "They seem to have been unwilling to shift from the politics of a first-term president who has to run for re-election into the clear-eyed policy of a second-term president who wants to be able to point to substantive achievements."