Press Ignores Earmarks

This is interesting. Two different takes on last night's State of the Union speech from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post – neither of which so much as hints at the executive order that Bush will sign blocking the air dropping of earmarks by Congress. WSJ first:

In Ronald Reagan's last year in office, he traveled to Moscow for a summit and signed arms deals. In Bill Clinton's final year, he negotiated to the very end before failing to get a Mideast peace deal thanks to Yasser Arafat's duplicity.

We cite our most recent two-term Presidents to show that, even with only a year left, the Bush Presidency is far from over. With his low approval rating and a Democratic Congress, Mr. Bush's final State of the Union last night reflected his limited ability to shape legislation. But even a lame duck President has more power to influence events than anyone else on the planet.

That's especially true on foreign policy, where he can do much in the next year to aid his successor. In the war against al Qaeda, that means insisting that Congress formally endorse the need for anti-terror wiretaps without a court order. Only yesterday Senate Democrats bowed to the anti-antiterror left in refusing to vote on legislation that has already passed the Senate Intelligence Committee. (See related article.) Some of Mr. Bush's own Cabinet officers will also urge him to close the al Qaeda prison at Guantanamo this year, in part to win media hosannas. But this is a decision better left to a successor, who will want to weigh the choices of how best to handle stateless enemy combatants and may find Gitmo the least bad option.

In other words, Bush is doing pretty much the same thing as every president does in the last year of their administration: wrap things up. The WaPo, however, appears to think this is somehow different than any other outgoing president:

Gone were the grand dreams of remaking Social Security, immigration law or the tax code. In their place were modest initiatives, such as hiring preferences for military spouses. The economic package targeted tax breaks to low- and middle-class workers. And the foreign policy stressed Middle East peacemaking and diplomacy with rogue nations.

President Bush took office with so much derision for the outgoing president that critics defined his attitude toward governing as ABC — "anything but Clinton." He would not play "small ball," he declared, nor would he coddle North Korea or waste time mediating between the Israelis and Arabs. But as he delivered his final State of the Union address last night, Bush increasingly appeared to be adopting some of his predecessor's approach.

Isn't revisionist history a handy thing? Clinton's approach was very similar in his last year, as was Reagan's. The bottom line is that a president loses much of his clout in the final year. But Bush is standing firm with earmarks – which is a big deal. Yet both papers manage to give that development no mention at all. Interesting.