In the week after the Bush administration issued its most detailed warning yet on a heightened terrorist alert, Democrats have signaled a greater willingness to challenge the president, at least delicately, on his handling of homeland security.
The latest elevated alert–specifically for financial buildings in the New York area and Washington–was issued three days after the Democratic National Convention, as Sen. John Kerry was hoping to bask in the headlines from his nomination.
The timing provided fuel for skeptics who have suggested Bush has purposely used homeland security announcements to change the nation’s conversation during times of unsettling news for his administration.
Such criticism prompted Bush on Friday to deny playing politics with the terrorism issue as he disputed Democratic second-guessing.
“We have the solemn duty to follow every lead we find and share information we have with people that could be harmed,” Bush said at a conference of minority journalists in Washington. “That’s exactly what we’ve done.”
By week’s end, Democrats, including Kerry, had grown bolder in questioning the president’s conduct of homeland security.
But it is apparent they must do so carefully, for fear that any challenge of a safety provision could have a disastrous backlash if a terrorist attack occurs.
Putting spin to alerts
Before the latest warning, the national threat level was most recently raised in December, as Bush was being hammered by negative Iraq headlines and a flock of Democratic primary candidates were challenging his leadership over the occupation.
Although Democrats have suggested Bush gets a political boost from heightened threat levels, the reality is that raising the alert has had no measurable influence on his job approval ratings.
With just one exception, Bush’s ratings have been virtually unchanged after the six instances when the administration has raised the terrorism alert level. That one exception coincided with increased ratings Bush received as Americans rallied around him at the start of the Iraq war.
But following the recent release of a scathing report–one that was critical of the Clinton and Bush administrations–by a bipartisan commission that studied the events leading up to Sept. 11 hijackings, Democrats appear more willing to confront aspects of the president’s terrorism policy. Indeed, at week’s end, Kerry, who highlighted his war service and focused on national security at the convention in Boston, had narrowed the gap with Bush in the arena of protecting the country, according to an Associated Press poll that shows the race remains close.
In the AP survey conducted Tuesday through Thursday, 43 percent of the respondents said Kerry would do a better job of protecting the country–a gain of 8 percentage points from a similar survey in March.
Although his campaign was careful earlier in the week not to criticize the timing of the alert, Kerry later subtly questioned Bush’s decision-making on the terrorism warning.
“The way you make us safe and win the war on terror is not by announcing these color-coded threats, but by bringing countries to our side and having the best intelligence operation in the world,” he said last week on National Public Radio.
Kerry answered affirmatively when asked whether he would have handled the latest alert differently and whether he would eliminate the alert system.
“I would find a way to change, yes,” he said. “You have to let Americans know of a legitimate threat. But I think that most Americans don’t really know how to respond or what it means or what the difference between one color or another is.”
Accusations of politicking with the terrorist warnings are emblematic of a particularly partisan period in American politics, said Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist and a skeptic about suggestions that the Aug. 1 announcement was made to dim the glow of Kerry’s nomination.
“The big story was the absence of the Kerry bounce,” Feaver said. “If I was a Republican, I would want all the headlines to continue to focus on that.”
Putting issue in play
Under ordinary circumstances, it might be unseemly to question presidential motives in deciding when to declare alerts.
But two events have created an opening for Democrats to question whether Bush is playing it straight on the terrorism warnings.
The first came from Bush’s political guru Karl Rove in which he framed the war on terrorism as an issue to be capitalized on politically. “Americans trust the Republicans to do a better job of keeping our communities and our families safe,” Rove said in a January 2002 speech.
The second is a credibility gap connected to the inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
“It speaks volumes about this president’s credibility or lack thereof that [the timing of alerts] is even a debate,” said Jano Cabrera of the Democratic National Committee.
Although it may not be reflected in his job approval ratings, there is a political benefit to Bush from the warnings because they produce headlines that buttress his image as a “war president.”
Homeland security is an important issue for many voters, including those in battleground states where the Nov. 2 election will be determined.
“The Bush team is certainly hoping that come Election Day, those undecideds will break for the president and the homeland security, and terrorism issue could be something that pushes them their way,” said David Cohen, a political scientist at Ohio’s University of Akron who studies the presidency.
For former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, there is little question that the latest alert was politically timed.
“You don’t know. You can’t know. All you can do is put together the facts,” he said. “Because of the timing, one would suspect strongly that politics had something to do with this announcement.”
Bush’s image as a strong leader in fighting terrorism is central to his re-election efforts, especially since the economy is still sputtering.
When the president visited the Chicago area late last month, he stood before the cameras at the Northeastern Illinois Public Safety Training Academy in Glenview and touted his administration’s response to terrorism.
With Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge standing nearby, Bush emphasized his record of protecting America from the sort of terrorist strike that marked the first year of his administration.
Political residuals
The theme is so important that it was reported earlier this year that administration sources have told Homeland Security employees to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the president in such settings at least once a month.
Ridge angered Democrats by slipping in a plug for Bush in the Aug. 1 announcement about possible threats.
In declaring the alert, Ridge asserted that the U.S. had improved its information gathering as a “result of the president’s leadership in the war on terror.” It later was reported that the alert was based in part on intelligence that was at least 3 years old.
The elevated alerts have generally, but not always, coincided with major events connected to the war on terrorism.
The Department of Homeland Security issued its first elevated alert on Sept. 10, 2002, on the eve of the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
The next alert on Feb. 7, 2003, occurred as the administration laid last-minute groundwork for the war in Iraq.
Another warning was issued March 17, 2003, as Bush delivered an ultimatum to dictator Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq or face invasion–which came three days later.
Bush’s 58 percent approval rating in a Gallup Poll on March 15 soared to 71 percent on March 23, three days after the war began. His approval ratings changed marginally or not at all after the other announcements.
A fourth alert came May 20, 2003, less than three weeks after Bush declared an end to the major combat phase in Iraq and days after terrorist bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
On Dec. 21, 2003, Homeland Security issued the fifth warning of increased risk. Besides coinciding with the onset of the holiday travel season, it came as Bush endured withering criticism from potential Democratic presidential challengers over his handling of Iraq.
Although Kerry has been tempered in his criticism of last week’s heightened alert, his campaign apparently has done nothing to try to silence Dean.
“No,” Dean said. “Nobody has asked me to tone it down.”
