On the balcony, Bush’s fellow Texans, Reps. Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, bitterly complained that GOP senators, with the president’s tacit approval, were supporting a plan to convert all airport-security personnel to federal employees. To these conservative mullahs on the Hill, the idea was an iniquitous expansion of the federal payroll and power. For fiscal and philosophical reasons, they simply could not and would not accept it. Heated words were exchanged, I was told by two sources who were there on that night. “It was a shootout among the Texans,” one recalled.
And Bush blinked. Soon after the meeting the White House announced that it preferred federal supervision of baggage-screening and other security operations–but that the work itself should remain in the hands of private contractors. Bush took this position even though the Senate, by unanimous vote, earlier had approved full “federalization.”
That was a month ago–a costly month ago. Congress, before vanishing for Thanksgiving, is likely, finally, to pass and send to the president an air-travel security bill that includes a compromise on the “federal worker” question. But the Shootout on the Truman Balcony delayed legislation that should have been signed into law already–and that will now arrive too late to reassure the traveling public before the start of the holiday season.
The bottom line: an airline industry (and related sectors, from travel agents to hotel workers) in deeper trouble than would otherwise have been the case–a potential catastrophe for a national economy in which air travel is essential to commerce.
George W. Bush believes in the power of his own charm, but he’s been more determined (and successful) using it on the president of Russia–a former communist spy–than on his putative Texas allies among Republicans in the House. Thus far, Bush has performed with near flawless precision as commander in chief and leader of a worldwide coalition against terror. It’s hard to fault a single move. But even some leaders in his own party (at least in the Senate) think the president should have paid more attention to forcing a deal on airport security sooner.
Why didn’t he? For one, he’s been busy: “smoking out” Al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership; dealing with the unprecedented anthrax-by-mail crisis, and constructing history-making missile deals with Vladimir Putin. It’s a to-do list as long and monumental as any president has faced since the onset of World War II.
Neither Bush nor the Congress has ignored the airline industry. Among their first actions was a $15 billion bailout for the industry: $5 billion in immediate grants, $10 billion in loan guarantees. But hard-eyed administration officials view the industry as overextended and overbuilt to begin with, arguing in private that it was cruising for a massive “shakeout” even before the terror strikes of Sept. 11. Nor are the Bushies convinced that increased inspection of baggage and other security measures–whether or not they are carried about by federal employees–would do much to increase air travel soon. Industry officials insist that any kind of reassurance is helpful if it reduces the fear of flying, and polls seem to show that the public would welcome more substantive new measures than the stationing of National Guard troops at departure gates.
Then there’s politics. Bush’s conservatism is a complex thing. One part is belief: the guy’s instincts are conservative, in this case “anti-federal.” Then there is strategy: a founding principle is to avoid needlessly antagonizing the right wing. Then there are tactics. Bush is a golfer, of sorts. And, in golf terms, he long ago decided that the green of politics “breaks left.” So he starts out every putt to the right. In this case, he’s expecting to end up with a compromise that accepts, but limits, an expansion of the federal payroll. The question now is whether the deal, if and when it materializes, will do much to save an industry–a way of life–on the brink.
And by the way: though Bush is continuing his weekly meeting with the “Big Four”–the top two House and Senate leaders–he hasn’t invited the Republican House leadership (and the two Texans) back for cocktails. Instead, he and his aides are speaking with favor of an air-security compromise put forth by Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. She’s a Texan, too, but the kind Bush prefers to deal with these days.
