Post Politics Hour

washingtonpost.com's Daily Politics Discussion

Don't want to miss out on the latest buzz in politics? Start each day at wonk central: The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.

Washington Post national political editor John F. Harris was online Thursday, April 13, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the latest in political news.

The transcript follows.

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Alexandria, Va.: Hi John, after the '04 election you wrote an article that explored whether or not we were entering an era of GOP dominance. Recent events and poll results appear to contradict this notion, what do you think? Will the Republicans retain control of the House and Senate?

John F. Harris: Oh-oh....Someone with access to Nexis, it appears--always dangerous.

I would note that you correctly wrote that I explored this topic, rather than made a statement that such a realignment had occurred or predicted that it would occur.

A variety of circumstances since November 2004--Bush's chronically low approval ratings, the continued souring of public opinion toward Iraq, GOP ethics scandals, and the failure of the administration's Social Security package--have converged to make the political terrain look quite different now. Clearly, Republicans now would be content to hang on to their majorities in the House and Senate, rather than nurturing hopes of a significant expansion of their power.

I won't make (public) predictions about what will happen in the fall...Like all political junkies, I'll make several (no doubt contradictory) predictions with friends between now and election day....But after lots of hard lessons I have learned that is foolish to imagine one has any ability to forecast. We have enough to do in staying atop of what is happening in the present.

Anyway, good morning, and let's get started on the chat.

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Henly, Tex.: Nobody seems to have wanted to talk about Tuesday's California special election yesterday (maybe the time zone difference caught the "Eastern Elite" sleepy-eyed).

However today, what appears to have be a stunning lack of performance in turning out Republican voters in a heavily Republican district is being spun as some kind of Democratic failing. Huh? Busby lead her closest of 17 rivals by almost 30 percentage points! And the Rs can't even agree on which of their also-rans will be in the runoff.

This special exhibits the classic symptoms of a party's inability to motivate its base when it is deflated by ineptness and scandal in the Bush White House and Republican Congress. Both the "Christian" conservatives and the corporate types, the two stalwart bases of the Republican party, appear to lack motivation, much less enthusiasm toward electoral politics, while the opposite appears true with the Democratic base. Don't you think that this special is a harbinger of what is to come in the fall? Or is my perception skewed by to much exposure to reality?

John F. Harris: There are lots of questions about the California special election, many with your point of view.

How to interpret these results is undeniably somewhat subjective. Plainly having Busby lead the pack in that race is something Democrats can be pleased with. It's also true that the results were not the huge boost they would have been if she had cleared the 50 percent threshold and won a Republican-leaning district.

Basically, Busby matched the historic Democratic performance of this district. Kerry won 45 percent of the vote there in 2004. She won 44 percent in the special election. The Republican field splintered. But there is every reason to think that once the GOP vote solidifies this will still be a hard seat for Democrats to carry.

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Richmond, Va.: Re: article in today's Post 'Retired Generals Fault Rumsfeld' -- how unusual and/or precedent-setting is if for all of these generals (Batiste, Newbold, Paul Eaton, Zinni) to take on Rumsfeld? In other words, is this a real concern on the part of these generals for the incompetence of this administration, or business as usual between the military and civilians?

John F. Harris: I found the criticism of recently retired, very senior military officers of the Secretary of Defense to be quite notable. So did Tom Ricks, the author of that piece. The fact that this does not seem to be "business as usual" is the reason the story was played on page one.

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: Hello and thank you for taking questions. I seem to remember President Clinton was asked whether he was still relevant at some point in his tenure. Should President Bush be asked whether he is still relevant at this point? Does the Iranian situation guarantee that he remains relevant?

John F. Harris: At the time President Clinton declared he was still relevant in April 1995, Republicans had just months earlier taken over the House, and were attempting to impose their domestic policy priorities on a president who was then quite weak politically.

Bush's circumstances are different. At a time when national security issues are paramount, the president is always relevant. The questions are whether he has the ability to influence events to good result in Iraq and Iran, and what he can do about what polls show is very precarious political support at home.

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Citizen Journalist, Ha ha...: Just out of curiosity, has an idea for a story or article ever come from one of these chats? For example, someone asks a very good question and makes a very good statement that leads The Post to investigate that question or statement into a full-future news story. In essence, what do you guys "get" from doing these chat sessions?

John F. Harris: I'm not sure why you add the "ha ha" to your "citizen journalist" description.

I do not have a precise example in mind, but it does seem to me that we do sometimes get story ideas--as well as insight into how one side or the other is viewing an ongoing story--from these chats. "People are really worked up about X"...Or "do you think we need to look more into Y."

Plus, I think most of us on the political staff appreciate that the Web site now provides the majority of our readers--giving us an audience far beyond the print edition in Washington. So we think it is important to experiment with different features on the web, and that is how these daily chats emerged. They are a good opportunity to engage with readers and explain our thinking about how we approach stories.

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Charlottesville, Va.: Hi John-Loved your Clinton book. What are the chances that the sudden Iran attack plans are part of the plan to bolster Bush's numbers? Would the country rally around him if we bomb Iran?

John F. Harris: I invariably get to only a fraction of the questions posed in these but you have discerned the most reliable way to get me to take a question. Thanks for the good words.

There are several questions this morning on this theme--that Bush is hoping an escalation of tensions is motivated by a desire to distract attention from his other problems.

I have a hard time buying that. For one, there is near-total bipartisan consensus that Iran's nuclear development program is a deadly serious issue. But as the reaction to some of our recent stories on military planning on Iran has made plain, it is far from obvious that Bush would have public support for a military option or that he is eager to pursue it.

White House correspondent Peter Baker has a good story this morning on how few options the administration seems to have on Iran--and how they would all seem to be quite unpalatable.

Let's get our host to post that.

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washingtonpost.com: Iran's Defiance Narrows U.S. Options for Response , ( Post, April 13, 2006 )

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Tallahassee, Fla.: I find it unnecessary to mock "citizen journalists" and I think these chats are interesting and informative. Thanks for doing them.

John F. Harris: By no means was I mocking "citizen journalists"...simply wondering whether the "ha ha" in the posters question was intended to be self-mocking or mocking of me.

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Anonymous: On yesterday's chat, Peter Baker answered a few questions about the controversial editorial "A GOOD LEAK", and then stated he hadn't read it, and wasn't planning on reading it. Is that unusual for a Post reporter to be so incurious? I would hope so!

John F. Harris: This is funny...I was also kind of surprised--since it always seems to me that Peter Baker has read and is on top of everything. He is the exact opposite of "incurious" in every way--one reason he is a great reporter.

But, as he said, we always have tons of stuff to read and way more than anyone has time for and he just had not read that editorial.

To repeat a point he made yesterday: the editorial page is is separate from the newsroom.

Though plainly several liberal blogs and many readers were worked up about the editorial, the fuss simply did not involve us and there was no reason for us to get similarly worked up.

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Austin, Tex.: How would you compare the current outrage amongst the Democrats to the anger felt by Republicans during the Clinton presidency? I know a lot of people say the Dems are very angry (and rightfully so, I might add), but I seem to remember a lot of ugly things being said about the Clintons back in the day.

John F. Harris: In part because I covered the Clinton presidency and experienced up close the polarizing nature of those times, I have thought about this question often.

It seems to me that the divisions in the country are deeper, wider and more intense than during the 1990s, and understandably so, since the controversies now concern very serious questions about war, terrorism, and America's role in the world.

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Sewickley, Pa.: Yesterday the political chatters were especially testy. Peter Baker received several comments from the D.C. area accusing the Post and its on-line audience of, respectively, being biased and angry liberals. I suspect that political staffers monitor these chats and occasionally throw in their two cents worth. I wonder if they would be surprised to learn that some former Republicans with strong ties to the military are beyond disgusted with the policies of this administration. If nothing else the polls should be a good indication that the more moderate elements of their party are moving away from them. Do you see a time when the "liberal" epithet will lose it power? Will the political debate move beyond the easy labels of liberal vs. conservative in '06... '08?

John F. Harris: As someone who is sometimes guilty of using the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in an imprecise way--we do it because it easy shorthand...and I have even done it during this chat--I think you raise a very good point.

There are sharp ideological divisions in the country right now, but some of the questions the country is facing are so consequential that they are likely to reshuffle politics in long-term ways....So as journalists we should be alert to the possibility that familiar categories are not as meaningful in the present environment.

As you note, there are Republicans who are opposed to the administration's policy in Iraq. I would note that there are also people who in the past had been more aligned with Democrats whose politics have shifted on national security issues. This is a very intense--and may prove to be very fluid--time in our political history.

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I was self-mocking: Citizen Journalist: Just in a good mood today and just wondered if any of us "influence" the reporting of The Post and how you all view the chats, hence the Citizen Journalist moniker.

John F. Harris: That is a relief to hear. Thanks for checking in to these chats. (Many of the people who correspond in these sessions are not in good moods.)

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Anonymous: The reputation of The Post is not divided into separate parts by the firewall between the Editorial staff and the writers of The Post. Like it or not, the reputation of the Post has been besmirched by "A Good Leak" and I have to say I view the prestige of your position in a dimmer light, call it guilt by association. Not your fault, or that of Peter Baker, but a small weight for everyone at The Post to bear.

John F. Harris: I hope that is not your view over the long haul. In any event, I doubt it is for most readers. We have to try to live up to our reputation every day, knowing that we do it imperfectly, and then do the same the next day.

I think readers know that. And, as anyone who follows these chats knows, this week's uproar will be followed quickly by something else. And there may have been some readers who were the mirror opposite in their reactions.

Probably there were readers who were infuriated at the Post over the editorial who really liked Joby Warrick's very enterprising investigative work about the alleged bio-weapons labs.

People often seem not to believe it but we really do not spend much time trying to figure out the angles of how people will react to this story or that.

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Tallahassee, Fla.: I thought the questioner was being smug...not you.

John F. Harris: Ah, but now we know he/she was just being puckish.

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Bedford, Mass.: Mr. Harris,

As pointed out in Tom Ricks' articles, top military commanders are famously loyal, and rarely publicly undermine their civilian leaders. One or two, I can believe, but the growing chorus makes me wonder if there is not some coordination going on.

Bush has been very stubborn in his support of Rumsfeld, and seems to believe dismissing him would play in the hands of critics who question the competence of the Iraq campaign. Are there any indications that this is a back channel effort to get Josh Bolten some leverage in convincing Bush that Rumsfeld has to go?

John F. Harris: I have no evidence that this is a "back channel" as you describe.

It would seem that Secretary Rumsfeld at this point probably has a constituency of two--President Bush and Vice President Cheney. By most conventional Washington political measures, he is a liability for the administration, since even conservative voices such as the Weekly Standard have criticized him. But one signature of this administration generally is that it does not always assign great weight to conventional Washington thinking.

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Fairmont, W. Va.: John I enjoyed reading your book "The Survivor", about Bill Clinton. While I was not a huge fan of Clinton when he was in office, I find myself longing for those better times. How do you think Bush will be viewed by the history books?

John F. Harris: See, that technique really works.

Bush's historical legacy, I would guess, will be hinged to an extraordinary degree to the long-term outcome of events in Iraq.

But I would also note that historical reputations are not static. They rise and fall over time like stocks on an exchange. The historian Arthur Schlesinger is fond of quoting Pieter Geyl (who wrote a biography of Napoleon). Gieyl said, "History is an argument without end."

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Hilton Head, S.C.: Sort of a long-term question here: Given the sorry end-game track record of Republican presidents beginning with Nixon--accomplished until now with (largely) minority status in Congress--can Republicans think there's much left to win with? Now they're coming apart even though they own both houses of Congress...

John F. Harris: Well, as I'm sure you are aware, Republicans would vigorously dispute your "sorry end-game" assessment of GOP presidents, most especially of Ronald Reagan, who they credit with taking the decisive steps to end the Cold War. (Others disagree. See previous answer about "argument without end.")

I agree with you that Republicans do not seem to have a clear or robust agenda to present to voters this fall. As the leader of the GOP campaign caucus, Rep. Tom Reynolds, has said, they are counting heavily on the tendency of most voters to like their local congressman, even if they are not happy in general.

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Fairfax, Va.: John, what's your take on the elections this November? It seems like predictions change every week, I personally don't see Republicans getting energized to vote this year, especially in a mid-term election.

John F. Harris: One of the key questions in mid-term elections is the intensity factor--which side is motivated to get to the polls? Partisan intensity and the high turnout that resulted is why Republicans outperformed expectations and gained seats in Congress in 2002. This factor, though it can be hard to gauge with precision, is one thing to watch closely as we head to this fall.

History may be an argument without end, but this chat must come to a conclusions--for today. Thanks for the good questions and comments, and please do check in again tomorrow.

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