POLITICAL WRAP

March 26, 1999
		Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot discuss political implications of the strikes in Yugoslavia.

Crisis in Kosovo Index. March 26, 1999: National Security Adviser Samuel Berger. March 26, 1999: A discussion of the Balkans troubled history. March 25, 1999: Defense Secretary Cohen March 24, 1999: Secretary of State Albright . March 24, 1999: President Clinton addresses the nation. March 19, 1999: The President discusses the Kosovo situation in his press conference. March 18, 1999: The Senate considers action as the Kosovars sign the peace deal.. March 11, 1999: Congress debates U.S. troops in Kosovo Political Wrap Index Complete NewsHour coverage of Europe and Bosnia   White House U.S. Senate	PHIL PONCE: Political analysis now of the Kosovo operation from syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Paul, this is now day three of the campaign over Yugoslavia. How do you assess the level of support for the campaign and for what the President is doing here in -- here in the United States?
	Thin support for air strikes.
	Paul, this is now day three of the campaign over Yugoslavia. How do you assess the level of support for the campaign and for what the President is doing here in -- here in the United States? PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think -- I think it's thin, Phil, really do. I think the President made the case late; really only at the beginning of this week did you see a real serious case being made. He made it in consultation with Congress late, and he didn't do -- his people didn't do a very persuasive job on that. I mean, people are giving him the deference that's due a president, and he's had to make a difficult case. This is not something that is easy -- a case to make on national interest grounds. It's predominantly humanitarian, the impulse here, and I think the motive, and I think that that's a harder case to make, particularly to Republicans, and so he's -- he's flying here without -- without a net politically. If something does go wrong, I think -- I think the President is flying alone. PHIL PONCE: Do you -- do you buy that, Mark, if something goes wrong, for example, earlier on this program National Security Adviser Samuel Berger strongly suggested this could be a long haul kind of a proposition. How -- how long will the American public hang in with the President? The polls right now indicate marginal support. MARK SHIELDS: Support, not overwhelming support, and I think there's a couple of reasons. One, all wars, as Arthur Schlesinger once said, are popular for the first 30 days. The shelf life on this one may be shorter. I think that Paul makes a reasonable point that the argument came late. It was not a public debate. It was not over the Congress. It was not like Iraq was in '91 where there was a long extended public debate, and then once we moved and the decision was made, even though it had been a close decision, the country fell in behind. We don't have a sense -- and the president felt compelled on Wednesday night to even go to the map. PHIL PONCE: That's when the president went on national television. MARK SHIELDS: Went on national television to point out where places were. One of the interesting -- to me, one of the most interesting political aspects of this, Phil, is that Bill Clinton has been accused by myself included of not having taken a bold, risky political stance since 1993, with this tax increase bill, that his positions have always seemed to be pre-tested and maybe poll-driven. Well, this is one case where it certainly is not. I mean, the president said, Paul said he's flying alone. I think he could be. I think that what's also fascinating is to see the two parties, the Democrats lining up in a more interventionist mode behind the president of their own party -- the Republicans, who had been the internationalist party, especially from the period from Eisenhower through Nixon, Reagan and Bush, now reverting to what had been a little bit more of their more tentative and none interventionist -- if not isolationist.
	The parties' positions on the campaign.
	PHIL PONCE: How about that, Paul, have the parties done a flip as far as when -- the impulse to deploy the military forces? PAUL GIGOT: Well, I don't think there's coherence across either party on this one. But it is astonishing, let's face it. Forty seven Democrats voted against George Bush and the Gulf War, where oil, US economic security, real national interest issues were at stake. PHIL PONCE: Where the connection was ostensibly stronger. PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think so, the national interest argument was certainly stronger than -- than it is now and yet 42 Democrats this time give the President automatic support on what I think is a weaker -- is a weaker argument. The Republicans are a little more split. I think there are a lot of Republicans who haven't distinguished themselves this week in their response. They are basically ducking for cover or saying "I support the -- the troops, but I don't really like this mission." The strongest Republican, frankly, has been Dole, Bob Dole. He's got a coherent plan on -- on Kosovo, and on the Balkans, and he's backed up Bill Clinton all the way. A couple others, John McCain, Steve Forbes have both sounded sensible on this saying we support the bombing but we have doubts about the strategy that's -- that's being employed. So there's this tension in the Republican Party between the people who -- there is an isolationist trend in part, but there's also the old internationalist side. They just don't trust the president necessarily to carry it out. PHIL PONCE: Mark, how would you assess overall the level of support in Congress of the president? MARK SHIELDS: It's not deep. There's a -- there's a real question at any time, Phil, whether U.S. support, either politically or publicly, will survive US casualties -- and mass civilian casualties on the other side. I think that was the case in every really post-Vietnam engagement in the United States.
	Are Republican's ducking the issue?
	PHIL PONCE: So are there people in Congress who are sort of waiting to see if something -- something horrible happens, pilots are captured and that sort of thing and then they would come out? MARK SHIELDS: Sure. Whether they would come out or whether they would melt away and simply not be heard as vocal supporters of the president. I don't think there's any question that there's -- that Bill Clinton is -- is not -- is rolling the dice on this one. This is not a safe bet by any means. Let me pick up on one thing Paul said and that is the Republicans are really tempted here, and I -- I find it fascinating, because Bill Clinton has essentially rolled them on every domestic political issue, from education to Social Security to Medicare to health and he's got the edge. The Republicans have enjoyed a long historic advantage in national security and foreign policy. And now we seem to have the two parties, Bruce Hershenson, the Republican conservative from California, has a brilliant formulation and let me borrow it. He said the Republicans are a big, strong army and they want it to stay home and the Democrats seem to be for a small, lean army but they want it to go everywhere and that seems to be -- the Republicans, when they get this chance of using national security, walk right up to the edge and back off. I do agree with him that the one Republican who has emerged in this has been John McCain. I mean, John McCain is looked to. If -- if foreign policy and national security become central issues in the campaign of 1999 and 2000, then John McCain is the beneficiary. PHIL PONCE: He is one of the few Republicans, yes, one of the few Republicans in the Republican leadership on the Hill who's had a military record. MARK SHIELDS: That's right. He's an authentic American hero, and I think he is respected as a thoughtful, as well as responsible voice. PAUL GIGOT: If you're going to make the case against the president's foreign policy leading up to 2000, I think there's an ample case to be made from China to the Balkans and a lot of different places, but it doesn't help you, I think, to be a Republican who says "I'm going to wash my hands of this. This is the president's foolishness. We shouldn't be involved at all." That sounds to me like you don't -- you aren't thinking seriously about the issue. If you're going to make an argument, you have to say, "Well, I think the executive ought to have some foreign policy leeway, but this is where I think the president is going wrong." That's what McCain is doing, that's what Bob Dole is doing. Some of the other Republicans are saying, "Hey, it's his ticket, you know, he's off for the ride. I'm not going to be there, I'm not on the takeoff or the landing." I think that doesn't help you make your case. MARK SHIELDS: Who is taking that case? PAUL GIGOT: I think John Kasich is taking that case; I think Dan Quayle is doing it, and then of course the real isolationists, Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer, who wants us to, you know, be muscular foreign policy with China but, then, hey, we don't want to do anything in the Balkans. PHIL PONCE: Real quickly in the time we have left, Mark, is there any indication -- this is the first crisis since the impeachment vote was taken -- any residual effect of the impeachment vote and all the questions that were raised then on the President's ability to act as commander in chief? MARK SHIELDS: Oh, sure. I mean, the public gives Bill Clinton high marks on conducting foreign policy, just as they do on handling the economy, but there are doubts about Bill Clinton's candor, his openness, with the voters, and there's no question that the prism of impeachment, some on the Republican side, who might in the past have been expected to give the president the benefit of the doubt, this time are more than skeptical, are openly cynical. PHIL PONCE: And that's where we've got to leave it. Gentlemen, thank you both very much.