Bush bets again

President Bush visits Capitol Hill rarely. Mostly he has ventured onto congressional territory only to deliver his annual State of the Union speech, and then ridden swiftly back down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

So his decision to attend the Senate Republicans’ policy luncheon on Tuesday was hardly a run-of-the-mill event. It was only his second visit to these weekly get-togethers, and the first since 2001.

He clearly places high importance on this mission to what, since the November elections, has become an opposition encampment. It was no less than an effort to save the remains of his second term.

For the item atop his agenda was his urgent hope that the Senate Republicans would revive immigration legislation that he has endorsed and which lost a cloture vote last week. When the upper chamber could muster only 45 votes to cut off debate, rather than the 60 necessary, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled the bill from the floor and consigned it to what many believe will be two years of oblivion.

The tactic of cutting off debate on this massive bill and massively important issue is questionable, to put it mildly. It does not say good things about the contents of the legislation that its supporters want people to stop talking about it and to avoid the lengthy deliberative committee process designed to improve bills with the aid of sustained scrutiny.

But whatever the process, Bush wants the result. And he has literally gone out of his way now to get it. As our columnist and blogger Dick Morris noted yesterday on The Hill’s Pundits Blog (pundits.digital-staging.thehill.com), the president’s decision to throw the dice again on immigration has effectively turned the outcome into a vote of confidence in him.

If the bill comes back, if a deal can be hammered out in which its opponents allow it to proceed in exchange for more time for amendments, then Bush will have shown he still has some clout. If conservative Republicans dig in their heels, heedful of the lopsided opposition to the bill being shown by the party base, then Bush’s presidency will have passed its tipping point.

If the president cannot marshal his forces — his party colleagues and lawmaker allies — for his top domestic agenda item, then his presidency will have slipped into its fading twilight. Or, as Morris put it, he will spend the next 18 months twisting in the wind.

Since 2001, Bush has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to bet his credibility on a big issue. Doing so has frequently paid off for him. This may be its last and hardest test.