CARL P. LEUBSDORF Bush and his agenda down, but not out

Troubled second terms are a fact of presidential life. No modern chief executive has escaped.
Like most predecessors, President Bush has brought on many of his problems through miscalculations and mistakes. One result: the lowest job approval of any modern president at this point in his term.
Several factors are responsible:
Weak re-election: Though Bush surpassed 50 percent and won clearly over John Kerry, in contrast to his disputed 2000 triumph, his margin was by the smallest percentage of any re-elected president in U.S. history. He claimed a mandate, but polling showed the public almost evenly split over his handling of most issues but terrorism.
Unsold agenda: Bush decided to push controversial proposals without laying the political groundwork or developing a clear-cut strategy. After talking about Social Security and tax reform in mainly general terms in the campaign, he gave top second-term priority to an alternative retirement plan involving private accounts and a revamped tax system. Even some supporters say he bungled Social Security, starting with statements by aides at a White House briefing that private accounts wouldn't bolster the system's long-term solvency.
Sluggish reactions: Presidencies are often defined by their response to the unexpected. Bush's slow reaction to Hurricane Katrina contrasted poorly with his decisive response to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The latter set the tone for his first term; the former threatens to do so for his second.
Iraq: Miscalculations in devising, fighting and following up the war in his first term caught up with him in the second, leaving him struggling to persuade warring factions to bring promised democracy to the strife-torn country so he can extricate the United States from the increasingly unpopular and costly venture.
Red ink: His failure to control government spending undercut his hopes of further tax cuts and left him lacking the fiscal resources to meet simultaneous demands for Iraq, New Orleans and other homeland security needs without borrowing additional billions.
Losing energy
Tired blood: By keeping many key aides far longer than the norm, Bush kept tight control over his administration, but it has lost energy. That may have been a factor in the sluggish response to Katrina. And the simmering investigation of a campaign to discredit former diplomat Joseph Wilson could threaten his most trusted aide, Karl Rove, and his vice president's staff chief, Lewis Libby.
The road ahead: Bush enjoyed a major success in the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and hopes to achieve another with his nomination of Harriet Miers. But the events of the past nine months could hamstring his next three years.
Here are two major ways:
Limited agenda: Though Bush maintained at Tuesday's news conference that he retains "plenty" of political capital and continues to cite other issues, he made clear he is spending much of his time on Iraq and the budgetary fallout from Katrina. Political reality and the deficit minimize chances for action on immigration reform and Social Security.
And even before an indictment sidetracked House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the president's diminished job approval and the increased nervousness of House Republicans ensured greater difficulty in pushing controversial measures through Congress.
Political storm winds: Most analysts still expect Republicans to keep Congress in next year's election. But Bush's problems and growing public dissatisfaction with the nation's direction could create the kind of sixth-year electoral disaster that befell Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in their second terms.
Though analysts can't count enough vulnerable seats to threaten GOP majorities, an anonymous Republican noted last week in National Journal that "the only thing that will save us ... is that the districts are gerrymandered (from post-2000 redistricting in states like Texas) and that the Democrats don't have an agenda."
Still, polls show that Bush retains a solid political base, even though his choice of Miers and overspending have created some tension.
X Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.