CBS News: Immigration Defeat Is 'Defining Day' For Bush, Sees 'Dead Duck Presidency'

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While ABC and NBC both led off their Thursday night newscasts with the Supreme Court decision barring an exclusively race-based approach to assigning students to various schools, the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric began with the demise of the Senate immigration bill. CBS’s reporters emphasized how the vote was a defeat for President Bush, even though top Senate Democrats like Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid, plus a few Republicans like John McCain had also fought for the measure and failed.

CBS White House correspondent Jim Axelrod asserted that Thursday’s vote marked “a defining day in the Bush presidency.” CBS’s resident historian (and John Kerry biographer) Douglas Brinkley went even further: “George Bush is beyond being a lame duck President. He’s a dead duck President.”

In contrast, NBC’s Tim Russert argued that essentially all of Washington was now lame, not just the President: “I think there’s a growing sense, a strong sense, that Washington is just broken. It’s incapable of now taking on big issues like immigration or the looming Social Security crisis or the war in Iraq....I think both the White House and the Congress will pay a price for their inability to do something about immigration.”

Over on ABC’s World News, anchor Charles Gibson seemed to echo his analysis from June 8, when a similar failure to invoke cloture seemed to indicate the immigration bill’s defeat. Back then, Gibson said the immigration bill’s defeat made him wonder if “the way things stand, if our political system is really equipped to attack and solve the big problems?”

Last night, after reporter Jake Tapper noted how despite obvious problems with the immigration system, there is “little desire on Capitol Hill to plunge yet again into that morass,” Gibson again suggested: “Jake, that seems counter-intuitive to some people. Everybody -- whether you were for this bill or against this bill -- says something has the to be done about immigration. And yet, you have a majority of the Senate saying well, let’s not do anything.”

Tapper replied: “That’s exactly right. And as we mentioned before on this broadcast, there was something in this compromise legislation, to offend everybody. There was something that everybody didn’t like. And that ultimately is what killed the bill, especially with that very, very strong opposition from Republicans.”

Here’s more of how the big three networks covered the immigration bill’s defeat. MRC intern Joe Steigerwald transcribed the reports from the June 28 CBS Evening News and Nightly News, while I transcribed ABC’s World News.

# CBS Evening News, following a report from correspondent Sharyl Atkisson on the Senate vote:

JIM AXELROD: “I’m Jim Axelrod at the White House. President Bush was in no mood for questions about his stunning defeat on immigration. It’s not just that this is a clear rebuke of his confident prediction two and a half weeks ago.”

GEORGE W. BUSH, June 11: “I believe we can get it done. I’ll see you at the bill signing.”

AXELROD: “It’s that the defeat was sealed by his own party. After personally lobbying many Republicans, more than three dozen defected. Immigration was Mr. Bush’s signature domestic issue, and he used whatever remaining political capital he had left. Remember those hot and sweaty trips to the southwest so he could patrol the border? Which is exactly why historians will look back on this as a defining day in the Bush presidency.”

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CBS News Analyst: “Failure of the immigration bill means that George Bush is beyond being a lame duck President. He’s a dead duck President.”

AXELROD: “And it’s not just immigration. When the White House claimed executive privilege today to fight congressional subpoenas in the U.S. Attorney firings investigation, a top Republican complained the White House was just continuing to protect the President’s embattled Attorney General.”

SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER (at press conference): “And while the investigation is lagging, Attorney General Gonzalez continues to serve. But as long as he continues to serve the department is in disarray.”

AXELROD: “Add to that, this week’s high-profile republican defections about the war [screen shots of Senators Richard Lugar and George Voinovich] which sent national security adviser Steve Hadley to Capitol Hill to see if he could contain the damage.”

BRINKLEY: “It’s when people in your own party turn on you when you’re President, is when your policies crumble.”

AXELROD: “One GOP insider told me when it comes to the President’s influence, it’s how low can you go? If the President’s approval ratings were just at traditional lows it might be different. But they’re not, he added, they’re at historic lows, so now it’s every man for himself. Jim Axelrod, CBS News, the White House.

# NBC Nightly News, June 28. After a review of the Senate action by David Gregory, anchor Brian Williams talked about the political implications with Tim Russert:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: “And with us tonight to talk a little bit more about this, our Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert. And, Tim, what just happened here? Did, as some contend, the American people just rise up and kill this?”

TIM RUSSERT: “Well, Brian, there was a lot of anger out there but that’s why leaders are sent to Washington, to analyze and try to look at legislation and do what they think is in the overall public’s interest. I think there’s a growing sense, a strong sense, that Washington is just broken. It’s incapable of now taking on big issues like immigration or the looming Social Security crisis or the war in Iraq. It’s incapable of sitting down and finding common ground and achieving compromise and achieving great things.”

WILLIAMS: “And Tim, in Washington, where nothing, it seems, is ever really a sure bet and nothing is ever really dead, is this really now dead?”

RUSSERT: “It’s dead. Finito. Morte. It is over, Brian, for this cycle legislatively. You’ll see a big debate in the presidential campaign play out. Democrats will try to convince Hispanics that they were the party with a pathway to citizenship. They’ll try to get the Hispanic vote by a margin of 2-1. Republicans will say nonsense it was an amnesty bill. It will play out. Ironically Brian, the one thing that the Congress did achieve, the House approved a $4,000 pay raise. That they found common ground on. I think both the White House and the Congress will pay a price for their inability to do something about immigration.”

# ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson. Reporter Jake Tapper began by summarizing the bill’s defeat, then wrapped up his report by noting how the Congress probably won’t want to pursue a different version of immigration reform:

JAKE TAPPER: “The bill was unpopular with so many Americans.” [On screen display: CNN Poll on Immigration Bill: 47% Oppose; 30% Support; 22% Unsure]

SENATOR JON KYL (at press conference): “A lot of Americans have lost faith in their government. They don’t think we can control our borders, that we can win a war, that we can issue passports.”

SENATOR JIM DEMINT (on floor of Senate): “They’re calling in such numbers that it’s crashed the telephone system here in the Senate. My question to the Senate today is, what part of no don’t we understand?”

SENATOR TED KENNEDY (at press conference): “It’s extremely difficult for me to understand how the will of the American people [is to] want to continue to have broken borders.”

TAPPER, over video of a border patrol vehicle, some people walking through a turnstyle, and others jumping over a fence: “Status quo border security, at least 12 million illegal immigrants, an antiquated and broken immigration system. And that system will continue, as is, with no solution in sight, and little desire on Capitol Hill to plunge yet again into that morass. Charlie?”

CHARLES GIBSON: “Jake, that seems counter-intuitive to some people. Everybody -- whether you were for this bill or against this bill -- says something has the to be done about immigration. And yet, you have a majority of the Senate saying well, let’s not do anything.”

TAPPER: “That’s exactly right. And as we mentioned before on this broadcast, there was something in this compromise legislation, to offend everybody. There was something that everybody didn’t like. And that ultimately is what killed the bill, especially with that very, very strong opposition from Republicans.”