by Lincoln Chafee.

Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press. 256 pages. $24.95.

By Darrell West
Special to the Journal

Sen. Lincoln Chafee has produced a candid insider account of how President George Bush misled the nation and why Democratic and Republican members of Congress did little to stop him. It is a Shakespearean tale filled with drama, tragedy and betrayal.

He recounts his now infamous luncheon in December 2000 with Vice President Dick Cheney the day after the U.S. Supreme Court made Bush president. Expecting that the narrow electoral margin would have humbled the new vice president, Chafee was surprised to hear Cheney planning “confrontation on every front.” The election might have been close, but that did not mean the new Republican administration would be timid on its policy agenda of massive tax cuts, conservative judicial appointments, and an aggressive foreign policy.

Even more shocking to Chafee at this meeting, though, was the willing compliance of his fellow legislators. First Sen. Arlen Spector and then Senators Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and James Jeffords acquiesced to Cheney and did not question the new party line. Chafee alone pointed out the importance of centrist senators in a divided Senate. There would be no “profiles in courage” from his fellow moderates.

When it came time to inaugurate Bush, the Congressional Black Caucus begged anyone in the U.S. Senate to delay the proceedings and ask for an investigation into the electoral result. Under the Constitution, it would have taken only one senator questioning the vote to launch an official query into Election 2000. Chafee writes that “if we senators had known then how far this new administration would go to undercut the Congress,” he would have voted to launch such an investigation.

In meetings with the administration, Chafee describes Bush as being “ruled by emotion” and having a “juvenile streak” that he found unpresidential. When Chafee in an Oval Office meeting questioned Bush’s abortion policies by interjecting, “even Laura is pro-choice,” Bush snapped back, “Don’t you bring my wife into this.” Cheney fares no better. He is prone to long monologues that betray little interest in listening to anyone else’s points of view. These were personal traits at the very top of the administration, Chafee says, that led the country into a disastrous foreign policy.

With little respect for the national Republican or Democratic parties, Chafee now concludes that the nation needs a “third way.” In his final chapter, he expresses hope for a centrist third party that will resurrect moderation in American politics and end the polarizing excesses of the past decade. Practicing what he preaches, Chafee has left the Republican Party, but leaves us wondering about his next step in public service. AGAINST THE TIDE: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President,

West@brown.edu