End of the Gulf War - 8 March 1991

On Wednesday evening, President Bush had his glory hour. He appeared before a joint session of the two Houses of Congress theoretically to report on the end of the war and make a genuine, if pious, appeal to secure the peace, once for all, in the Middle East. Which I must say, if he can do it, will make him one of the two or three towering statesmen of the 20th century.

But the scene in the House chamber was much more like a Republican convention. There were, to be sure, no funny hats, no palpitating drum majorettes, no swaying forests of placards bearing gung-ho appeals for Bush in '92. But, for the first time, I'm sure, senators and congressmen had, and waved, tiny American flags which have bloomed in schoolrooms and playgrounds all over the country, like daisies in spring. Most of the flag-wavers were Republicans who voted overwhelmingly for the prosecution of the war when the president put it up to them. Just as the Democrats voted overwhelmingly against the war and in favour of continuing sanctions for as long as they might take to work, or not to work.

I noticed, however, that many Democrats joined the ecstatic Republicans in wearing little yellow ribbons in their buttonholes. In the past 10 or more years, after those American hostages were taken and held for so long in Iran, an old custom was revived of tying yellow ribbons on trees, flagpoles, so on, to show sympathy and support for the imprisoned men. And this custom was then extended to the wearing of yellow ribbons by relatives of men and women in the armed forces. The revival was spurred, I think, by the fairly recent song, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. I say "revival" because the habit of associating the colour yellow with the men at the front goes back to the Civil War when Confederate Southern soldiers were known among Northerners, and no doubt derisively, as yellowlegs. If so, the mocking term was turned into an asset by Southern women who wore yellow roses to signify a husband, brother, sweetheart in the war. One of the big hit songs, as we now say, of the Civil War was, The Yellow Rose of Texas.

Well, when the president padded down the aisle through the blindingly lit chamber, ever since television, the Democrats rose wearily with the rest, the Republicans, the Supreme Court, the chiefs of staff, the cabinet, the diplomatic corps and all the beaming VIPs in the galleries, the Democrats heaved one large collective sigh and gave the president his due. One last big sporting cheer before they retire this weekend and scatter into committees, caucuses, forlorn little huddles in bars and back rooms, from California to Maine, looking for a leader, looking for a platform, an argument. Indeed, looking for the missing magician who can by this time next year, sooner if possible, transform George Herbert Walker Bush from a shining hero into a heartless, fat cat, uncaring, old-style Republican, the Republican of the cartoonists, during the increasingly rare periods when a Democrat is in the White House

On the evening that the president went to Congress to receive a three-minute ovation before he was allowed to speak, his popularity in the country was greater than that of any president ever. Since what is now called approval rating was first statistically measured back in the dark ages of the 1940s; "91%," moaned an old Democrat, "God be with us till we meet again."

On all such occasions, the president is introduced by the speaker of the House who is, as you know, not only a presiding neutral chairman, but the political leader of the majority party in the House. In the past 60 years, there have been only two Republican speakers, each occupying that dizzy position of leadership for two years only. For the other 56 years, it's been a Democrat speaker who has at the ceremonial joint sessions banged the gavel and recited the immemorial phrase, "I have the great honour and the distinct privilege of introducing the President of the United States".

Sometimes, often lately, as you can guess, this has been more of an embarrassment than a privilege for the leading Democrat to introduce a Republican president who has just thrashed the speaker's party in the presidential vote. On Wednesday, magnanimity on the part of a squirming opponent reached new heights, with Speaker Tom Foley coupling the usual ritual phrase with, "Our warmest congratulations on the brilliant victory of the Desert Storm operation". A tidal wave of applause greeted that one which is only likely to be exceeded by the appearance which, I should think, cannot be long delayed, before the joint session of the man himself. General Norman Schwarzkopf.

So, the Democrats behaved like good sports, right? Right. For one evening. By Thursday, in fact, by late Wednesday evening, they were talking or being talked about at wearisome length by every news show and discussion programme on the air. If the election, presidential that is, were held tomorrow, is the way these discussions begin, the Democrats would, I quote, "Get the most brutal thrashing, the most devastating shellac-ing in the history of the party".

Well, the first thing to say about this big discussion now is, but the election is not being held tomorrow. It is to be held 20 months from now. Was it Harold Wilson who said, "In politics, a week is an age"? There is actually cause for rejoicing for good hope, anyway, among the Democrats if they'd look back to those figures I quoted about the rarity of Republican speakers. Which signified that only twice since 1932 have the Republicans had a majority in the House. The seed of hope lies in the question, "When did that happen?" The last time was the election of 1952, when the old conquering American hero of the Second World War, General Dwight Eisenhower, decided to run for president as a Republican. By 1952, the United States was the principal fighting force in a United Nations war in Korea. And the country was weary. And mad at the way it dragged on under a Democratic president, Harry Truman, Eisenhower practically guaranteed his election when he said at one point during the election campaign "I will go to Korea". That was the end of poor old Adlai Stevenson. The sudden hope of an early ceasefire and what it would do to the economy helped Eisenhower carry the House with him.

The economy is the important point. If there are no other overriding issues, the state of the economy, of your pocketbook, the price of food, they are always decisive in elections to the House. And no matter how glamorous, how heroic, the Republican president may be, the country always tends to cushion the chance of his failure by voting for a Democratic House because the House if the place where your own neck of the woods is represented, by a man or woman who's elected for only two years and had better spend that time looking out for your needs, for a new school building, a better bridge, more day care, whatever, is the chronic local complaint.

What should help the Democrats perk up a little is the lesson to be drawn from the only other brief time, two years, of a Republican speaker. Same man by the way. 1946. The first congressional election after the great victory over Hitler and Japan. And who in the American version was the architect, the chief victor, the Pompey come home to Rome? President Franklin Roosevelt. He, true, had died only a month before the war in Europe ended but Harry Truman was a popular successor and you'd think that, in the boiling wake of this great victory, Americans would have sent the Democrats roaring back into the House. 1946 was, of course, a mid-term election, not presidential. But 1946 was also a year when Johnny in his millions came marching home and had a rough time finding a house and home. It was a year of unprecedented strikes. First, from nearly half a million coalminers, then from three other national industries following on. So, to the thunderstruck Democrats, an ungrateful people voted a Republican majority into the House. It was the last time – 1946.

So, I think the Republicans, who are naturally bubbling with jubilation over the terrible swift sword that cut down the Iraqi legions, should look back over long-forgotten election figures and begin, even now, to moderate their confidence in the coming landslide of George Bush for his second term in 1992. Or, as one panting Republican put it in a waggish reminder of additional Republican strength, "You mean the coming landslide of the Bush/Powell ticket? Hey, hey." Well, this idea which is being floated across the nation by Republican tacticians sees an invincible ticket, if General Colin Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and joint architect with General Schwarzkopf, runs as Bush's vice president. His shining qualification to a party that generally has an amalgam of minorities against it is that he is black.

Well, I won't go on. One side line, blessing of the war, is that we've had no Democratic presidential hopefuls charging through New Hampshire and Iowa and 48 other States preaching and speechifying and raising money. At present there isn't one Democrat who dare brave the storm of idolatry that swirls around General, I mean President George Bush. There are no declared contenders. But wait a while. A year from now, look at the bank rates, the mortgage rate, the inflation rate. Count the new homes. And the homeless. Test the prosperity or despair of the inner cities. Most of all, how many unemployed? None of these chronic troubles may turn acute, but if they do, victory in the desert will be a mockery.

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