Bush's second act: news analysis: can the president avoid the 'second-term jinx' as he pursues an ambitious, complicated, and risky agenda?

• Author: Sanger, David E.
• Position: Cover Story

When George W. Bush raises his right hand at noon on January 20 and is sworn into office for a second term, he will begin to pursue a historic--and risky-agenda. It's an agenda far more ambitious and complicated than the one he arrived with in Washington four years ago.

He must win a war to remake Iraq, which has turned out to be a much harder, deadlier task than invading the country and overthrowing its dictator, Saddam Hussein. He has committed to a much broader effort to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East, a task so huge it could take a generation and require not only suppressing the region's hatreds, but also finding a way to ease out the monarchies that have run places like Saudi Arabia as if they were a family business.

DOMESTIC PRIORITIES

At home, Bush promised during his campaign to overhaul the Social Security system, which is in danger of becoming insolvent as more and more people reach retirement age and qualify for benefits. He says he wants to simplify the complicated federal income tax system. And he proposes to do all this while dealing with a huge federal deficit that makes getting anything done that much harder.

But most important, he must avoid the troubles and scandals that have turned second terms into the Bermuda Triangle of the American presidency. "There are certain patterns that keep showing up in second terms in American history," says Thomas Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington who follows presidents and the problems they run into. "One is hubris--the tendency to believe that your own re-election vindicates everything you did in your first term, even your mistakes. It can lead you to exaggerate your power and overstate your legitimacy."

"The second is scandal," he says. "It's amazing how many second-term presidents have encountered scandal." It happened to President Clinton, who was impeached, and then acquitted by the Senate in 1999, for lying about his relationship with a young intern at the White House. Many experts say the scandal derailed his second term and distracted America when it should have been focusing on the threat of terrorism. It happened to President Reagan, whose administration got mired in the "Iran-contra" affair, which involved a complex, secret deal to send arms to rebels in Nicaragua.

EIGHTEEN-MONTH WINDOW

If Bush is going to make his mark in a second term, he knows he does not have much time. The Constitution says he will serve for four more years, but the reality is that little gets accomplished at the...