Entries for March 2006

When the Justice Department devotes almost 20 agents to a case, you know something is up. And this morning, the noose seemed to be tightening around the neck of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay: His former deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in District Court, admitting that, while working in Congress, he received money and items of value from superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. So here's the big question: What did Tom DeLay know about all of this?

In naming Josh Bolten as White House chief of staff, the president has taken the route of predictability and continuity–which comes as no surprise to anyone who has known him and worked with him.

After all, Bolten is a known–and very well respected–commodity. Not only did he serve as domestic policy adviser during the 2000 campaign, but he also has experience on Capitol Hill (as a top aide to Sen. Bob Packwood when he was chairman of the Finance Committee), on Wall Street (Goldman Sachs), and as deputy chief of staff before going over to head the budget office.

It's very clear, from watching the president perform at his press conference today, that his staff has made a decision: Put the president out there so he can show his passion on Iraq. That's why he has been answering unscreened questions as he travels around the country lately, and that's why he met with the press–and plans to do so almost monthly. I remember the point during the first GWB campaign for president in 2000, when the staff–after the New Hampshire GOP primary, where he had taken a drubbing from Sen. John McCain–decided to let Bush be Bush.

MEMPHIS–It was hard to believe–and kind of scary, in fact–that more than two years before the next presidential election, there I was, at a Republican straw poll with a host of GOP presidential wannabes: Sens. Bill Frist, John McCain, George Allen, and Sam Brownback; and Govs. Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Not to mention hordes of fellow media members (TV and print) who, while whining about the fact that it's really too early to go to one of these things, were all secretly happy to reunite with old campaign friends.

Earlier this week, I wrote about the Republican split with the president on national security–and there it was again yesterday, when a House committee–by an overwhelming margin–voted to reverse an administration decision to allow a Dubai company's management of six U.S. ports. The political stench is in the air: The White House now needs to find a face-saving way to get out of this deal or continue to fight with its own Republicans–and lose the president's first veto.

When George W. Bush was first re-elected, he told the American people that he had an awful lot of political capital and that he intended to spend it. And, in a way, he tried–with Social Security reform, a plan that fell flat on its face.