Entries for April 06, 2007

As the political battleground gets bloodier here in Washington, the last 21 months of the Bush presidency may not be the ceaseless war of attrition that many expect. To close out the week, here's another Choose Your Own Adventure-style pairing from our award winning Chief White House Correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh.

Bush Starts New Fight With Recess Appointment...

Democrats are stewing over President Bush's recess appointment this week of wealthy GOP contributor Sam Fox to be ambassador to Belgium. The Senate was away on spring break, so the nomination becomes effective without the need for a confirmation vote. Fox contributed $50,000 in 2004 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that said presidential candidate John Kerry exaggerated his wartime service in Vietnam.

But the big impact may be further contamination of the political atmosphere in Washington. Democratic insiders consider Bush's action a thumb in their eyes and another step away from the comity that Bush says he wants. But White House insiders say Bush wanted to show that he still has many cards to play even though he is under siege on so many fronts.

...But Will Democrats Fight So Hard They Implode?

Overall, White House advisers say they see signs that majority Democrats in Congress are shifting too far to the left or moving to extreme positions on Iraq and other issues, giving Republicans the potential opening they are looking for.

"The Democrats will overplay their hand," says a GOP strategist. "And this will allow us to go back on offense." White House insiders say the Democrats are pushing too far and too fast to force President Bush to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facilities for suspected terrorists, while they approve pork-barrel projects and conduct too many investigations into executive branch decision making. Those insiders say the country will eventually see the Democrats as defeatists and liberals who want to impose their views on Middle America.

The organization Reporters Without Borders is reporting today that three Iraqi journalists have been killed in as many days in Iraq. Two radio reporters were abducted and later killed in separate incidents, and a deputy TV director died when a truck bomb detonated at the offices of the satellite TV station where he worked.

U.S.News & World Report Senior Writer Kevin Whitelaw, who has made seven trips to Iraq since 2000, most recently in April of last year, tells us that there has also been a heavy toll on Iraqis who aid western journalists:

"Journalists have been a target for the past three years, but there has been a hidden toll among the Iraqis that foreign journalists employ as assistants, translators, fixers, and drivers," he says. "Many of them are doubly exposed because they function as journalists and work closely with westerners. This makes them vulnerable to both insurgent groups and militias."

Whitelaw also reminds us that reporters who are not embedded with the military do not live in the comparatively safe Green Zone.

"As for western journalists still operating in Baghdad, security is a daily, usually hourly concern. Tight security precautions are taken every time one leaves the hotel," he says. "Remember that despite popular preconceptions, journalists who are not embedded with the U.S. military live outside the Green Zone and are very much exposed. They face many of the same threats that other Iraqis face [car bombs, etc.], as well as the risk of being a high-profile and potentially lucrative target."

For casual baseball fans worried about looking ignorant at the water cooler, there's an evergreen fallback for conversation: The Yankees are good this year.

But in case anyone doubts Major League Baseball's cash-laden dominators, who have won a record 26 World Series titles, mathematician Bruce Bukiet can prove it with a lot of numbers.

As the website LiveScience.com reported yesterday, Bukiet's mathematical model calculates the probabilities for each hitter-pitcher match-up and can therefore predict the outcome of individual games. By his calculations, the Yankees will win 110 of their 162 games this year, a very good season in baseball.

This comes to us from Senior Editor Anna Mulrine, who covers the Pentagon:

Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told reporters Thursday that the agency is modifying radars in the United Kingdom and Greenland to better protect the United States from missile strikes.

"We have allies and friends that aren't protected against the threat we see from Iran," he said. "The threat is getting more and more real--and it's getting more urgent," he added, citing development and testing programs in Iran that he says have accelerated.

"A lot of people think that by 2015" Iran will have the ability to deploy long-range missiles, he added. "This idea of the proliferation of missiles is something we have to be very concerned about. ... Why are these countries investing so heavily in these missiles?" He said that he can understand the concern coming from Russia, but he noted that the trajectory of Iranian missiles "overflies Russian territory." He added that he has invited Russia to inspect U.S. missile sites in Alaska.

"It's not Russians we're worried about--it's Iranians," he said.

Obering added that Missile Defense has taken a hit in the president's budget for the upcoming year. Of the $8.9 billion appropriated to the agency by Congress, Obering said it will spend some $7.1 billion to focus on near-term threats, with the remaining $1.8 billion used to focus on the longer term.

Etc.: Iran-Washington Tensions Escalate (Video), on USNews.com

It's an unusually quiet few days on the campaign trail this weekend.

Barack Obama today visits a veterans home and holds a meet and greet in Marshalltown, Iowa, and then heads to Chicago for the weekend.

Bill Richardson will be in North Korea on Sunday to help negotiate the return of the remains of missing U.S. servicemen.

Sam Brownback attended a prayer breakfast today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

From the U.S. News Political Bulletin: Mitt Romney and John McCain are now tied in a Zogby poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters, each with 25 percent. Meanwhile, Fred Thompson prepares his campaign, with a possible formal announcement early next month.

This morning's top stories:

• Several National Guard brigades may return to Iraq for a second consecutive term, according to the Associated Press. Pending approval by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the move would mark the first time entire Guard units were sent back for a second tour of duty.
• The Washington Post reports, citing captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations, that Saddam Hussein was not directly cooperating with al Qaeda prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003. The newly declassified version of the Defense Department report released on Thursday, first summarized in February, offers new insight on prewar notions that were based on dubious or unconfirmed information.
• The United Nations panel on climate change releases its much anticipated report on global warming today in New York. According to delegation sources in Brussels, last-minute obstacles, which had to be resolved in drafting the final text, came from Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia, who insisted on watering down the language.
• Security experts believe they have located the first proven iPod virus, InfoWorld reports. In a blog posting, Russian antivirus specialists Kaspersky Lab on Thursday published details of the threat of Podloso, a virus that is said to have the ability to launch and run the device.