Nation & World
White House Week: Prime Time, For a President Who Hates Prime Time
President Bush always said he didn't want to "negotiate with himself" by revealing the details of his Social Security proposals before Democrats showed their hand. But facing a stalled agenda in Congress and declining job-approval ratings, Bush did just that at his prime-time news conference last week, proposing a gradual reduction of benefits for middle-class and wealthy retirees while shielding low-income workers from cuts. Congressional Democrats immediately--and predictably--attacked the plan.
Bush and his senior advisers, it turns out, have gamed out his final position on Social Security, but they still don't want to reveal too much, fearing that the Democrats will use the ideas as still more targets to shoot at. White House aides were desperate to move the Social Security debate off dead center, so they gambled on the news conference as a gambit to shake things up.
Under attack from all sides, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney literally ducked into a bunker last week after it appeared that an aircraft was headed toward White House airspace. It was a false alarm, but it served as an irresistible metaphor for Bush's presidency. The question is whether Bush has just hit a rough patch or whether his problems mean he may soon be unable to push his agenda through Congress.
White House Week: Foggy Bottom's Case of the Missing Memo
As the Senate inquiry into President Bush's U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton rages on, new tales are surfacing about his aggressive management style. Senate staffers are now said to be looking into how Bolton, as under secretary of state for arms control, handled a State Department review of a July 2002 missile strike on a Gaza City building that killed the military leader of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas and 14 others. Several offices of the State Department, including the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and the legal office, believed Israel may have violated U.S. arms-export laws by using an American-made F-16 jet in the attack. Bolton disagreed, and officials drafted a "split memo" for Secretary of State Colin Powell, laying out both positions. But late one evening, sources say, just before the memo went to Powell's office, Bolton recalled it and allegedly replaced it with a new memo, omitting the assessment that Israel may have violated the law. Powell never learned that some of his staffers took a different view, according to officials. "After that, anytime Bolton was involved, we made sure that someone stayed until 10:30 or 11," said one official. "Fool me once . . . "
White House Week: Help Wanted: A Spy Chief Liked by All
The new deputy director of national intelligence, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, arrives after a six-year reign at the eavesdropping National Security Agency. As his replacement at NSA, Hayden is pushing his good friend Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the government's other big "collection" agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for satellite imagery and mapping. Clapper, though, told his staff at an NGA "town hall" meeting that he's staying put. One key factor: He's opposed by big guns at the Pentagon, particularly Defense Intelligence Agency head Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby. "They don't like each other?" a top intelligence official was asked. "That's an understatement," came the reply.
With Kenneth T. Walsh, Kevin Whitelaw, Danielle Knight and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh, Kevin Whitelaw, Danielle Knight and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh, Kevin Whitelaw, Danielle Knight and David E. Kaplan
This story appears in the May 9, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.