White House Week
You Know, You Can't Keep A Good Boy Genius Down
The recent controversy swirling around Karl Rove hasn't slowed him a bit. That's according to White House insiders who say Bush's political boy genius is as engaged as ever in high-level decision making despite all the attacks by angry Democrats alleging he improperly--and possibly illegally--outed a covert CIA operative. Rove was a key player behind the recently passed transportation and energy bills, and now he's planning Bush's fall agenda, which will include a renewed push for Social Security overhaul, changes in immigration law, and tax restructuring. Says a White House insider who talks to Rove regularly, "He is as instrumental as he ever was."
Not That George, Silly, This George
Conservative Republicans are becoming increasingly convinced that Virginia Sen. George Allen will run for president in 2008--and win. "He's got the right pedigree," says a longtime Bush adviser. "He's conservative, he's a former southern governor, and he's likable." Another GOP sage notes that Allen's chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee gave him a chance to travel the nation and polish his stump speech. "People like him," the official says. "He's the one in the race who's got that Bush quality." A former Bush aide says 2008 is shaping up as a "Bush legacy" election and predicts the GOP primary victor will be a lot like Bush in style and policy.
Upping the Ante in South Asia
When President Bush gets back from the ranch, Congress is going to have a lot more on its plate than just the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts. First off, the president's foreign-policy team will try to win congressional approval of a deal to resume the long-delayed sales of F-16 fighters to Pakistan--and another to launch civilian nuclear cooperation with India. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sees both initiatives as a key element of U.S. outreach to an area that has traditionally been what an aide called "an arc of instability." But neither deal will be an easy sell. Many in Congress worry that the sale of more jets to Pakistan sends the wrong message after Islamabad's 1998 nuclear tests and could upset the delicate military balance in South Asia. At the same time, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service warns that the Indian nuclear plan contravenes current U.S. law. Still, U.S. officials expect both deals to win grudging approval. Says a senior State Department official: "It is going to require quite a lot of work."
Eyeing Another Possible Jihadist Hot Spot
Counterterrorism analysts are puzzling over a series of as many as 300 bombings in Bangladesh last week. The blasts struck across the country--all within a half hour on August 17. Among the targets: government and media offices, transportation hubs, and markets. Most of the bombs were small and apparently not meant to kill; they caused only two deaths. But the scale of the campaign has alarmed terrorism experts who worry that the poor, mostly Muslim nation of 144 million is at risk of becoming a jihadist hot spot. A Bangladeshi Islamist group, Jamaat ul Mujahideen, is thought to be responsible, but the group doesn't even appear on U.S. terrorism lists. "We just don't know very much about them," says one analyst.
With Kenneth T. Walsh, Paul Bedard, Kevin Whitelaw and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh, Paul Bedard, Kevin Whitelaw and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh, Paul Bedard, Kevin Whitelaw and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh, Paul Bedard, Kevin Whitelaw and David E. Kaplan
This story appears in the August 29, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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