White House Week
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Out and Go Selling
It was an all-Iraq, all-the-time week for the White House, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continued her tour of the Middle East and Europe to gin up support for the president's "new way forward" and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did a fact-finding tour of Iraq and then sought support in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Rice, not deaf to recommendations that a peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians was one key to the Iraq puzzle, got their leaders to agree to meet with her in a few weeks. But as the administration took its sales show on the road, so did the opposition. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the presumed Democratic presidential front-runner, herself toured Iraq and Afghanistan and announced she opposed Bush's surge of troops. And on the Bush legacy front, there came more bad news: A Zogby poll found nearly four times as many likely voters think he is a failure as consider him a great leader.
And They Can Go to Red Sox Games, Too
Little noticed during all the buzz about new Democratic presidential entry Barack Obama were insiders' observations that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign is moving faster than planned. White House and Republican leadership officials note that Romney's wave of appointments and listing of backers is a sign that he's pushing up plans to forcefully challenge Sen. John McCain. Romney's aides say it helps to be running their operation from Beantown. "The fact that joining this shop requires a move to Boston is actually an advantage," says one insider. "It requires a personal and professional investment." Still, at this point, administration officials note that McCain remains the leader and the one to beat.
Seeing Kyoto at the End of the Tunnel
Environmentalists are excited: It appears legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions is off to a fast start in the new Congress. Last week, Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a new climate change bill and promised four more soon. Sens. Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Barack Obama have aggressively repackaged a bill thought too strong by previous Congresses, and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy are pushing another that many environmentalists like. The rapid action has environmental groups hoping the 110th Congress will pass a landmark bill that will effectively—and finally—put the United States in league with member nations of the Kyoto protocol.
Guess Who's Coming to the Big Dinner
George Bush took some nasty jabs from Stephen Colbert, host of a spoof TV news program, at the White House Correspondents Association gala dinner last year. Like this one: "Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty. Because 32 percent [job approval] means it's two-thirds empty." The act fell flat, one critic said, "because he ignored the cardinal rule of Washington humor: Make fun of yourself, not the other guy." This year, the dinner will feature Canadian comic Rich Little. Tapping Little, a veteran presidential impersonator popular in the '70s and '80s, is being widely viewed as a flight in the opposite direction. The move did not escape notice in the blogosphere, where one reader on FishbowlDC asked: "Rich Little? What, Soupy Sales or Nipsey Russell weren't available?"
PHOTO OP: 3:49 p.m., January 18, Capitol Hill
Her prayers seemingly answered, Speaker Nancy Pelosi met the press to tout legislation passed in the new House's first 100 hours. Members approved bills that would, among other things, raise the minimum wage, overturn curbs on stem cell research, cut the cost of prescription drugs, reduce student loan rates, and slash tax breaks for Big Oil.
With Bret Schulte, Paul Bedard and Chris Wilson
This story appears in the January 29, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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