White House Week
A Great Man for the Job That No One Else Wanted
After being turned down by several retired generals, President Bush finally got his so-called war czar-Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute. His job will be to coordinate agencies in Washington supporting the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lute has the right credentials, having been director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he earned more credibility by earlier voicing skepticism regarding the "surge" of troops in Iraq. But critics argued that the job was wrong. The president "made a great selection for a questionable role," said retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who headed up training of Iraqi security forces from 2003 to 2004. Eaton argued that it is the job of the vice president to "deal with the interagency process. It's an admission that Cheney is ineffective." Others in the Pentagon questioned whether this was not a role for the national security adviser or for Bush himself. "If the president says this is a struggle for civilization-this war on terrorism-and the central front is Iraq," said one official, "why would they outsource that kind of leadership job?"
AG's Tough Sledding? Some Go Fishing
With the troubles of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales deepening (story, Page 30), some Republican strategists are fishing for a replacement who could win swift Senate approval. "We need somebody they can accept, first, then somebody who can get confirmed," said one. While the White House says its support is firm, some think the attorney general may be gone by summer, especially now with Democrats calling for a Senate no-confidence vote on him. A key GOP adviser called the move "brilliant"; he predicted a devastating loss for the White House and Gonzales because "none of these Republican senators even want to be in the same room as the AG, no less voting that they have confidence in him."
The Goracle, a Man With a Lot to Say
Former Vice President Al Gore insists he has no plans to run again for president, but with the scheduled release this week of his latest book, The Assault on Reason, the failed 2000 Democratic nominee and climate change activist has given supporters renewed hope that he may change his mind. Already a bestseller based on preorders alone, the book lays out Gore's distress with what he sees as the degradation of public discourse and casting off of reason, including scientific reason, in decision making under the current Bush administration. The onus for fixing America is on regular citizens, he says, and not just politicians. But, presumably, a president could help out, too?
New Meaning for the Word Holocaust
A simulation at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., finds that any major use of nuclear forces in the Middle East in the next decade would most likely involve an effort to destroy a nation and the ability of its people to ever recover. The briefers determined that Israel would be vulnerable to such attacks-and so would Iran. "In fact," noted a summary, "a nation like Iran-with so much of its economy, culture, and government concentrated in Tehran and a few other cities-might prove to be far more vulnerable" to an attack by Israel than vice versa. Satellites and GPS data would make strikes even more effective, the report said. Of course, Iran has yet to build a nuclear bomb.
PHOTO OP: 1:34 p.m., May 17, U.S. Capitol
Sens. Mel Martinez, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Kennedy share a laugh just before announcing a deal brokered with the White House for new immigration legislation. The proposal would tighten border security but also offer legal status to nearly all illegal immigrants in the United States. Whether such a bill can pass through Congress, however, is unclear.
With Anna Mulrine, Paul Bedard and Liz Halloran
This story appears in the May 28, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.