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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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The Senate Foreign Relations committee yesterday voted 12-9 to condemn President Bush's Iraq strategy. The vote came largely along party lines, with only GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel crossing the aisle to back the resolution. As a result, said George Stephanopoulos on ABC World News, "supporters of the President's policy in the White House, actually believe they made some progress today." But the CBS Evening News reported that while "right now there probably aren't enough Republican votes" for the Democratic measure, "with subtle language changes...it could be a done deal." CBS was referring to talks in the Senate between backers of the Democratic resolution and one sponsored by GOP Sens. John Warner and Susan Collins, among others.
In fact, the Wall Street Journal says the committee vote yesterday gives Chairman Joseph Biden "a solid foothold from which to begin talks with" Warner, "who last evening introduced an alternative resolution also challenging the increased commitment of 21,500 troops. Merging the two to achieve a larger consensus is the Democrats' goal and the quickest route may be to embrace much of Mr. Warner's proposal with some changes." The New York Times reports Democrats "say they believe that at least 8 of the 49 Republicans might join with nearly all Democrats in embracing a resolution -- Mr. Biden's or Mr. Warner's -- critical of the president's troop increase plan."
What's holding the Biden-Hagel and Warner camps apart is the tenor of the language in the Democratic resolution. One issue is that, as USA Today notes, the resolution approved yesterday "declares Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Baghdad and Anbar province 'not in the national interest.'" Last night, on MSNBC, Sen. Collins discussed another source of disagreement: "We worked very hard to come up with a resolution that didn't have some of the loaded words that the resolution reported today included in it. ... One of them was struck today, and that is 'escalation.' That's become a politically loaded word." If "escalation" is a loaded word, ABC World News had no qualms using it last night in its lead story, where it reported that "many" Republicans "expressed deep frustration with the President and opposition to the troop escalation."
The Los Angeles Times says that "in a sign of how partisan the debate over Iraq remains, only one Republican joined Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to support the resolution," while "not a single senator on the committee endorsed the White House plan." But in fact, NBC Nightly News noted that one Republican did make "a clear statement in favor of the President's build up -- and even for him, it was not easy." Sen. David Vitter was shown saying, "After a lot of careful thought, I decided to support the President's plan as a final attempt to stabilize a viable democracy in Iraq." The Washington Post, Financial Times, AP and Washington Times also run stories about GOP unease with Bush's policy.
On the network newscasts, much was made of Hagel's strong words during committee debate yesterday. ABC World News showed Hagel saying of Bush's proposal, "This isn't a strategy. It's a ping-pong game with American lives." Hagel, added ABC, also "criticized his fellow Republicans for their cowardice." Hagel was shown saying, "What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why are you elected? If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes." Both the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News also showed Hagel's "ping-pong" quote. Hagel was also interviewed on PBS' NewsHour, where he said, "The President can't sustain a war policy. He can't sustain any policy."
And while the Senate debates Bush's policy, the Washington Post reports "tens of thousands of peace advocates from across the country" are expected to travel to the nation's capital on Saturday "for an anti-war rally that could be among the biggest since the war in Iraq began, organizers said yesterday. ... Among the featured speakers will be Vietnam War-era protester Jane Fonda, according to the organizers. Others include actors Danny Glover, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, and Carlos Arredondo, who in 2004 set himself on fire after learning of the death in Iraq of his Marine Corps son, Alexander."
Democratic Rift Noted The Hill ¸ meanwhile, notes that "a separate rift opened yesterday between Biden and two fellow competitors in the 2008 White House chase over whether to attempt a further check on Bush by placing a binding cap on troop levels in Iraq." Sen. Chris Dodd, "the first Democrat to support a troop ceiling that would trigger a new congressional vote on authorizing the war, tried to add that cap as an amendment to the resolution." Dodd "failed by a wide margin, but" Sen. Barack Obama "backed his effort and another defender of a troop cap," Sen. Hillary Clinton, "awaits at the head of the presidential pack."
The Washington Post also runs a Dana Milbank piece mocking Biden's style as chairman. Milbank says Biden "was trying to uphold two resolutions yesterday: one criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq policy and the other Biden's own resolution to himself -- to stop talking so much. The Iraq resolution passed 12 to 9. Biden's other resolution failed, by a voice vote -- Biden's voice." Biden "ran the hearing more like a talk show host than a chairman."
Vice President Cheney gave a lengthy and at some points testy interview to Wolf Blitzer on CNN's The Situation Room that largely focused on Iraq. The CBS Evening News said Cheney was, "in a word, defiant, saying about the idea of any kind of resolution from the Senate, quote, 'It won't stop us.'" CBS showed Blitzer saying, "So you're moving forward no matter what the Congress does." Cheney: "We are moving forward. The Congress has control over the purse strings. They have the right, obviously, if they want to cut off funding, but in terms of this effort the President has made his decision and I think it's far too soon for the talking heads on television to conclude that it's impossible to do." In a front-page headline, the Washington Post also calls Cheney "defiant," and the Los Angeles Times writes that "a day after President Bush struck a conciliatory tone toward critics of the Iraq war," Cheney "did the opposite Wednesday," defending the invasion and insisting "that 'there's been a lot of success' since then."
The AP says Cheney said "it's 'hogwash' to suggest the Bush administration's credibility is on the line because of mistakes in Iraq," acknowledging that the "situation in Iraq was very unstable but said toppling Saddam Hussein had been the right thing to do." On CNN's The Situation Room, Cheney said, "The world is much safer today because of it. There have been three national elections in Iraq. There's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government. Saddam has been brought to justice and executed. His sons are dead. His government is gone. And the world is better off for it."
At another point in the interview, Cheney said, "After 9/11, we learned that we have a vested interest in what happens on the ground in the Middle East. If you are going to walk away from Iraq today and say, 'Well, gee, it's too tough, we can't complete the task, we just are going to quit,' you will create exactly that same kind of situation again." On PBS' NewsHour, Sen. Chuck Hagel criticized him for saying some opponents of the war lack resolve, saying, "I'm so sorry the Vice President so underestimates the people of this country. He has so little faith in this country to say something like that. That's an astounding statement from the Vice President of the United States."
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President Bush went to Delaware Wednesday to promote the fuel efficiency proposals he offered in his State of the Union Address. NBC Nightly News called it "part of an effort to wean the country off foreign oil that President Bush claims can bring Democrats and Republicans together." The CBS Evening News said Bush told employees at a Wilmington chemical plant that our "dependence on foreign oil is a natural security risk." Wilmington station WWAY-TV said Bush "left behind the battle over the Iraq war" to visit the state.
The New York Times says Bush "made a big deal about ethanol" in his Tuesday address, and on "Wednesday morning, he got up close and personal with it." USA Today reports Bush "toured a plant that develops biofuels from corn, switch grass and wood chips. He also touted his plan to reduce the use of gasoline over the next decade to an audience of more than 1,000, most of whom were DuPont employees." The Los Angeles Times says the President "ordered the federal government Wednesday to move toward purchasing hybrid-powered vehicles and reducing the federal fleet's petroleum consumption by 2% each year, part of an effort to boost alternatives to gasoline." He "announced the executive order during a morning devoted to promoting new-technology fuels." The Delaware News Journal says Bush discussed "what he described as 'an interesting opportunity for our country,'" saying that dependence on oil "creates both a national security problem for the country and environmental concerns."
The Washington Post says Bush and Congress "appear to be on a collision course on how best to increase motor-vehicle fuel efficiency. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said yesterday that Bush would oppose attempts by Congress to raise fuel-efficiency standards if its approach differs from the administration's." Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said on Fox News, "The President has recommended to Congress that we need to set an alternative fuel standard that would be seven times as large as the current one. ... What this really is, is setting a goal and then loosing the American inventive genius to go after it."
The Washington Post says that while "economists are still sorting out the implications of the broad health-care proposals President Bush unveiled this week," already "some clear winners and losers are emerging." Those with "generous employer-sponsored coverage would be worse off," but those who "buy insurance on the individual market, or whose health plan costs less than $15,000 annually, would come out ahead." USA Today says the plan "faces stiff political resistance. Some lawmakers in the Democrat-led Congress said they wouldn't even hold hearings on the plan, arguing that it would hurt many Americans who do have insurance coverage. But Bush's proposal has managed to focus attention on the uneven tax treatment of health care benefits." The Christian Science Monitor says with his health plan, Bush "has launched what may be his most ambitious bid to tackle the issue from a free-market basis."
In a critical assessment, ABC World News examined President Bush's "proposal to reform the health care system by way of the tax code," saying critics "worry the President's plan to provide "anyone who gets health insurance" with a tax deduction "will encourage businesses to stop offering health insurance." But "the Administration disagrees. It says the tax break will allow three million to five million more Americans to buy health insurance. But that would still leave more than 40 million people uninsured." ABC medical editor Dr. Tim Johnson said, "I would call this proposal tinkering with taxes, rather than reforming health care. We're going to throw good money at a bad system."
Former Bush UN Ambassador John Bolton says the US "may not be able to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons because the Bush administration is following a flawed diplomatic strategy," the AP reports. Bolton told Fox News that the UN Security Council resolution against Iran approved last month is "very weak," adding that the "diplomacy we have been pursuing is ultimately going to be a problem for the President."
The Washington Post notes this morning that in his State of the Union, President Bush "left out a tiny little suffix that means a whole lot to some people." Bush "started the speech on a bipartisan note, honoring the first Madam Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, and calling on the country to come together." But he then said, "I congratulate the Democrat majority," dropping the "last two letters from 'Democratic.' Bush does this a lot, and while it's hard to say if the omission was intentional in this instance, it is a semantic tactic that's been part of Republican warfare for decades."
Prosecutors sought to establish that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, learned from several government officials the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame during the course of an alleged effort to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Libby's attorneys noted the same officials had themselves changed their stories, at once calling into question their testimony and bolstering their client's "faulty memory" defense. USA Today reports former top CIA official Robert Grenier said Libby was "part of a White House strategy to use press leaks to blame the CIA for faulty intelligence about Iraq's efforts to acquire nuclear bomb material." Libby had "asked Grenier about former State Department official Joseph Wilson, who had investigated the claims about Iraq's nuclear intentions for the CIA. Grenier testified that he also told Libby that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA official." The Washington Post says "the timing of Grenier's response and Libby's anxiety over Wilson are central to the prosecution," but the Los Angeles Times reports Libby's "defense against perjury charges, which rests in part on what he has described as innocent memory lapses, appeared to gain some ground Wednesday when his lawyers showed that two government witnesses in the case had memory issues of their own." Grenier, "questioned by Libby's lawyers, acknowledged that he initially told a federal grand jury in January 2004 that he did not believe he had shared information about the status" of Plame when "he spoke with Libby weeks before she was identified in a newspaper column."
Proof Of Libby Scapegoat Claim Scarce The New York Times reports "the assertion" by Libby attorneys "that White House aides had sacrificed him to protect Karl Rove, the senior political adviser, appears to be based primarily on Mr. Libby's own sense that the administration had failed to defend him adequately as the C.I.A. leak case unfolded." But there is "little known evidence to buttress the suggestion by Mr. Libby's defense team in his obstruction and perjury trial that unnamed White House officials were deliberately setting Mr. Libby up to be a scapegoat."
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2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said yesterday on the Senate floor that he would not make another bid in 2008 and instead run for reelection to the Senate. The Boston Globe reports that an "emotional" Kerry was "choking up" as he "said he would work to make sure the next president doesn't have to cope with the consequences of a 'wider war' sparked by the failed policy in Iraq." The AP reports Kerry said, "There are powerful reasons to want to continue that fight now. But I have concluded this isn't the time for me to mount a presidential campaign." The story was briefly reported by each of the networks. For example, NBC Nightly News reported, "While most Americans might not have thought he was in the race to begin with, today Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry said that he will not run for President in 2008."
Kerry Chances Of Success Seen As Low A number of stories out today questioned how viable a second Kerry bid would have been, particularly in light of current field of high-profile Democratic contenders. The Los Angeles Times reports analysts "said Kerry also may have surveyed the field of Democratic candidates -- with Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois among the front-runners -- and determined that there was little interest in a candidate given to long speeches, a less charismatic style, and a similar position on the war." The Washington Times adds that "Democratic campaign strategists privately have been saying for some time that the senator was no longer a contender in a crowded field of candidates, led" by Clinton, Obama, and John Edwards. Democratic leaders "in the early caucus and primary battlegrounds of Iowa and New Hampshire also said that Mr. Kerry was registering little support in their states, running far behind the front-runners, who already have considerable campaign organizations and fundraising pledges." The New York Times adds that many Democrats "had said they expected that Mr. Kerry would decide not to run after assessing how much support he had in his party. Already, most of his aides from the 2004 campaign have moved on." CQ Politics reports that while Kerry was emotional, "less downcast will be many Democrats who criticized Kerry, contending he ran an ineffective campaign that allowed Bush to win re-election."
The AP reports that Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) will kick off his long-shot presidential campaign today at a breakfast in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He expects to follow up his announcement with a tour of three early GOP primary states: South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire. The AP says Hunter is "a strong foe of illegal immigration, an issue that plays well in South Carolina, which has some of the nation's lowest wages as well as one of the country's highest jobless rates as manufacturing jobs leave the state. Hunter already has some deep-pocketed allies in South Carolina, including textile magnate Roger Milliken, who strongly supports Hunter's promise to protect U.S. manufacturers." The Spartanburg Herald Journal reports that a Hunter spokesman, explaining the decision of the California Congressman to kick off his bid in South Carolina, said, "He knows a lot of people here. The needs of the people in South Carolina pretty closely align with his platform and his thinking. ... South Carolina is a very important state, and Spartanburg is a real important part of that."
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Will Rudy Giuliani back out of his fledgling presidential campaign? That's what Republican insiders are asking as the former New York mayor considers whether to run in 2008. The insiders tell the US News Political Bulletin that while Giuliani leads in some national polls of GOP voters, he has not moved as aggressively as some of his rivals, especially John McCain and Mitt Romney, to recruit a campaign team or solicit support from key Republicans at the national, state, and local levels. The insiders point out that Giuliani didn't run against Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Senate in 2000 in a decision that disappointed many of his supporters. Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the time, but some Republicans argue that, in addition, he really didn't have the intense desire to do what was necessary, such as raising money and spending countless hours asking for support from political operatives. "Some of us aren't sure he will really make this race this time, and if he does jump in, there will be doubts that he will stay in," a prominent GOP insider who formerly advised President Bush tells the Political Bulletin.
Giuliani Looks To Woo New Hampshire GOP Activists Despite the above speculation, the New York Sun reports that Giuliani "will look to lock up key Republican supporters" in New Hampshire this weekend as he makes his first trip to the state, where he will deliver the keynote address at the state GOP committee's annual meeting Saturday. State GOP Chairman Wayne Semprini "said Mr. Giuliani has generated as much or more interest than any other Republican candidate."
The New York Times reports that as many as "four big states - California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey - are likely to move up their 2008 presidential primaries to early next February, further upending an already unsettled nominating process and forcing candidates of both parties to rethink their campaign strategies, party officials said Wednesday." The changes will force candidates to go "immediately from an ordered series of early contests in relatively small states in January to a single-day, coast-to-coast battlefield in February, encompassing some of the most expensive advertising markets in the nation," something that could benefit well-financed candidates with high existing name recognition.
Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reports that Sen. John Ensign, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP Senate campaign arm, is looking to "dramatically" increase contributions to his organization from fellow Republican senators, something done very successfully by Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democrats' Senate campaign chief in 2006. Another Capitol Hill publication, The Hill, reports today that Ensign has set a "minimum goal" of raising $118 million for the 2008 elections. Ensign's "ambitious aims have taken aback some senators, but they recognize they must match Democrats' efforts to maintain hope of regaining the majority."
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Jay Leno: "I would say Bush got a cold reception from the Democratically-controlled Congress. I think Saddam got a warmer reception at his hanging."
Jay Leno: "President Bush pointed out that unemployment is low and inflation is low. Unfortunately, not as low as his popularity."
Jay Leno: "I give President Bush credit, though. He addressed the problems troubling Americans. The war in Iraq, the economy, the need to develop alternative fuel. He seemed to know what we were thinking. It's almost as if he was reading our mail or listening to our phone calls."
David Letterman: "How many folks saw the Bush State of the Union address last night? I can still hear the echoes of meaningless standing ovations, can't you? I wish I could get a standing ovation every time I said universal health care."
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