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Tuesday, May 29, 2012
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Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, has had a change of heart that further widens the gulf between the Congressional leadership and the White House. Reid yesterday endorsed a bill authored by Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold to cut off funding for the war by March 31, 2008. The Washington Post notes Reid "had previously opposed setting a firm end date for the war, a stance he has backed away from in recent months as others in his party moved to increase pressure on Bush." He says he "officially converted after visiting wounded soldiers last week at Walter Reed Army Medical Center." The White House "was quick to circulate a quote Reid made on Nov. 30, shortly after Democrats won control of Congress. 'We're not going to do anything to limit funding or cut off funds,' he said at the time."
The Majority Leader's move comes as House and Senate face the task of coming up with a war spending bill both chambers can live with. President Bush, meanwhile, continues to reiterate his intent to veto any measure that includes a deadline for US involvement in Iraq. Newspaper accounts suggest Reid's endorsement of the Feingold bill must be seen in that context: The Washington Post reported Reid was "sending a clear signal to President Bush that the Iraq debate will continue in Congress regardless of whether he carries through on his veto threats." And the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill quotes Reid saying yesterday, "If the President vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation [the Feingold bill] receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period."
Most media reports conclude supporters of the Feingold bill don't have votes pass their proposal. Why, then, is Reid pledging to bring the legislation for a vote? The Los Angeles Times says that with such a debate, Reid would "steer the Senate into another debate that highlights Republican support for the president's unpopular war." The New York Times reports that even if it loses in the Senate, the bill "represents another step in the Democratic effort to increase the pressure on Mr. Bush and helps Mr. Reid reward Mr. Feingold for sticking with the party on narrowly approved legislation that established March 31, 2008, as a goal for withdrawal." And the AP says the proposal "increases the stakes on the debate and marks a new era for the Democratic leadership once reluctant to talk about Congress' power of the purse." Sen. John Kerry, who signed on Monday as a co-sponsor of the proposal with Reid and Feingold, said, "In the face of the administration's stubborn unwillingness to change course, the Senate has no choice but to force a change of course."
The US News Political Bulletin has learned White House strategists are now pulling out all the stops to blame the Democratic majority in Congress for a potential delay in funding the Iraq war. The money is locked into competing supplemental appropriations bills from the House and Senate, and each one ties the funding to setting a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, which President Bush opposes. White House aides have adopted a new gambit -- referring to the number of days since Bush requested funding for the troops -- 56 today -- in an effort to keep up the pressure. Bush will also have lunch with American soldiers and their families Wednesday in California and give a speech there to put the Democrats on the hot seat even more. Bush advisers and their allies are using a similar set of talking points calculated to make the Democrats look wrong-headed and weak, such as: The nation has "only one commander in chief at a time"; U.S. troops don't need a "brigade of lawyers" meddling in the war by imposing military restrictions; Congress would be "mandating failure" if the Democratic legislation becomes law; and the only reason the legislation passed the House is because it was "loaded up with enticements" -- billions of dollars in pork-barrel projects that have nothing to do with Iraq. "He's determined to get the troops what they need," a White House spokesman told the Political Bulletin. "As an administration, you can expect us to be very vocal about all this."
Meanwhile, House Republicans yesterday endeavored to show a unified front ahead of a widely-expected presidential veto of the spending measure. The Hill reports that in a letter sent to the White House, signed by 154 Republicans, House GOP members "assured...Bush that they would support his decision to veto the emergency supplemental spending bill." The Washington Times says the GOP stand "continues to win approval from most Republican voters, though the lawmakers say their position is not anchored by polls. A poll published Saturday by Newsweek showed 64 percent of Republican voters oppose the March 2008 withdrawal deadline in the bill passed last week by the Senate."
Also weighing in was Dick Cheney. At a fundraiser, says the New York Times, the Vice President said that "it was pointless for Democrats to pursue Iraq spending measures that set a timeline for leaving Iraq that...Bush would veto." Cheney also "warned that the Pentagon would begin feeling the financial pinch this month if new financing was not approved."
McCaffrey: Support For Petraeus' Strategy. The Bush position is receiving support this morning from unexpected quarters. In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times titled "No Choice: Stay the Course in Iraq," Ret. Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey urges support for the current "surge" strategy. McCaffrey, known to be a strong critic of the war, says, "We will know by the end of the summer if [Gen.] Petraeus' strategy is going to prompt an adequate political response from the Iraqis. Only through the success of reconciliation talks can the bitter civil strife be moderated. We are running out of time. ... The United States is now at a crossroads. We are in a position of strategic peril. We need to support the US leadership team in Iraq for this one last effort to succeed."
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In an exclusive report, the UK's Independent is reporting a "failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting point for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines." According to the report, the goal of a US-led raid of an Iranian consular office in Irbil in northern Iraq on January 11 was "to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment." Mohammed Jafari, deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, were in Kurdistan "on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani" and Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Meanwhile, media reports suggest both the British and the Iranians have begun to tone down their rhetoric, in an attempt to solve their dispute. The New York Times reports Iran said all the captured troops "had confessed to intruding illegally into Iranian waters," but Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani "struck what seemed to be a new, authoritative tone," saying in a British television interview that "there is no need for a trial" and the issue should instead "be solved bilaterally." The British Foreign Office responded "with a conciliatory gesture of its own," saying it "might be open to discussions about preventing maritime disputes." The Financial Times says some British diplomats have welcomed Larijani's involvement "as a sign that Iran's political elite is seeking to resolve the dispute. But they also expressed doubts over whether Iran's fractured government had agreed to a common negotiating line."
ABC World News reported last night, "There is now evidence that Iran is a good deal closer than previously thought to producing the materials it would need for a nuclear weapon -- many years closer. ... In the last three months, Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium, meaning, according to weapons experts, it could have enough material for a nuclear bomb within two years."
According to the AP, Attorney General Gonzales' appearance next week before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee "is shaping up as a trial run" for his appearance before the Judiciary Committee April 17. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy "will attend the budget hearing, where aides said the prosecutors issue was expected to come up." The AP adds that the White House said Gonzales' testimony "cannot come too fast for the besieged attorney general to explain his previous statements about the firings, which Democrats contend were politically motivated." White House spokeswoman Dana Perino is quoted as saying, "it's in everyone's best interest...that he be able to get up and talk to Congress sooner than later." Fox News' Special Report reported last night that the Senate Judiciary Committee "will reject an offer" for Gonzales to testify earlier than April 17.
In what's being described as a major defeat for the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court yesterday ruled the EPA must address auto emissions and the effect of greenhouse gases on the planet's climate. Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the deciding vote for the 5-4 decision, which is getting extensive and gleeful media coverage. The CBS Evening News led its newscast saying, "Today the Supreme Court ruled the Bush Administration was wrong on auto pollution." CBS noted the Supreme Court also "issued a unanimous ruling in another environmental case. The court backed a move to force utilities to install pollution control equipment at more than two dozen older power plants fueled by coal."
But the auto emissions ruling got almost all the media attention. NBC Nightly News called the ruling "historic," "one of the most important environmental rulings in decades," and ABC World News said it was "a major defeat for the Bush Administration." The Washington Post runs a similar story under the headline "High Court Faults EPA Inaction On Emissions," in which it says the court "rebuked the Bush administration." The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, USA Today, Washington Times, Christian Science Monitor and AP run similar reports.
The New York Times this morning focuses on the majority's rationale: "Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said the only way the agency could 'avoid taking further action' now was 'if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change' or provides a good explanation why it cannot or will not find out whether they do." That led the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board to remark, "The current Supreme Court is a talented group of jurists, but until yesterday we didn't think their expertise ran to climatology."
But other editorials praised the ruling. The Los Angeles Times calls it "gratifying," the New York Times says "it would be hard to overstate the importance of yesterday's ruling," and the Washington Post celebrates the ruling's call for "more robust enforcement of America's clean-air laws."
Not all the news from the Supreme Court yesterday was bad news for the Bush Administration. As the AP reports, the justices, by 6-3, "rejected an appeal Monday from Guantanamo detainees who want to challenge their five-year-long confinement in court, a victory for the Bush administration's legal strategy in its fight against terrorism." USA Today notes the "three dissenting justices, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote that the dispute over whether the detainees have a basic right to challenge their detention deserves 'immediate attention.'"
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Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose standing in the polls in recent weeks has waned amid questions about his change of heart on a number of social issues, shook up the GOP field yesterday when he announced that he had raised $23 million in the 1st quarter. Romney's strong showing puts him nearly on par with Hillary Clinton's $26 million and well ahead of his GOP rivals. Sen. John McCain reported bringing in $12.5 million, while Rudy Giuliani brought in about $15 million.
Romney's fundraising performance is drawing new attention to his campaign. The Boston Globe, for example, reports that Romney's "dominance over fellow Republicans -- and the possibility that he could match or even beat Clinton in fund-raising for the primaries -- immediately branded him a rising force in the 2008 presidential race. 'I think it is remarkable,' said Stuart Rothenberg, who publishes the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. 'It's surely getting everyone's attention.'" On ABC World News, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, commenting on Romney, said that "if you count the money that only can be used in primaries, he may have out-raised Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side. What his team is hoping for is that this money can be translated into momentum that will catapult him into the top tier of candidates." On The CBS Evening News ex-RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie was shown saying Romney's "numbers are pretty impressive, no doubt about it. ... People like to bet on a winner and if they see a trend going a certain way, they like to jump on the bandwagon. So there is a bandwagon effect." The Wall Street Journal notes that former Congressman Vin Weber, "a top Romney adviser but not one who is responsible for fund raising," said that "Romney's fund raising over past months has 'been pretty consistent. Romney actually likes doing it and, in my experience, that's about half the battle. And of course he has a huge network.'" The New York Times says Romney tapped "two distant but rich networks - Wall Street and the Mormon Church - to easily outpace his better-known Republican primary rivals."
McCain Performance Panned McCain's first quarter performance raising $12.5 million -- is widely viewed as disappointing. According to the Washington Post, "the showing by McCain, who had been ordained the front-runner in the GOP contest from Day One and had worked to win over many of the fundraising Pioneers and Rangers who helped fill President Bush's coffers in 2000 and 2004, was a surprise to both analysts and rival campaigns. Most characterized the numbers as an unexpected sign of distress for a campaign that has been building its machinery for eight years and was one of the first to set up a fundraising committee." Fox News' Special Report reported McCain "is down in both the polls and now the cash box." McCain "has slipped to second in the polls and perhaps even more significant, to third in fund-raising. Aides admit it is a bit disappointing" McCain's take "is substantially lower than they had hoped and was expected." The Chicago Tribune makes the point that McCain "has never liked fundraising, and aides said he devoted much of the first quarter to working on the Iraq war issue in the Senate. In both January and February he held just two fundraisers, but in March he stepped up the pace, raising money at 27 events. Several weeks ago, McCain and his aides began to say he would not do well in the first-quarter fundraising reports, but many political analysts assumed they were simply playing an expectations game. It turns out they were not bluffing."
McCain is using the fundraising release as an opportunity to overhaul his fundraising operations. The Politico's Jeanne Cummings reports that "according to a McCain aide, the Arizona senator has asked former representative Tom Loeffler and former senator [Phil] Gramm to restructure the finance operation. McCain's stumble comes at a treacherous time because he has slipped in the polls as his courtship of his party's conservative base appears to have stalled. He had recruited the lion's share of Bush's big-name fundraisers, but his risk now is that activists and donors will throw their support behind one of his better-financed rivals."
Response To Giuliani Mixed Response to Giuliani's numbers is falling somewhere in between, with a particular focus on the campaign's claims that it brought in $10 million in March alone. The Washington Times reports Giuliani "announced that he has raised more than $15 million, including $10 million in March alone, a torrid pace that tracks with his gaining and maintaining a lead in the opinion polls. 'Considering our late start, we are very pleased by the pace raised in March and see it as a positive indication of what's to come,' said Mike DuHaime, Mr. Giuliani's campaign manager. Coupled with a fundraiser last year, Mr. Giuliani has raised close to $17 million to date." Long Island Newsday reports that "Giuliani pointed to the March numbers as evidence that his fundraising machinery is kicking into high gear after a somewhat slow start, with about 60 fundraisers planned through June. ... 'If I could do it all over again, I would have started three months earlier,' Giuliani said last night outside a house party" in Hampton Falls, NH. Giuliani added, "We didn't raise much in January. We raised a couple million in February and then we raised over $10 million in March, which says to me we got started a little bit late but now we're really on track." WCBS-TV New York reports that Giuliani said, "We raised almost all of it in March and what that says if we can keep doing March that way we'll have over $100 million."
Other GOP Contenders Trail Badly While the focus has been on the top three GOP contenders, the Washington Times reports that the remainder of the field posted weak numbers. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback brought in less than $2 million, even including funds transferred from his Senate account. Rep. Tom Tancredo brought in about $1.3 million, while former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is expected to report a disappointing $500k, the AP reports.
Anticipation is building among politics-watchers that Sen. Barack Obama's fundraising totals are likely to rival Hillary Clinton's, and the buzz is that he delayed the release of his numbers in order to make a bigger splash. NBC Nightly News reported that Obama "in New Hampshire [yesterday] was coy about his fundraising success. ... Two campaign sources told NBC News Obama is poised to spring one of the biggest surprises of this campaign. After weekend events he will nearly match or beat the front-runner at her own game. And without the help of Bill Clinton." John Harwood, CNBC: "That is going to be a shocking development that will accelerate the doubts about her staying power as the Democratic front-runner." The CBS Evening News reported Obama is "expected to trail Hillary, but not by much." According to the New York Times, Obama's aides "said Monday that he had collected more than $20 million in donations in the first three months of the campaign, enough to ratchet up the anxiety in the Clinton camp."
The Des Moines Register reports that Rep. Tom Tancredo (R), "a leading voice against illegal immigration," kicked off his bid for the presidency yesterday on a local talk radio program, declaring that is the medium most responsible for raising awareness of his signature issue, illegal immigration. Fox News' Special Report reported Tancredo's "ambitions in the Hawkeye state are modest. He said he hopes to finish third or fourth in the Iowa Republican caucuses." The Washington Post reports that Tancredo criticized "the leading Republican candidates for their positions on immigration. 'The political elite in Washington have chosen to ignore this phenomenon,' said Tancredo, a leading congressional voice against illegal immigration. 'You look and you see no one is going to make this the primary issue of their campaign.'"
Unlike other candidates' announcements, this one went forward with little fanfare. The New York Times reports Tancredo "held no rallies and delivered no political speeches on his first day as an official candidate." Tancredo "acknowledged that he did not have the money his rivals would have. 'We have something they don't have: a group of people out there who are there because of an issue,' Mr. Tancredo said. 'They're never going to have that. They can use their 100 million to try and buy constituency. I have it. It's natural. It's there.'"
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Jay Leno: "Tonight, of course, the first night of Passover. And today, the president of Iran denied it ever happened."
Jay Leno: "As you know, Iran is currently holding 15 British sailors hostage. And the United Nations has told Iran, the world is united against them. So now the Iranians know how we feel, huh?"
Conan O'Brien: "Governor Schwarzenegger making news all the time. In a recent speech, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told his audience, this is a quote, 'Don't believe the platitudes of a politician.' Yeah. Of course, when Arnold said it, it sounded like, 'Don't believe the platypus of a bad optician.'"
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