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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
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President Bush vetoed the Democrats' war spending bill last night. According to the Chicago Tribune, Bush timed "his veto for evening television newscasts," all three of which ran snippets of his 8-minute address to the nation. The Washington Times notes the President vetoed the bill with a "pen given to him by the father of a US Marine killed in Iraq." Because his veto of the spending measure was a foregone conclusion, so much of the coverage this morning focuses on what comes next: the search for a compromise between Congress and the White House.
The New York Times reports Bush "invited lawmakers to negotiate with him, and he is scheduled to meet with Democratic leaders on Wednesday," and media reports suggest a compromise or the outline of one could already be in the works. Under the scenario put forth in a number of stories this morning, Democrats would remove the pullout timeline from the legislation, and in exchange Bush would accept some benchmarks for Iraqi leaders to meet. Asked if the President would accept benchmarks in Iraq, White House press secretary Tony Snow said on CNN's Situation Room that "there are a number of Republicans who do think that some kind of benchmarks, properly crafted, would actually be helpful. I think that is an area we can talk about beginning tomorrow." Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell made almost identical remarks, as reported in the Baltimore Sun.
The Los Angeles Times reports Republicans, "uneasy with their president but opposed to a withdrawal plan -- appear increasingly willing to back some form of benchmarks, although party leaders would not discuss specifics." The Washington Post says Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott mentioned that benchmark "idea yesterday as he warned that neither party can go into the next round of talks with absolute demands for what can and cannot be in the bill." The Politico, Roll Call and the Wall Street Journal also mention the benchmark deal scenario as a possibility.
But the path to a compromise may be more difficult than some expect: The Hill notes that "in a statement, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared to reject any agreement on benchmarks: 'House Republicans will oppose any bill that includes provisions that undermine our troops and their mission, whether it's benchmarks for failure, arbitrary readiness standards, or a timetable for American surrender.'"
And on ABC World News, George Stephanopoulos said there is a significant obstacle before any kind of deal. "The reason this may take a long time," he said, is that "the Democrats are still divided...about how to go forward." There are a "few different camps. There's one: no retreat, no surrender camp. That's led by Democrats like former Senator John Edwards, who say the Democrats should just keep sending the same bill up over and over again. You have others, like the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, who says give the President the money, live to fight another day. You have a third camp that are saying, why don't we take several bites of the apple. Give the President three to six months of funding but not the full year. And they haven't reached any agreement." The Chicago Tribune makes a similar point, cautioning that any compromise risks alienating House liberals who only backed the previous bill with reservations.
On NBC Nightly News, Tim Russert said "the current thinking" among Democrats is, "have a bill to fund the troops through September 30, provide the money. ... One Democrat said to me frankly, 'We just don't trust the President on this.'" Echoing that view, USA Today reports Rep. John Murtha, "a war critic who is the House's top defense appropriator, said a new, scaled-down bill stressing funding for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is 'written and ready to go.'" Murtha "said he sympathizes with war opponents who want to end US involvement now, but 'we've got to fund the damn operations.'"
"Mission Accomplished" Speech Remembered Most stories on Bush's veto note Democrats delivered the bill on the anniversary of what's come to be known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech. All three network newscasts, for example, ran footage of Bush saying: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. And the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." The Los Angeles Times says White House spokeswoman Dana Perino yesterday "testily reminded reporters that the president never actually said 'mission accomplished.' 'That speech has been widely misconstrued,' she said." But "on a day when a steady stream of congressional Democrats took to lecterns on the House and Senate floors to ridicule the speech, Bush's schedule seemed designed to showcase his role as commander in chief." As the Tampa Tribune reports, Bush visited MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa yesterday, where he "warned that an early exit would turn the battle-scarred nation into a 'cauldron of chaos' and urged members of the US-led coalition to stay on the offense against al-Qaida." Bush found "an enthusiastic and largely military audience."
The AP, New York Times and Dana Milbank, in his Washington Post column, also note the anniversary of the speech. Milbank writes, "The Democrats' objective: Draw attention to their efforts to end the Iraq war by forcing Bush to veto their legislation on the awkward anniversary. The result: Mission Accomplished. The Republicans' objective: Complain about the Democrats' cheap political stunt at their own cut-rate political event. The result: Mission Accomplished. ... Bush's goal: Make the bad memory go away. The result: Well, two out of three ain't bad."
Biden: "We're Going To Shove It Down His Throat" The CBS Evening News reported "C-SPAN caught Senator Joe Biden telling a voter in South Carolina Democrats have the upper hand with Mr. Bush." Biden was shown saying, "We're going to shove it down his throat." Unidentified male: "OK." The AP and Ben Smith's blog in The Politico also note Biden's comment.
Following several days of TV interviews and heavy press attention, former CIA chief George Tenet and his new book is receiving almost no media attention in today's newspapers. Among the rare mentions of Tenet was an appearance on CNN's Situation Room by White House press secretary Tony Snow, who responded to some claims made by the former CIA director in his new book. Snow said, "One of the things the President never argued, though a lot of people have attributed to him, is somehow that Saddam was involved in September 11th. He wasn't. We never made that argument." On the subject of weapons of mass destruction, Snow said "one thing that George Tenet does not argue is that intelligence at that time didn't show that there were weapons of mass destruction" and "everybody agreed."
Maureen Dowd, in her column in the New York Times, contends that had Tenet and Colin Powell "walked out of the administration in February 2003," then "they might have turned everything around" and "saved the lives and limbs of all those brave US kids and innocent Iraqis, not to mention our world standing and national security."
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News stories critical of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' handling of the firing of eight US attorneys continue to appear in major media outlets. The release of additional details in dribs and drabs would appear to indicate an effort by Gonzales' opponents to keep the story in the headlines. In the latest installment, the Washington Post recounts Gonzales' letter to a Federal judge in Montana "assuring him that the US attorney there, William W. Mercer, was not violating federal law by spending most of his time in Washington as a senior Justice Department official." On the same date, Mercer "had a GOP Senate staffer insert into a bill a provision that would change the rules so that federal prosecutors could live outside their districts to serve in other jobs." At the conclusion of the story, the Post cites Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, who said, "It's a curious contrast that leaders in the Department of Justice would slip a change into law to allow one US Attorney to spend only a few days a month in his district and keep his job, while at the same time claiming to fire another for spending a few days a month away from his district to serve his country."
In an op-ed for USA Today, author Ronald Goldfarb says, "When it comes to the proper administration of justice in the Department of Justice, there are politics and there are politics. ... Capital 'P' politics -- that is, party politics, such as the partisan personal shenanigans of Gonzales meddling with the independence of competent prosecutors' discretion in response to political pressures -- are improper and have no place in the justice system."
The stream of negative stories about Bush political appointees continues. In one of the latest, the New York Times reports Interior Department deputy assistant secretary Julie MacDonald "resigned Monday, a month after the department's inspector general issued a stinging report that said she violated federal rules by giving industry lobbyists internal agency documents and rode roughshod over agency scientists." The resignation "came about a week before a House committee was set to hold hearings on political interference with biologists."
The Los Angeles Times reports MacDonald "also faced conflict-of-interest questions in a report issued by the Interior Department's inspector general in March," while the Washington Post says, "Environmental groups praised her departure."
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports Commerce Department inspector general Johnnie E. Frazier "is himself the subject of three separate government investigations into allegations that he misspent his budget and retaliated against employees who raised concerns about his actions."
The US News Political Bulletin has learned that reaction inside the administration, on K Street and in Congress to the evolving DC madam scandal has turned from titillation to frustration and anger that the alleged clients lied to officials about their practices, didn't do enough to protect their anonymity and have waited too long to step down even though they know they are on Deborah Jeane Palfrey's list. The focus of the anger, especially from Administration officials, is former Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, an accomplished corporate executive who gets high marks for his work on the AIDS/HIV program. A Bush adviser said, "Tobias knew he was on that list and should have resigned the day she was named [in the criminal case]. It would have been a blip in the news now if he had done that." Another former senior Bush advisor added that there is a feeling of frustration that other top aides didn't tell the truth during the vetting process, leaving the Administration open to the scandal. News reports suggested that a Bush economist and military brass could be named as clients as early as this week. Congressional Republican aides, meanwhile, are hopeful that the list includes Democrats too. "I hope the list is bipartisan," said one. Meanwhile, key Washington strategic PR offices report that they are receiving calls from concerned potential targets in the case.
Media interest in the story has fallen off with the lack of new details available in advance of Palfrey's appearance on ABC's 20/20 program on Friday. One of the few stories dealing with it this morning appears in the Financial Times, which report on Palfrey's effort to sell Dolby Laboratories stock, which resulted in the stock's price falling.
Top aides and strategists tell the US News Political Bulletin that a wave of distractions dating all the way back to the Dubai Ports controversy and culminating with this week's veto fight over war funding has cast a depressing pall over congressional Republicans that is especially deep in the House. A top advisor to both the Senate and House leadership team said, "It's really bad in the House because they can't do anything about it. To be out of power and immobile is very depressing. At least the Senate (GOP) can do some things." Another top aide pointed to a syndicated column this week by William F. Buckley Jr. that suggested that the Republican Revolution is kaput. "I mean that really said it all. It's over if even he has given up on us," said the official.
Titled "The Waning of the GOP", Buckley's article cites the public's disapproval of the war and former CIA Director George Tenet's claims that there was little debate on going to war in Iraq to suggest that the administration has lost its grip. He writes: "There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican Party will survive this dilemma." In the area of communications, the feeling among many top Hill aides is that the White House team is again out of touch with the political reality in Congress, a view they had during the Dubai ports affair.
The Washington Times reports, "Republican White House veterans Charlie Gerow and Jeff Lord have created a new conservative video Web site called QubeTV, which they describe as an alternative to YouTube" because "of what they view as an anti-conservative bias" of its administrators. Meanwhile, another "conservative new-media venture has emerged in recent weeks as well. Mike Brady and Mike Giuliani, two veteran Capitol Hill operatives, have started a new venture called the Majority Accountability Project, which they say will serve as an 'online clearinghouse of information on the House majority.'"
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New polling out today from American Research Group has some good news for Sen. John McCain he leads Rudy Giuliani by sizeable margins in three early key early states in a new set of polls from independent outfit American Research Group. In New Hampshire, home of ARG, McCain leads with 29%, followed by Mitt Romney, 24%, and Giuliani, 17%. In Iowa, McCain tops the field with 26%, followed by Giuliani at 19% and Romney at 14%. Fred Thompson comes in 4th with 13%. Finally, in South Carolina, which holds the first "Southern" primary, McCain leads with 36%, followed by Giuliani at 23%. Thompson lags in a distant 3rd with 7%, followed by Romney and Newt Gingrich at 6%. Reporting on the ARG surveys, the Boston Herald notes that McCain's standing in New Hampshire represents "a six-point hike over his ranking in March." Meanwhile, "Giuliani has dropped 10 points...since February, the poll shows." The surveys also show that in Iowa, Giuliani has seen a 10-point decline since February, while Romney" has gained 6% over the last two months.
American Research Group also released polling data today on the Democratic contests, showing Sen. Hillary Clinton holding leads in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but trailing John Edwards in Iowa. In addition, Barack Obama, who has been treated like a rock star in the Granite state, comes in 3rd there, trailing both leaders by double digits. In Iowa, Edwards polls 27%, followed by Clinton, 23%; Obama, 19%; Joe Biden, 6%; and Bill Richardson, 5%. In New Hampshire, Clinton leads with 37%, followed by Edwards, 26% and Obama, 14%, with no other Democrat above 3%. Finally, in South Carolina, Clinton leads with 36%, followed by Obama, 24%, and Edwards, 18%, with the remainder of the field at 3% or less.
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Hoping to secure the mantle of the most anti-war first-tier Democrat, John Edwards is going on the air with his first campaign ads. Rather than bio spots running in Iowa or New Hampshire, Edwards' new ad buy is for the DC media market and will urge Congress to re-submit the Iraqi spending bill that President Bush vetoed yesterday. The Washington Post reports the ad "is aimed at sending a message to Congress as it considers the next steps on the war. In the ad, nine people are featured protesting the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and asking Congress to stand up to the commander in chief. 'President Bush isn't listening to us,' says one. Another advises: 'Don't back down to President Bush.' 'Send him the same bill again and again,' a third says. Edwards appears in the ad only at its conclusion to offer the required tagline: 'I'm John Edwards, and I approved this message.'"
The AP reports that Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama yesterday agreed to attend the June 3 debate being sponsored by the New Hampshire Union Leader and WMUR-TV at St. Anselm's College in New Hampshire. Previously, the two had said they would only participate in the six officially-sanctioned DNC debates, which don't begin until July. The New Hampshire Union Leader reported on its website that the "event at Saint Anselm College will be followed two nights later by a GOP forum. Every major candidate has agreed to take part. ... 'The WMUR/Union Leader debate is an important part of the New Hampshire primary tradition, and Senator Clinton is excited to participate,' Clinton spokesperson Mo Elleithee said in a press release early this afternoon." Shortly afterwards, "the Obama campaign agreed to join the debate. 'We had hoped that the DNC and the debate's sponsors would agree to make this debate one of the DNC's six sanctioned debates,' Obama's New Hampshire campaign director, Matt Rodriguez, said in a statement. 'However, Senator Obama believes talking about how we can change our politics with the other candidates in the home of the nation's first primary is an opportunity too important to miss.'" The Washington Post reports, "The decisions by Clinton and Obama shattered a plan by the" DNC "to limit the number of candidate debates to six between now and the end of the year and came after growing speculation that they might try to skip the New Hampshire session. ... Eight years ago, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush decided to skip an early debate in New Hampshire and ultimately paid a price when he lost the primary to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)."
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Jay Leno: "Thousands of immigrant students cut class to protest how tough our immigration policies are. You know, if our immigration policies are so tough, how come we have thousands of immigrant students?"
Jay Leno: "This week, all the Republican candidates will be coming to California -- I guess it's Thursday -- to debate each other at the Reagan Library. The winner will then be selected by Exxon Mobil."
David Letterman: "I mean, think about it -- politicians having sex with prostitutes? What's the matter, all of a sudden, congressional pages aren't good enough?"
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