Political Bulletin

WASHINGTON NEWS

Immigration Deal May Not Have The Votes

Administration officials and key senators from both parties reached what appears to be a landmark agreement to reform the nation's immigration laws. The deal is receiving extensive and largely positive media coverage. The Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, McClatchy and the Arizona Republic, among other newspapers, this morning outline the main provisions in the compromise. Overall, two issues dominate much of the media commentary on the immigration compromise. The first one is the bipartisan nature of the agreement, which is being greeted with praise for those involved in the talks particularly Sen. Ted Kennedy. The second is worries that the bill won't pass the House. As George Stephanopoulos said on ABC World News, "Both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate say they think it can get through the Senate with more than 60 votes next week. But after that, it has to go to the House. That's where the political terrain gets very tough. ... There are political and substantive reasons. You have Democrats, including the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who says the Senate bill has to be improved on the issues of family and guest workers. You have a lot of Republicans who don't like the legalization provisions at all. They call it amnesty. And finally, politically, you have a lot of vulnerable Democrats who say they will not go along with this bill."

The New York Times, in fact, quotes Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, saying, "Unless the White House produces 60 or 70 Republican votes in the House, it will be difficult to pass an immigration bill similar to the Senate proposal." In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times says that "the single most objectionable aspect of the plan is that it probably won't pass. ... Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has already expressed 'serious concerns' about the bill, and the freshman class of Democrats does not seem enthusiastic." The Washington Times is even less optimistic, saying Senate passage of the bill is also "in doubt. Support seemed to crumble even as the deal was announced." The Times adds, "Conservative Republicans argued that the bill rewards illegal activity, while liberal Democrats said it is too draconian toward illegal aliens and too restrictive for future workers."

In a similar story, the Los Angeles Times says "the attacks from both left and right that met the proposal suggested the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate. At the very least, the criticism showed that the bill's supporters would need to do a lot of arm-twisting on both sides of the aisle." Some Republicans appeared to be furious yesterday. NBC Nightly News showed Rep. Ted Poe saying, "It's like somebody that trespasses on your land, you give them a fine but they stay on your land. That's a form of amnesty." And the CBS Evening News interviewed Rep. James Sensenbrenner, another Republican, who said, "I think the deal stinks. ... I'm mad as heck." The Miami Herald quotes GOP Sen. Jim DeMint saying, "'I don't care how you try to spin it, this is amnesty," while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes US Rep. Tom Price, "a Roswell Republican who joined the majority of the House GOP last year in pushing for an immigration bill focused almost exclusively on border security," also "issued a statement denouncing the new bill as 'amnesty.'"

The Administration tried to go on the offensive last night against the notion that the bill amounts to "amnesty." The CBS Evening News showed the President saying, "This is a bill where people who live here in our country will be treated without amnesty but without animosity." White House Press Secretary Tony Snow went on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight (Dobbs' being a leading media opponent of "amnesty") pushing a similar message, and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff were on MSNBC and CNN defending the deal. Key conservative GOP senators also hit the airwaves. Appearing on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, GOP Sen. Jon Kyl whose opposition to last year's immigration bill did much to derail the legislation-- stressed that the bill "says until more than half of the 700 miles" of border fence "is built, nothing can happen here in the United States with the illegal immigrants that are here that's part of the trigger, but it doesn't stop with the 370 miles of fencing to be built. That is only the first step."

Media Revels In Bipartisanship Bliss The bipartisan process that led to the Senate deal is being celebrated in media reports. ABC World News referred to the "rare Capitol Hill demonstration of bipartisanship." The compromise, added ABC, "would create a path for virtually every illegal immigrant to live and work in the US and start on the road to citizenship, to create a guest worker program, and to tighten US borders." The CBS Evening News said, "It's a complete reform of US immigration law as we know it, worked out by a bipartisan group of negotiators, including Senator Ted Kennedy, politically on the far left, and Saxby Chambliss, on the far right." The AP, Financial Times and The Politico run similar stories about the bipartisan spirit exhibited by negotiators. Sen. Kennedy's role in crafting the bill, in particular, is winning him accolades this morning. The Boston Globe, in a story featuring a photograph of a bipartisan group of ecstatic senators celebrating the deal, says "Kennedy, the Senate's consummate dealmaker -- still indefatigable at 75 -- pushed hard at his fellow Democrats, wavering Republican moderates, and even members of the Bush administration, insisting that the deal-makers work all night Wednesday to beat the deadline imposed by the Senate leadership." NBC Nightly News, meanwhile, credited "Kennedy and John McCain" for the deal, "not normally allies, but they agreed on this package."

Is Gonzales On His Way Out (Again)?

Over the last few weeks, it appeared that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had weathered the storm and would survive as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. But as of this morning, it would appear that all bets are off again. As the Los Angeles Times reports, "Damaging testimony about Gonzales earlier this week from former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey undermined faith in his leadership," and now Senate Democrats are pushing for a vote of "no-confidence" in his leadership. The White House quickly dismissed the idea as "meaningless," USA Today and Wall Street Journal note, and restated the President's backing for Gonzales' regardless of what the Senate says. But most media reports suggest a Senate vote would be a severe blow to the Attorney General. McClatchy refers to the move as an "impending censure vote," and in his blog for The Politico, John Bresnahan writes that "if it were adopted, it would be a huge political statement in opposition to Gonzales remaining as attorney general." The New York Times says Gonzales' "already shaky" standing was "weakened further" by the mere announcement of the Democratic plans.

Could such a motion pass the Senate? It appears that it might. While Democrats control the chamber by a narrow 51-49 margin, ABC World News noted last night that GOP Sen. Norm Coleman yesterday "became the fifth Republican Senator to call for Gonzales' resignation." The Financial Times notes "at least six Republicans have said Mr Gonzales ought to resign, including three who announced their positions in the last few days. Several other top Republicans, including Arlen Specter, the ranking GOP member on the judiciary committee, have made clear they would prefer Mr Gonzales to go." Specter said yesterday, "I believe that the Department of Justice is close to being dysfunctional now, with an attorney general who is unable to perform the duties of that position." The Washington Times quotes Specter saying of the Senate probe of the US attorney firings, "I think when our investigation is concluded, it'll be clear even to the attorney general and the president that we're looking at a dysfunctional department which is vital to the national welfare." The Washington Times offers a glimmer of light for Gonzales, noting "some Republican senators who have called on Mr. Gonzales to resign said they would not vote for Mr. Schumer's no-confidence measure." But the only such senator mentioned in the story is Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

The Democratic "no-confidence" measure in actuality a symbolic motion known as a "sense of the Senate resolution," will be offered by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The Washington Post reports the senators said they will offer the resolution "on the Senate floor as early as next week." Schumer said on MSNBC's Hardball last night: "The bottom line," he said, "is the only person probably in America who thinks Alberto Gonzales should stay as attorney general is George Bush. And so, a no confidence resolution I think might force his hand. ... There's no purpose for calling him as a witness again. First, he doesn't answer the questions. His credibility is low. And then he says he doesn't know what's going on anyway. ... He seems to me to be a nice man, but he's totally over his head in this job."

More Damaging Revelations The Washington Post is reporting this morning that "sources" yesterday "identified four additional prosecutors who were considered for termination, bringing to 30 the number of prosecutors who were placed on Justice Department firing lists between February 2005 and December 2006. That accounts for about a third of the nation's 93 US attorney positions. Nine were fired last year." The New York Times and McClatchy were also made privy to the list of additional prosecutors targeted by the Bush team. The "sources" in question appear to have been busy yesterday and to have timed their revelations to coincide with the new offensive against Gonzales.

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Bush Tax Cuts On The Line

Congress yesterday passed a budget blue print which, according to Democrats will create a surplus by the year 2012. As New York Times reports, the House passed the measure by a 214-to-209 vote, "without a single Republican voting for it," while the Senate approved it by 52 to 40." The sharp partisan divide (at least in the House) is due to the issue of taxes. Republicans claim the budget would amount to "one of the largest tax increases in US history," says Wall Street Journal, "mainly because it allows" President Bush's "tax cuts on income, stock dividends and capital gains to expire as scheduled at the end of 2010." The Washington Times reports the plan "promises big spending increases for education and health care," and notes Democrats say their plan "would extend popular middle-class tax breaks by two years."

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, reports the plan "makes some important changes in congressional rules." It "reinstitutes the expired pay-as-you-go rule, which requires that any legislation to increase federal benefit programs be accompanied by provisions -- either tax increases or spending cuts -- to offset the effect on the deficit.

Wolfowitz Cries Uncle

Two days after the White House signaled that it was time for Paul Wolfowitz to move on, the World Bank president announced he is quitting. The CBS Evening News reported he will resign "effective June 30," but ABC World News noted Wolfowitz was "forced out." NBC Nightly News said names being considered to replace him include Deputy Treasury Secretary Bob Kimmet and former State Department official Robert Zoellick. The Los Angeles Times also mentions "Stanley Fischer, a former International Monetary Fund official who is now a governor of the Bank of Israel; and Paul A. Volcker, who chaired the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987." The Wall Street Journal notes former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has also come up as a possible replacement for Wolfowitz.

The Washington Times reports Wolfowitz "made his decision as White House support for him appeared to crumble." Bush, "speaking yesterday at a White House press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, did not repeat statements that Mr. Wolfowitz, whom he named for the World Bank post in 2005, should stay in the job. 'I applaud his vision, I respect him a lot, and I regret it's come to this,' Mr. Bush said." USA Today says the resignation "came after protracted negotiations with the bank's governing board over the terms of his departure. Before quitting, Wolfowitz sought recognition that he had done what he thought was right and that others shared blame for the fiasco that has immobilized the bank for weeks. He got it." The board said, "He assured us that he acted ethically and in good faith...and we accept that." The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, portrays that statement as vindication for its view that "the charges against Mr. Wolfowitz were bogus, and that the effort to unseat him amounted to a political grudge by those who opposed his role in the Bush Administration and a bureaucratic vendetta by those who opposed his anti-corruption agenda at the bank."

The Financial Times, Washington Post and New York Times also report on the deal, offering starkly negative assessments of Wolfowitz's leadership. In its Style section, the Washington Post also reports that since April, World Bank employees had taken to wearing blue ribbons as a way to call for Wolfowitz's ouster.

Rumsfeld Setting Up Research Foundation.

In its "Inside the Ring" column, the Washington Times reports this morning former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "has moved to new offices on M Street Northwest where he is working on setting up a new foundation," according to Larry Di Rita, a former Pentagon spokesman and Rumsfeld aide. Di Rita said reports that Rumsfeld would go into the defense contracting business are "laughable," noting that he "has shunned the defense industry since the 1970s, after his first stint as defense secretary." Instead, Di Rita said Rumsfeld is "considering a lot of things, but he wants to remain engaged in public policy issues and is in the process of creating a foundation that would involve teaching and research fellowships for graduate and post-graduate students."

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CAMPAIGN NEWS

Dobson Lists Moral Objection To Giuliani

The AP reports James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said Thursday "that 'my conscience and my moral convictions' prevent him from voting for Rudy Giuliani should he win the Republican nomination." In "a blistering online column" on WorldNetDaily, Dobson "wrote that, should the former New York mayor become the nominee, 'I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran -- or if worse comes to worst -- not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life.'" Dobson "said he was speaking as a private citizen," but "his words carry considerable weight with the some 7 million listeners of his conservative radio show." The Washington Post reports Dobson's "remarks came after Giuliani sought, in a debate and appearance in Houston, to put to rest controversy about where he stands on abortion by saying he personally opposes abortion but believes it is a woman's right to have one, a position that puts him at odds with many conservatives in the Republican Party." The Denver Post adds, "Citing Giuliani's three marriages, an extra-marital affair, and his support of gay rights and abortion rights, Dobson said that if he's forced to choose between Giuliani and Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama, he will either vote for an 'also-ran' or not vote."

Clinton, Giuliani Tops Nationally

A new poll out today from Fox News shows Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton on top in their respective primary fields, although Giuliani's lead is a bit more tenuous than Clinton's. The poll, conducted for Fox by Opinion Dynamics over May 15 and 16, shows Clinton leading the Democrats with 35%, followed by Barack Obama at 20%. John Edwards and Al Gore tied at 13% apiece. No other candidate broke 4%. On the GOP side, Giuliani still leads with 24%, followed by John McCain at 17% and Mitt Romney at 9%. Fred Thompson pulls 8%, while Newt Gingrich is backed by 6%. No other candidate polls higher than 2%.

Tight Races In Iowa, New Hampshire

Two new polls show tight races on both sides of the aisle in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Fresh on the heels of a Zogby poll showing him in an extremely tight three-way race in Iowa, there is more good news for Mitt Romney: another new Zogby poll shows him vaulting to a strong lead in New Hampshire. The new poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, shows Romney leading the GOP field with 35%, followed by John McCain and Rudy Giuliani with 19% apiece. Fred Thompson comes in third with 6%. The rest of the field is at 3% or less. Romney's gains appear to have come at the expense of McCain. An early April poll from Zogby had shown Romney and McCain tied at 25%, with Giuliani at 19%, and a larger field of undecideds. The New Hampshire Union Leader reports, "Romney regional campaign spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said she did not want to speak specifically about the poll, but did say the campaign has had great success building its grass roots organization in New Hampshire."

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton's lead over Barack Obama narrowed sharply. In the April survey, she led him 29%-23%. In the new poll, the former First Lady polls 28% with Obama at 26%. John Edwards, who had pulled 23% in April, has dropped to 15% in the current poll. The poll also has good news for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has broken away from the also-ran pack and is now polling 10%, up from 2% in the previous poll.

In Iowa, a KCCI-TV Des Moines poll shows Clinton on top with 28%; followed by Edwards, 26%; Obama, 22%; and Richardson, 7%. McCain leads among Republicans with 18%, followed by Giuliani, 17%, and Romney, 16%. In hypothetical general-election match-ups, McCain tops Clinton 40% to 39%, but loses to both Edwards (41% to 38%) and Obama (43% to 38%). Giuliani ties Clinton at 38%, but loses to both Edwards (41% to 37%) and Obama (44% to 37%). Romney loses to Clinton 41% to 35%, to Edwards 44% to 34% and to Obama 45% to 34%.

McCain, Giuliani Play Nice

Appearing together last night at a New York GOP fundraising event, Republican presidential campaign leaders had nothing but kind words for each other. The White Plains (NY) Journal News reports that Rudy Giuliani "played nice with the competition last night, repeatedly praising rival candidate John McCain as both appeared before the New York Republican Committee's annual dinner." Giuliani "complimented McCain on three occasions during his remarks and referred to the Arizona senator as a friend and one of the most 'distinguished' candidates in the presidential field. 'If it weren't for another candidate, I might actually be supporting him for president of the United States,' Giuliani joked at the start of his nearly half-hour speech to the hometown crowd of more than 1,000 people inside a midtown ballroom." McCain, meanwhile, "returned some of the praise to Giuliani, saying he was 'very proud' of his rival for speaking out at this week's GOP debate against the comments of another GOP candidate who stated that U.S. attacks on Iraq had led to the Sept. 11 terror attacks."

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POLITICAL HUMOR

The Latest From Late Night Comedians

Jay Leno: "I don't know if you heard about this scandal but just, like, an hour ago, the head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, resigned after getting in trouble. He promoted his girlfriend, gave her a job at the bank, had to resign. Yeah, big news. A Republican forced out over a sex scandal involving a woman?"

Jay Leno: "The White House and key members from both houses of Congress have come to an agreement on an immigration bill finally, which is good news. Now, people coming from Mexico can finally come to this country and no longer go through all that red tape."

David Letterman: "Ladies and gentlemen, here's news from Washington, DC. We now have a new war czar, a new war czar. Yes, he was appointed by President Bush, so what could go wrong?"

Conan O'Brien: "Today at the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held their last joint press conference. Yeah. In other words, it was the last time they played Christopher Robin and Pooh."

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