Political Bulletin

WASHINGTON NEWS

Rove Delivers Parting Shots

Karl Rove appeared on three Sunday political shows yesterday, where he portrayed Democrats as obstructionists obsessed with pursuing him, and criticized their approach to the threat of terrorism. The Washington Post says Rove "practiced what he has long preached: sticking doggedly to his message, exuding confidence about the appeal of the Republican Party at every opportunity and defending his and the president's every decision." The New York Times was less impressed with Rove's message, saying he "didn't cut an especially heroic or villainous figure," and judging him to have delivered "an exiting White House aide's most time-honored Washington message: mistakes were not made, and it's not my fault." Rove "complained that Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were Captain Ahabs relentlessly pursuing him as the big white whale." UPI and AFP also run brief summaries of Rove's remarks.

The Politico, meanwhile, notes that on "Fox News Sunday," Rove "made no apologies for his past criticism of Democrats as weaklings in fighting terrorists. 'The Democrats can routinely question the president's integrity,' he said. 'They can routinely stand up and call him a liar and say he deliberately misled the country to get into war. When we call the Democrats for their statements and their votes, somehow that's wrong. I don't get it.'" Asked to explain why the President's comprehensive immigration reform failed to get thought the Senate, Rove said on Fox News Sunday that Reid killed the bill "for reasons that are completely inexplicable" when "we were this close to getting that bill through."

Asked on Fox News Sunday if his resignation would further the notion that President Bush is already a "lame duck," Rove said, "That's a complete misunderstanding of who he is. He is a bold leader who's going to be milking every single moment that he's got in this office." On CBS's Face the Nation, Rove disagreed with the notion that Bush "has wound up being so unpopular. We'll see at the end of the day. ... And he's got 17 months to get a lot of things done."

Describing the GOP's midterm defeats on Fox News Sunday, Rove noted that 2006 "was a normal off-year election. If you look at the sweep of American history, the White House party in its second term, off-year election, has lost an average of 28 seats in the House and five seats in the Senate. We lost 30 in the House and six in the Senate, and it was a very close election."

On NBC's Meet the Press, Rove added, "You know what the number one issue was in the last election for people who voted Democrat in '06 and voted Republican in '04? It was corruption. They looked at what we did in Congress, they looked at all the scandals. They looked at Duke Cunningham, they looked at Abramoff, and they said, 'We're sick of it.' The number two issue was spending, particularly epitomized in earmarks."

The New York Times also says this morning that though Fox News "is usually considered by Bush officials as a safe harbor," Chris Wallace "had the most prickly, and probing, interview with Mr. Rove." And the Washington Post notes that on CBS, Rove "confided that it was not even his idea to come on the shows. 'Somebody else made the decision for me,' he said, 'and I'm just doing what I was instructed to do.'" UPI and AFP also run brief summaries of Rove's remarks.

A Hidden Motive In Clinton Criticism? The AP reports Rove "won't let up in his attacks on Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the intriguing question is why. Is it a sign that Rove, who masterminded Bush's two presidential victories, is worried about Clinton? Or a calculation that the GOP attacks will get Democrats to rally to her side because the GOP would prefer not to take on Democrats John Edwards or Barack Obama?"

That story comes on the heels of a Sunday Los Angeles Times story that posits "Rove's weeklong broadside against Clinton...looks suspiciously like an exercise in reverse psychology that his team employed three years ago when it was preparing for President Bush's reelection bid. The ploy was described by Rove lieutenant Matthew Dowd." In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, "when it was not yet clear who Bush's opponent would be that November, Rove and his aides had begun to fear that their most dangerous foe would be then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. ... But instead of attacking Edwards, Rove's team opened fire at Kerry. Their thinking went like this, Dowd explained: Democrats, in a knee-jerk reaction to GOP attacks, would rally around Kerry, whom Rove considered a comparatively weak opponent, and make him the party's nominee. Thus Bush would be spared from confronting Edwards, the candidate Republican strategists actually feared most. "

Rove was asked on Fox News Sunday if he would prefer to see Sen. Hillary Clinton as the Democrats' candidate in 2008, Rove answered, "The Democrats are going to choose a nominee. I believe it's going to be her. That's their business." On NBC's Meet the Press, Rove added Clinton "enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup Poll."

Reporters' Biases At Heart Of Rove Legend? In his Washington Post "Media Notes" column, Howard Kurtz notes Rove is being portrayed as "either a political giant, shrewdly plotting a series of victories during the Bush presidency, or a nation-wrecker, sowing the seeds of division to boost the GOP. ... But what if journalists are part of an unspoken conspiracy to inflate Rove's importance -- not for ideological reasons but because it makes for a better narrative? What if they are the architects, using well-placed aides to build a stage for inside-dope stories involving Rove and his colleagues? Or perhaps there's a cruder explanation: that some journalists believe Bush lacks the intellectual heft to achieve big things on his own, so they attribute his most consequential decisions to a powerful Svengali at his side."

General: Iran Training Militias In Iraq

The New York Times reports Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the US commander in charge of districts south of the Baghdad, "said that 50 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps were operating in his area, training Shiite militias in how to use mortars and rocket launchers." The AP also reports Lynch's remarks, calling them "the first detailed allegation that Iranians have been training fighters within Iraq's borders." The Washington Post. USA Today, AFP and McClatchy also report the development.

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Camp Casey Attracts Few Protestors

The Washington Post reports it was "just two years ago that Cindy Sheehan pierced the national consciousness with her roadside vigil near President Bush's Texas ranch in protest of the Iraq war. Several thousand demonstrators came to Crawford to join Sheehan in 2005, capturing the international media spotlight and seemingly crystallizing the antiwar movement." But the nearby base purchased by Sheehan, Camp Casey, has "become a lonely place. Bush has been back at his ranch on vacation for the past week, but few protesters have followed."

The Wall Street Journal reports that after "enjoying a boom in the patriotic fervor of Mr. Bush's first term, the business district in this dusty central Texas town of about 750 is once again facing tough times. Even the Iraq war protesters who descended on Crawford by the thousands two summers ago are almost all gone."

Wall Street Pressing Fed For More Rate Cuts

The AP reports the Federal Reserve "may have thrown Wall Street a bone Friday by lowering the rate it charges banks, but if this week's housing market data and corporate headlines portend more gloom, it may have to toss another." But Wall Street, "beset by fears that credit problems in mortgage and corporate lending will cripple the economy, has been stubbornly signaling to the central bank that it wants a bailout -- ideally, by way of a cut in the benchmark fed funds rate." U.S. News and World Report reports, "The subprime mortgage mess that roiled the nation's credit market is now threatening one of the longest uninterrupted bull markets in stocks."

U.S. News and World Report also reports, "The federal funds rate has been stuck at 5.25 percent since June 2006. Are" Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke "& Co. finally getting ready to cut rates to keep the mortgage meltdown from dragging the economy into recession?" USA Today, under the headline "Wall St. Yearns For Fed Rate Cut," reports "many analysts say more help from the Federal Reserve is needed if markets are to successfully navigate the liquidity crunch that first infected the subprime mortgage market but has since spread to corporate debt markets, hedge funds and short-term funding vehicles once deemed conservative." The Christian Science Monitor says that "concerned that turmoil in the credit markets might spark a broader economic slide," the Fed in fact "is now signaling that it may cut interest rates perhaps next month."

Asian Stocks Post Strong Gains. The Wall Street Journal reports the US Fed's "moves on Friday "appeared to work in Asia, where stocks rose strongly. The Japanese stock market, the second-largest in the world by capitalization, rose 3.7% as a weakening yen helped exporters gain ground."

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CAMPAIGN NEWS

Rivals Target Clinton In Iowa Debate

During yesterday morning's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa moderated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Sen. Hillary Clinton's top rivals sought to take advantage of widespread dissatisfaction with Congress by portraying her as the candidate of the Inside-the-Beltway establishment. The Des Moines Register reports that Clinton "faced direct challenges from her chief rivals for the Iowa caucuses about her ability to reverse dissatisfaction with the federal government." John Edwards, described as having "the most at stake" used Clinton's "refusal to denounce campaign contributions from lobbyists to suggest she was part of spiraling cynicism in government. 'We're the party of the people; we are not the party of Washington insiders,' Edwards said. 'We can say it clearly and unequivocally, by saying we will never take another dime from a Washington lobbyist. I've asked the other candidates to join me in that. And at least, until now, Senator Clinton's not done it.'" Barack Obama has "recently begun casting Clinton as part of a generation of partisan gridlock," and questioned whether Clinton could "change the political climate in Washington." USA Today reports that Obama "said the Democrat who wins the nomination will win the election. But he implied Clinton is part of the problems and attitudes that 'pre-date the Bush administration' - including conventional thinking, backbiting, special interest influence and divisive politics. 'We're going to need somebody who can break out of the political patterns that we've been in over the last 20 years,' Obama said."

The Los Angeles Times reports that Clinton and Obama "dominated" much of this "tamest" debate, "both as participants and as a topic of discussion." The debate's first question "went to the heart of the matter many Democrats are mulling over: whether Clinton is too divisive and Obama too inexperienced to be elected president." According to the Wall Street Journal's Jackie Calmes, Clinton and Obama "held their own in...an event dominated by the questions about them that have come to define the party's contest: Is she too divisive, and he too inexperienced, to be elected and -- if elected -- to govern effectively?" The Chicago Tribune notes Clinton "initially tried to walk away from her previous criticism of Obama over the Illinois lawmaker's vow to meet controversial foreign leaders without precondition, saying she is 'running on my own qualifications and experience.'" Sen. Christopher Dodd said Obama's pledge to meet with US adversaries was "irresponsible" and Sen. Joseph Biden "said Obama's comments did not help the unstable situation in Pakistan."

For his part, Obama sought to turn the tables on his opponents. The Chicago Daily Herald reported on its website, "Obama accused fellow Democratic presidential candidates today of trying to score cheap political points by criticizing his foreign policy inexperience, pointing out the 'conventional wisdom' some of them used is what led to the Iraq war."

However, it wasn't only Obama's foreign policy comments that drew attention. The Washington Post reports Stephanopoulos "asked Clinton to explain an apparent contradiction: In 2006, while running for reelection to the Senate, she ruled out using nuclear force against Iran, then more recently criticized Obama for ruling out nuclear force against al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Clinton said her remarks needed to be put 'into context' -- that she was referring to a specific question about the Bush administration's efforts to build support for attacking Iran." Obama "replied crisply that 'there was no difference' between his and Clinton's comments."

Obama Seen As Having Effectively Countered Experience Critiques The Politico's Roger Simon writes that Obama "did the best in advancing his message. His campaign accurately has identified his greatest weakness - lack of national experience - and has devised a strategy to turn it into a strong point."

The Des Moines Register's David Yepsen, in a column titled, "Obama May Be Biggest Debate Winner," writes, "After a string of strong debate performances so far in the campaign, Clinton seemed a little off her game. ... Obama may be the biggest winner. He was in the cross hairs for much of the early part of the session and he stood up well to the scrutiny over his foreign policy positions and questions of whether he's qualified to be president. Obama¹s campaign was quick to tout the results of a focus group held during the debate in which the participants tapped him as the best performer who eased concerns about his ability to do the job. He came off as knowledgeable and temperate. He looked presidential and unlike some of his earlier, halting debate performances, was much more polished and laid back in this one."

Edwards Blasted Over Mortgage Firm Investments The New York Post reports that little-known former Sen. Mike Gravel blasted Edwards over "his financial dealings with a company that invested in mortgage firms that were foreclosing on Hurricane Katrina victims. ... New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson piled on, adding, 'This is the Katrina of the mortgage-lending industry.' Despite his populist rhetoric against mortgage companies that foreclose on the victims of Katrina, Edwards invested roughly $16 million with Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund that held several mortgage firms in its portfolio. Edwards also drew a hefty paycheck from the company while preparing for his current run for the White House."

Top Candidates Cautious On Iraq The Washington Post reports that the candidates "sounded a note of caution about a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. ... The newest Democratic ad -- a somber commercial from" Sen. Biden "claiming that he is the only candidate with a plan to end the war in Iraq -- came up as a debate question, and it triggered a spirited back-and-forth over how best to bring U.S. troops home. It was perhaps the most in-depth discussion the candidates have had over their exit plans, and it revealed a field sharply divided, some advocating a quick withdrawal and others favoring one that takes longer and is more cautious." New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson "has advocated withdrawing troops within six to eight months, and he pressed that view again in trying to draw distinctions with the front-runners." Biden "countered: 'If we leave Iraq and we leave it in chaos, there'll be regional war. The regional war will engulf us for a generation. It'll bring in the Shia, it'll bring in the Saudis, it'll bring in the Iranians, it'll bring in the Turks.'" According to the Post, Clinton, Edwards and Obama "said in effect that they supported Biden's position, cautioning that it will be necessary to leave some troops behind to assist Iraqi forces and Iraqis who have helped Americans on the ground."

Clinton Expresses Regret Over Iraq War Vote In a story headlined 'Hil: I regret giving Bush okay for war,' the New York Daily News reports, "Clinton assured Democrats yesterday she's the one who can whip Republicans on the right, even as she edged left by saying for the first time she regrets voting for the Iraq war. ... Yesterday, she joined her party's chorus at a debate in Des Moines. 'I, too, regret giving George Bush the authority that he misused and abused,' she said. As recently as February, she told Politico.com she did not regret her vote. She also has refused to call her vote a mistake or apologize for it."

McCain Says Campaign Is Back On Track

USA Today reports Sen. John McCain "said Sunday that his support for immigration changes hurt his presidential candidacy because people were not convinced that it would secure the border. He also said his campaign, faced with staff departures and lackluster fundraising, is bouncing back." On CBS' Face the Nation, McCain said, "We are back on town hall meetings, and enthusiasm is there. And we're going to be just fine in my campaign. Every campaign has its ups and downs." USA adds McCain "said he is the most qualified of all the candidates in either party to take on radical Islamic extremism. He is scheduled to speak today in Kansas City, Mo., at the 108th National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars."

McCain, on CBS's Face the Nation, said, "I think, frankly, the immigration issue has caused me some difficulties with our base, because...we failed to convince the American people that we're serious about securing our borders. ... As president, I would say, I will secure the borders. But I still think we need a comprehensive approach to this immigration issue, including a temporary worker program. So, I think that was -- that was harmful to me." McCain added, "I think we could get it largely under control. I think that if we were able to identify everybody in this country and the way you do that is if they apply for a job, they have to have a tamper-proof, biometric document. ... Then you dry up the magnet from south of the border, because if they know even if they get across our border that they can't get a job here, then I think that has a very big effect."

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POLITICAL HUMOR

The Latest From Late Night Comedians

Craig Ferguson: "Karl Rove stepped down this week. He said he wants to spend more time with his loved ones. I think I speak for us all when I say: Karl Rove has loved ones?"

Craig Ferguson: "I think he's leaving now so he has plenty of time to steal Christmas."

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