USNews.com: Political Bulletin: Monday, August 27, 2007

Monday, August 27, 2007

WASHINGTON NEWS

Warner May Back Dem Withdrawal Plan

Sen. John Warner appeared on NBC's Meet The Press to discuss his call last week for limited troop withdrawals beginning this year, and coverage focuses on his warning that, as the AP puts it, "he may support Democratic legislation ordering withdrawals if President Bush refuses to set a return timetable soon." Warner said, "I'm going to have to evaluate it. I don't say that as a threat, but I say that is an option we all have to consider." During a report on the ongoing debate over Iraq, the CBS Evening News also mentioned that Warner said he "may sign on to Democratic efforts to mandate a troop withdrawal if the President doesn't act quickly." Bloomberg News reports Warner said the President "must put 'decisive pressure' on Iraqi leaders to force political change" there. He said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "has 'failed' in his efforts to unify Iraq's government."

During his interview, Warner said the message he was trying to send President Bush by suggesting he begin withdrawing troops from Iraq this year was, "Mr. President, and I mean this most respectfully, I suggest that you put some teeth behind your words. ... I think we've got to show our resolve in the face of the Iraqi government inaction." While he first seemed reluctant to back any legislative coercion, saying "I want the President to make the decision...not the Congress trying to write and enforce that timetable," The Politico says Warner said when "asked whether he would vote for a specific timetable, Warner answered: 'It's an option we all have to consider.'" The Richmond Times-Dispatch runs that same quote from "the maverick Virginian." Over the weekend, both the Washington Post and AFP said Warner wanted a "symbolic" pullout this year.

McConnell: Many In GOP Expect Drawdown On Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Warner called him Friday "to underscore that he still supports the President, that he is not in favor of a surrender date. And even though he made a recommendation that we begin to draw down some level of troops, frankly, I think a lot of my members would be surprised if there was not some level of draw down over the next coming months."

Bush Pressing Hard For Public Support A New York Times analysis piece says President Bush's Iraq strategy "faces a crisis of faith these days -- from the American public. And he is confronting it the way he has previous crises: with a relentless campaign to persuade people to see things his way." Following last week's address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, "replete with historical references to Vietnam," Bush recorded a weekly radio address "that showed neither doubt nor any intention of reducing the American commitment in Iraq." In Nevada on Tuesday, Bush will argue that a "hasty withdrawal of troops would prove disastrous for the Middle East and for American security."

A similar Washington Times piece says Bush has used the "monthlong vacation by the Democrat-controlled Congress to mount a frontal assault on why the U.S. must remain in Iraq." All month, the White House "has filled the vacuum with positive news from the war front, culminating with the release of a report last week detailing 'measurable' success" during the troop surge." However, on Saturday the Los Angeles Times said "many soldiers are increasingly disdainful of the 'happy talk' that they say commanders on the ground and White House officials are using in discussions about the war," and a bleak McClatchy analysis said Bush "appears hemmed in by decisions he and others made months or years ago."

Webb: Vietnam, Iraq "Not Comparable" On ABC's This Week, Sen. Jim Webb, commenting on Bush's comparison of Iraq and Vietnam, said "they are simply are not comparable." Webb said he "may be one of the few people in government who still on the one hand strongly believes in what we attempted to do in Vietnam, and on the other hand, from the beginning, strongly warned against the strategic blunder of going into Iraq." On the same program, Sen. John Cornyn said, "It is an appropriate analogy, as far as the President attempted to use it in his speech."

Bin Laden Trail Cold

Newsweek, in its cover story titled, "The Ongoing Hunt For Osama Bin Laden," reports this week that since Osama bin Laden "slipped away from Tora Bora in December 2001, U.S. intelligence has never had better than a 50-50 certainty about his whereabouts. 'There hasn't been a serious lead on Osama bin Laden since early 2002,' says Bruce Riedel, who recently retired as a South Asia expert at the CIA." According to Newsweek, the U.S. has made the manhunt "harder than necessary. The Iraq War drained resources from the hunt, and some old bureaucratic bugaboos -- turf battles and fear of risk -- undermined the effort." Last night, the CBS Evening News made a similar indictment of the Administration in a report on the situation in Afghanistan: "There is a lament now that the main window of opportunity in Afghanistan was immediately after the invasion with the Taliban dispersed, a power vacuum in the country, and a population craving stability. But it was then that the Administration began looking away from Afghanistan and toward Iraq."

In follow-up piece, Newsweek profiles Nasser Al Bahri, who served as Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguard for six years and returned to Yemen just months before the 9/11 attacks. Newsweek notes that Al Bahri "maintains that all four of bin Laden's wives are living with him wherever he is, along with all of his minor children. ... If Al Bahri is correct, that's quite an entourage to truck around the mountains." Newsweek also describes the "re-infiltration of Tora Bora" in June 2007, when the Taliban announced "the opening of a Tora Bora campaign and boasting they had retaken the caves area. ... There have been unconfirmed reports that Gen. Dan McNeil, who is both American commander in Afghanistan and NATO's ISAF commander, has deployed NATO's theater reserve troops, from the 82nd Airborne, on the operation. No one is commenting, but locals have reported seeing heliborne deployments of troops" and at the airport in Jalalabad, "witnesses have seen scores of C-130 aircraft on the aprons."

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, this morning editorializes on the need for the US to continue the fight in Afghanistan. Unlike Iraq, says the Times, "all is not lost in Afghanistan," and "making good on unkept promises to improve the lives of the Afghan people is both a moral and a geopolitical imperative at a time when the West should be offering a meaningful alternative to fanatical Islamism."

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Bill Clinton Praises Bush

The New York Sun reports this morning that in an interview for "a high-profile magazine cover story," ex-President Bill Clinton "offers praise for several foreign policy initiatives undertaken by President Bush." Speaking with Condé Nast Traveler, "Clinton lauds Mr. Bush mostly for decisions that involved overruling hard-liners in his administration. 'He has done three things that I think the world generally approved of: restoring cooperation with the Latin American countries, making a diplomatic agreement with North Korea instead of continuing to have a frigid standoff, and sending Americans to the conference to discuss the future of Iraq with the Iranians and the Syrians,' Mr. Clinton said. 'Those are, all three, things that signify we're trying to do better in the world.'" Clinton's comments on Bush are not reported in the piece on the former president's "charitable work overseas," but instead "appear only on the travel glossy's Web site, which offers a transcript of an interview the article's author...conducted at Mr. Clinton's Harlem office. No date is given, but it seems to have been in March or April, based on references in the exchange."

Chertoff To Replace Gonzales?

U.S. News and World Report's Washington Whispers column reports this week that "the buzz among top Bushies" is that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "finally plans to depart and will be replaced by" Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff." According to US News, "Officials say [Chertoff] has got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general."

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CAMPAIGN NEWS

GOP Hopes Clinton Wins Democratic Race

The Politico reports the Republican Party that Karl Rove "has labored to build over the past eight years seems to have picked up his talking points on next year's presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee and that could be the GOP's saving grace in an otherwise uphill battle." Conversations with Republicans gathered "for the biennial Midwest Republican Leadership Conference reflect a party unenthused or just plain uncertain about their potential White House nominee. But GOP faithful also seem quite confident and even upbeat about the prospect that the senator from New York is, as Rove put it, the 'prohibitive favorite to win the nomination'" which is "good news for any hopes of keeping the White House and getting other Republicans on the ballot elected."

Edwards Proposes Anti-Cancer Strategy

The AP reports Democrat John Edwards "said Sunday he is offering a strategy for dealing with cancer that would bolster research funding, create support networks for people dealing with the disease and encourage lifestyle changes to help keep others from getting it." Edwards said "his wife's battle with breast cancer has driven home the need to make combating the disease a top priority for the next president." Edwards plans "to spell out his proposals during a forum Monday sponsored by Olympic bicycling champion Lance Armstrong, himself a cancer survivor."

Edwards Camp Appeals To "Rural Voters" The Washington Post reports a "persistent subtext of the Edwards campaign" is "the argument that he is the sole Southern Democrat and cultural conservative in the Democratic presidential field, making him the only top-tier candidate in his party who can appeal easily to white men." Edwards "has been careful not to suggest aloud that the country is too sexist or racist to elect Clinton or Obama in a general election." Rather, Edwards is "casting himself as the candidate of rural voters, someone who understands the plight and values of family farmers (especially powerful in Iowa) and who could do in a general election what he argues Clinton and Obama could not: attract culturally conservative voters in states such as Virginia, voters who consider gun ownership an important right and aren't thrown by his drawl."

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Obama Would Make New Orleans A Priority.

The AP reports Democrat Barack Obama "said Sunday the country cannot fail New Orleans again and that as president, he would keep the city in mind every day." Obama is "the first of several presidential candidates from both parties who are set to visit New Orleans in connection with the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday. President Bush also is expected to mark the occasion with a trip to the Gulf Coast."

Obama Aide Rouse Profiled In a front page story, the Washington Post profiles Obama aide Pete Rouse, "the Outsider's Insider, a fixer steeped in the ways of a Washington that Obama has been both eager to learn and quick to publicly condemn." Obama's criticism of the Washington establishment "has made Rouse's job of introducing Obama to Capitol Hill a complicated balancing act: He seeks to burnish Obama's still-modest credentials as a freshman senator while preventing the talented but inexperienced politician from making the kind of mistakes that have denied every senator since John F. Kennedy the presidency."

Thompson's Role As Investigator Noted

The New York Times reports on Fred Thompson's role as a Senate investigator from Watergate to the Clinton campaign finance probe, noting he "sometimes straddled a fine line between investigating his targets and defending them. Dozens of interviews and records from two administrations reveal a lawyer who often struggled to balance the agenda of his party against his duty to pursue the truth aggressively and independently." Over time, Thompson "evolved from a man primarily cast as a defender of Republican interests to one whose fair-mindedness would win praise from Democrats and incur the wrath of the Republican leadership."

Catholic Faith Key Motivation For Biden

The Christian Science Monitor reports "against long odds," Sen. Joe Biden "aims to be No. 4" -- the fourth Roman Catholic presidential nominee. He "sees faith and values, as well as his own deep experience in public policy, as a key to that race." The "issues that have most engaged Biden in public life draw on those teachings, from halting violence against women to genocide. At a personal level, his faith provides him peace, he says."

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Frontloading Jumbles Primary Calendar

USA Today reports, "Moves by Florida and other states to get the attention traditionally lavished on New Hampshire and Iowa, which holds the opening caucuses, has created a train wreck of an election calendar and a high-stakes political showdown." A Democratic National Committee panel "voted Saturday to strip Florida of its convention delegates unless it moves back its primary from Jan. 29, but there are no signs the state will comply. If nothing gives, Democratic presidential candidates will face an unusual dilemma: commit to spending valuable time and money to compete in a beauty-pageant election that won't build their delegate count, or essentially ignore the nation's fourth-most-populous state."

Traditional GOP Donors Favoring Democrats

USA Today reports an analysis of campaign contributions from "20 employment sectors that contributed the most money during the first six months of the year" shows donors gave $81 million to Democratic candidates and $47 million to Republicans. Democrats have "raised more money than GOP candidates in 15 of the top 20 sectors, ranging from law firms to insurance companies. The industries where Republicans have an advantage include accounting and manufacturing - but not Wall Street."

Perennial Candidate Seeks Hastert's Seat

The Chicago Tribune reports for the "fourth time in as many election cycles, Jim Oberweis launched a candidacy for public office Sunday, formally announcing his bid for the Republican nomination to succeed retiring former House Speaker Dennis Hastert in Congress." The GOP field "already includes Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns. State Sen. Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora) is expected to join the race."

GOP Candidates To Run Against Congress

The Washington Times reports Republican strategists "say the Democratic Congress' plunging job-approval rating gives them a fresh chance to make gains in next year's elections under a developing Republican strategy that is urging its candidates to run an insurgent, anti-incumbent campaign." The Republican election strategy "shift comes on the heels of a Gallup survey showing that only 18 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, dealing the Democratic majority a major blow that has lifted Republican hopes of a comeback and raised questions in Democratic ranks about why so many Democrats and independents are giving them a failing grade and how to turn that around."

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