The Washington Post reports the House, "with overwhelming, bipartisan support, voted yesterday to give the Bush administration two months to present to Congress its planning for the withdrawal of combat forces in Iraq." The 377-46 vote "was the first salvo of a new legislative strategy adopted by House Democratic leaders, away from partisan confrontation and toward a more incremental approach to war policy that can bring Republicans to their side. The withdrawal-planning bill had met fierce opposition this summer from ardent Iraq war foes." The Los Angeles Times calls it "an unusual moment of bipartisan consensus on Iraq-related legislation." The Hill says the office of Minority Leader John Boehner, in an "apparent effort to downplay" the vote, "issued a fact sheet to emphasize that the resolution has no binding properties." Boehner voted for the bill.
The easy passage belied the tensions within the Democratic caucus over how to proceed on Iraq. On its front page, the Washington Times reports House Appropriations Chairman David Obey "threatened unilaterally to block President Bush's $189 billion emergency war-funding bill to force a U.S. pullout from Iraq and called for levying a surtax to cover the war's costs." Obey, "breaking with the Democratic leadership that has failed repeatedly to end the Iraq war, said unless Mr. Bush establishes a goal to abort combat operations in Iraq by January, he would act alone to cut off war spending." Roll Call reports Obey called for a "new $150 billion war surtax," which was "shot down by Democratic leaders" but not before "Republican aides busied themselves churning out press releases accusing Democrats of trying to pass a tax hike on the backs of troops."
The Wall Street Journal, noting that Obey as chairman "can effectively block House floor action" by not moving the supplemental to the House floor, said, "I have absolutely no intention of reporting out...any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo." The Journal says Obey's stance is "blessed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi" and "represents a significant escalation of the conflict with the administration." However, the New York Times says Democratic leaders "reacted coolly" to blocking the supplemental as well as to the surtax.
The Hill says Republicans "fell over themselves to mock" the surtax idea, with White House Press Secretary Dana Perino leading the charge." Perino said, "We've always known that Democrats seem to revert to type and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything. There's no need to increase taxes." The AP says Minority Whip Roy Blunt said, "If the new majority has proven one thing this session, it's that no piece of legislation is immune from being converted into a vehicle to raise taxes." The Politico says that while the "GOP ridicule of a new income surtax to fund the next $200 billion in wartime spending was predictable, the rapid dismissal by both the House speaker and the Senate majority leader showed just how politically toxic the issue of tax increases remains for Democrats."
Blackwater USA chairman Erik Prince appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Tuesday, where he "vigorously defended his private security company on Tuesday, rejecting charges that his staff acted like a bunch of cowboys," the AP reports. ABC World News said Prince "fought back," telling the panel, "We strive for perfection, but we don't get to choose when the bad guys attack us." The CBS Evening News showed Prince saying, "A thousand guys out in the field -- humans make mistakes and they do stupid things sometimes."
The Los Angeles Times reports Blackwater and State Department officials "put forth a unified defense Tuesday against an onslaught of congressional criticism over the company's violent encounters with Iraqis." The State Department "attempted to portray Blackwater's armed guards as highly trained professionals who open fire in the streets of Baghdad only when the lives of the diplomats they are hired to protect are threatened."
On its front page, the Wall Street Journal says the probe of Blackwater "is fueling a push for significant changes in the way U.S. contractors operate in Iraq," and the changes "being considered by Iraqi politicians include stripping U.S. contractors and their employees in Iraq of their current immunity to Iraqi law." The Chicago Tribune says Blackwater "has long been viewed suspiciously by Iraqis" and "is facing increased scrutiny in Washington." But Prince "touted his hired guns as courageous men with an exemplary record in protecting U.S. officials in the war zone."
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
The AP reports that President Bush plans to veto the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill passed by Congress "with no ceremony for television cameras" in a move that "will set up a veto fight that Bush probably will win but will give Democrats a campaign issue for next year's elections." Fox News' Special Report reported Congress sent President Bush "a five-year, $35 billion expansion" of the current program "and braced for the a veto. The bill raises the federal cigarette tax by sixty-one cents leveling it at an even one dollar per pack." The Hill reports Democratic leaders, sensing much more advantageous political ground, "moved quickly to shift public attention to President Bush's expected veto of a children's health insurance program from a surtax to pay for the war in Iraq."
And going back on the offensive, the Washington Times reports Capitol Hill Democrats and MoveOn.org "have ramped up efforts to portray Republicans as 'anti-children' for opposing a major expansion of federally funded health insurance for low-income children." The "aggressive campaign, including radio ads" by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in "Republican districts, pursues votes to override a promised White House veto."
The Hill reports House Republicans are "threatening to launch a discharge petition on legislation that would ensure the future prosperity of conservative radio talk-show hosts but is expected to face opposition from Democratic leaders." The procedural move is aimed at forcing majority Democrats to take action on "protecting radio from government regulation later this fall." Conservatives "fear that forcing stations to make equal time for liberal talk radio would cut into profits so severely that radio executives would choose to scale back on conservative programming to avoid rising costs and interference from the government."
The GOP action comes as Democrats step up their effort to shame right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh for his reference to "phony soldiers," which they say was a slur against anti-war veterans and active members of the armed forces. While Limbaugh has repeatedly insisted he was discussing one soldier who was never engaged in active duty, the New York Times says with the "help of liberal advocacy groups, the Democrats in Congress are turning Mr. Limbaugh's insinuation that members of the military who question the Iraq war are 'phony soldiers' into the latest war of words over the war." A resolution "introduced by 20 Democrats urges the House to condemn the 'unwarranted slur' made by Mr. Limbaugh, though it does not condemn the broadcaster himself."
Fox News' Special Report reported Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "has vilified" Limbaugh "for allegedly insulting U.S. military personnel who do not support the war in Iraq. Limbaugh fired back today but antiwar groups took up the banner against him." Meanwhile, The Politico reports Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays responded to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "in a letter hand-delivered to his office this evening." Shays "took a respectful tone, saying he regretted that Reid and others might have been offended by Limbaugh. But ultimately, Mays wrote, he didn't believe Limbaugh's statements were 'intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn't share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq.'"
The Politico reports that in an "unusual joint push by the House and Senate, Democratic leaders plan to demand Wednesday that President Bush appoint a mortgage czar to spearhead a more aggressive government response to the foreclosure crisis bedeviling millions of economically stressed Americans, Capitol Hill sources tell Politico." The announcement "reflects leaders' scramble to show they're paying attention to a growing problem, at a time when polls show the public has an even more sour view of Congress than it does of President Bush."
Roll Call reports Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia, who recently announced his plans to retire, "was admitted to Virginia's Inova Fairfax Hospital this afternoon and treated for a heart ailment." Warner's chief of staff, Carter Cornick, "said his condition did not appear to be any more serious than an irregular heart beat." The New York Times reports the statement "said doctors 'fully anticipate' that Mr. Warner, 80, would be home by the weekend and back at work next week."
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
USA Today reports government employees "spent at least $146 million in a year on business- or first-class airline tickets that violated government policies requiring workers to fly coach, a new report says." The abuses "could be more widespread because most agencies don't monitor employees' use of costly business-class tickets, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog arm of Congress."
The New York Times reports the "improper use of premium-class travel is widespread at six departments, including Agriculture, Commerce, State and Treasury." The CBS Evening News reported, "Thousands of times a year, Federal workers are breaking the rules limiting such flights, treating themselves to expensive upgrades and you're picking up the tab. A new GAO report obtained by CBS News shows widespread abuse." The Wall Street Journal reports the GAO said "most business-class and first-class travel by federal bureaucrats is improper and unwarranted." The "most common abuse by federal employees is the overuse of business-class fares, which receive less scrutiny than first-class tickets but cost several times more than coach prices."
The AP reports Mark Geragos, the lawyer for Brent Wilkes, the defense contractor "accused of bribing former U.S. Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham," on Tuesday "withdrew subpoenas of a dozen House members after a federal judge indicated he was prepared to quash them." US District Judge Larry Burns "said he might consider enforcing the subpoenas if Brent Wilkes' attorneys could demonstrate the lawmakers had specific information related to the charges and their testimony would be critical to his defense."
Roll Call reports the decision "came after Wilkes' lawyer, Mark Geragos, submitted a motion Monday arguing that Wilkes can't be expected to defend himself without the House Members' testimony." The Hill notes that in his brief opposing the prosecution effort to quash the subpoenas, Geragos "asserted that several of the subpoenaed lawmakers have 'direct knowledge and were participants in many of the activities listed in the indictment.'" That "assertion could spell trouble for lawmakers with ties to Wilkes who could be called to testify," such as Reps. John Doolittle and Jerry Lewis.
The CBS Evening News reported, "Britain is pulling more troops out of Iraq. During a surprise visit today, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said about 1,000 should make it home by Christmas. That will leave about 4,500 British troops in southern Iraq." The Los Angeles Times reports Brown said Iraqi authorities "were ready to take responsibility for security in Basra, the last province under British control, within two months." His announcement "came at a time of deepening disenchantment in Britain with the war." The AP says Brown is "said to be contemplating early elections in Britain," where the war "is deeply unpopular." The Financial Times says Britain's Conservatives called the announcement "'a cynical exploitation' of the army for political purposes."
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
Top
After hinting for weeks that they would be outraised in the 3rd quarter by the Obama campaign, Hillary Clinton's campaign yesterday said that they had raked in $27 million during the period, easily outstripping Obama's $20 million. Of Clinton's total, $22 million can be used in the primary, compared to $19 million of Obama's total. The returns are being seen as a significant victory for Clinton. On NBC Nightly News, political director Chuck Todd said, "Bragging rights this quarter belong to Sen. Hillary Clinton, she topped, for the first time, she topped her rival. ... Perhaps more importantly, she topped Obama in the total number of new donors, something that the Clinton campaign is absolutely giddy about. By the way, with the Democrats, it's simply a two-person race, financially, Clinton and Obama." The returns also generated brief mentions on ABC World News and the CBS Evening News.
The Los Angeles Times reports Clinton "reclaimed her overall lead in this year's presidential money race." Obama and Clinton "each have raised about $80 million this year." John Edwards "has brought in $30 million, including $7 million in the quarter that ended Sunday." The New York Times headlines its front page report "Clinton Steals Obama's Fund-Raising Thunder," saying "perhaps most surprising was that the Clinton campaign reported attracting at least 7,000 more new donors than Mr. Obama, depriving his campaign of the bragging rights that he was more popular with contributors despite Mrs. Clinton's strong performance in opinion polls and televised debates." Clinton's success "came even as some Democratic elected officials continue to have concerns about her electability and the possibility that a Clinton candidacy next November would drag down fellow candidates for Congressional and state races."
The AP reports Clinton's "summer donations bring her total primary dollars raised this year to $62 million. The New York senator has raised $17.6 million for the general election. She also supplemented her primary fund-raising earlier this year with a $10 million transfer from her 2006 Senate campaign." The Financial Times says Obama finished the third quarter "significantly below the $32m he chalked up in the second. 'Our fundraising is through the roof,' said Patti Solis Doyle, Mrs Clinton's campaign manager, in an e-mail to supporters yesterday. 'This is the moment when your dedication defied the sceptics.'"
Bloomberg adds that Clinton's total "neutralizes Obama's fundraising edge, one of the few advantages he has had over her to date," while the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that "Clinton's robust report gave her the bragging right that went to Mr. Obama in the year's previous reporting period, but the two campaigns remained close in overall funding as well as far ahead of any other candidate."
Barack Obama, seeking to regain the momentum in his battle with Hillary Clinton, yesterday launched a broadside against those who voted to authorize the Iraq war, implicitly criticizing Clinton while not actually naming her. The Washington Post reports Obama, "seeking to recharge his campaign for the autumn stretch run," used the "fifth anniversary of his 2002 speech against going to war in Iraq to issue some of his strongest criticism yet of the war votes" cast by Clinton and his other rivals. In an Iowa speech, Obama "invoked the 2002 speech Obama said Tuesday night was proof that he possesses superior judgment, even if he lacks extensive experience in Washington." Obama said, "The American people weren't just failed by a president -- they were failed by much of Washington. By a media that too often reported spin instead of facts. By a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war. And most of all by the majority of a Congress -- a coequal branch of government -- that voted to give the president the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day. Let's be clear: Without that vote, there would be no war." The Chicago Tribune notes Obama's rivals "countered that he has not always acted as aggressively as he could in seeking an end to the war, even if he delivered a speech opposing it when he was a state senator starting his U.S. Senate campaign."
Bloomberg reports that Obama "is alternating between the roles of new-style, above-the-partisan-fray politician and challenger on the attack," while the New York Times contends it "remains an open question whether Mr. Obama's approach -- reprising the past to foreshadow the future -- will gain traction in the final three months of the year as voters pay more attention to the race, and help him turn what many Democrats had once viewed as Mrs. Clinton's biggest vulnerability against her."
With the leading candidates from each party hailing from New York, the traditionally "blue" Empire State is set to again become a battleground. However, a new poll out this morning from Quinnipiac University suggests that Hillary Clinton enjoys a significant head start over Rudy Giuliani in wooing home state voters she leads him 52%-41% in a trial heat. The Quinnipiac University poll of 1,504 likely New York Voters taken September 24-30 shows Clinton beating the other GOP candidates by at least 17 points, while Giuliani is deadlocked with the other top Democrats.
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
The Politico reports Rudy Giuliani's strategy director "sent a memo to 'Team Rudy' making the case for why they're in a strong position to win the GOP nomination," and "separately, Politico has obtained a series of color-coded maps that Giuliani aides and advisers have distributed internally that show what they believe to be Giuliani's anticipated general election strength versus Hillary Clinton compared to how the other top GOP candidates may fare against her. Keeping with the overarching themes of Hizzoner's campaign, Seaborn's argument both in word and map can be boiled down to two words: inevitability and electability." The maps project Giuliani starting with advantages in states totaling 210 electoral votes to just 18 for Clinton, with 310 too close to call. Maps pitting Clinton against McCain, Romney, and Thompson all give Clinton an electoral vote advantage. The AP says Giuliani's campaign "tells voters there is only one alternative to a second Clinton administration. No surprise: It's Giuliani."
The New York Daily News reports, "To say that Giuliani is seeing red is an understatement: the color-coded charts give Clinton just two traditionally Democratic, or blue, states -- Massachusetts and Vermont -- plus Washington, D.C., when he's the GOP nominee. Everything else -- including such traditionally Democratic states as New York, California, and Washington -- are tossups (purple) or in Giuliani's Republican grip (red). ... 'This is a map of Fantasyland. In the real world Sen. Clinton is beating Mayor Giuliani nationally, in New York, and in key swing states like Ohio and Florida,' scoffed Clinton spokesman Blake Zeff."
An ABC News/Washington Post poll out this morning shows Hillary Clinton dominating the Democratic field nationally. The new survey shows Clinton backed by 53% of Democrats, trouncing Barack Obama, 20%, and John Edwards, 13%. The rest of the field is in the low single digits. A front-page story in the Washington Post this morning says Clinton's "popularity, the poll suggests, is being driven by her strength on key issues and a growing perception among voters that she would best represent change."
On the GOP side, which made page six of the Washington Post, Rudy Giuliani leads the GOP field with 34%, doubling the support of his nearest competitor. Fred Thompson trails with 17%, followed by John McCain, 12%; Mitt Romney, 11%; Mike Huckabee, 8%; and the rest of the field at 3% or less.
A new Zogby International poll shows a tight GOP race in New Hampshire between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Romney leads the field with 24 percent, followed closely behind by Giuliani at 21 percent. John McCain places third with 16 percent. The rest of the field languishes in single digits, with Fred Thompson at 7 percent and Mike Huckabee at 5 percent.
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
Top
Jay Leno: "Over the summer, Hillary Clinton raised like $27 million. Barack Obama collected well over $20 million. And Dennis Kucinich saved a ton of dough on his car insurance by switching to GEICO."
David Letterman: "The Yankees got into the playoffs on the wild card. By the way, that's also how we got President Bush."
David Letterman: "President Bush is now saying that there's a good chance we'll be bombing Iran," because "he is convinced that they have nuclear weapons. Well, he would know. He's been pretty good about that kind of thing."
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
Top
Click image for larger view.
Smart analysis, insightful reporting, in-depth perspective—in a new, digital format.
Log in | Buy Now | See sample
View sample page 2View sample page 3View sample page 4View sample page 5advertisement
Get your POLITICALBULLETIN
Click image for larger view.
Smart analysis, insightful reporting, in-depth perspective—in a new, digital format.
Log in | Buy Now | See sample
View sample page 2View sample page 3View sample page 4View sample page 5Embed exclusive U.S. News headlines, rankings, columns, and blog postings to your Web site, blog, or social network.
advertisement
Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our Terms and Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy.
