The Administration

If I am to believe Bob Novak, and he remains quite believable, then President Bush is about to go on a veto rampage and drive the new Democratic leadership in Congress crazy. This is actually an attempt to cut spending and help the Republican Party reclaim the mantle of fiscal responsibility, but we can all brace ourselves for what it will do to further poison the partisan atmosphere in Washington.

According to Novak, Bush has asked House Republicans to join him in sustaining vetoes of at least eight spending bills the House is trying to pass this summer. The White House has received assurances from 147 Republicans they will vote with him when he vetoes appropriations for Homeland Security; Energy-Water and Interior; Labor, Health and Human Services and Dducation; Transportation and Housing and Urban Development; Commerce, Justice and Science; Agriculture and Rural Development; State and Foreign Operations; and Defense. Bush, upon the advice of House Republicans, will not be vetoing the military construction appropriations bill since it contains funding for veterans, Novak wrote.  Read more...

I have known Ed Gillespie for close to 15 years. There is no better person to have on your team fighting for your cause than Eddie. The son of a former tavern owner, Gillespie is a scrapper who has had to work hard for everything he has earned in life.

Democrat strategists have attacked Ed as a lobbyist who has gone into the White House for “nefarious” reasons. I am scratching my head trying to figure out what Gillespie can possibly gain from working in this White House now.

My guess is Eddie did it because the president asked him to, and he is a patriot who wants to serve his country in a time of war. And he does so at great personal sacrifice.

I think the real reason that Democratic strategists are attacking Gillespie is because they worry he might be effective. Having a real policy and communications strategist in this White House, who actually knows something about Washington, will be a dramatic change and a positive change for this administration. Democrats should be worried.  Read more...

The question has us all atwitter: Will the president keep Scooter Libby out of prison? But actually, here’s the tougher question: SHOULD Libby go to prison? I’m having great difficulty with this.

Let’s face it. This is a political conviction. The investigation into the leaks of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity was the result of a political uproar over the sleazy way her cover was blown as retribution. The administration had been embarrassed by her husband’s disclosure of the president’s Iraq weapons deceptions.

But should Libby go behind bars for lying and malicious conduct? If that’s the standard, we in Washington should be worried. Very worried. Read more...

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has just ruled that Scooter Libby must report to prison within the next four to six weeks after denying Libby’s request to remain free on bail pending appeal of his sentence. (By way of full disclosure, I was hired by Libby to join Vice President Cheney’s staff in late December 2000 as the deputy domestic policy adviser to the VP.) The airwaves have been abuzz with what political implications this will have for the Bush White House and whether justice has been served by this ruling.

I can’t help but believe there are two different standards for two differing high-profile political defendants in Washington, D.C. How else to explain the disparity in fate between former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Libby? Berger, you will recall, was researching highly classified documents at the National Archives for testimony before the 9/11 Commission relating to threats during the Millennium. Berger, it was proved at trial, removed these highly sensitive documents, returned some and destroyed others; the rationale behind this action has never fully been explained. Read more...

Here we go again. Just when you thought that congressional Democrats had overplayed their hand and failed to deliver on the promises they made to the American people, they’re back to playing partisan politics once again. At second blush, have they ever stopped since Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has wielded the Speaker’s gavel? (By the way, Six for ‘06 appears to be 0 for 6 in ’07, but I digress.) Read more...

Bush's visit to Capitol Hill to push his immigration reform bill has, in effect, transformed the vote on the bill into the American equivalent of a British confidence vote. In a parliamentary country, he would have to resign if he lost the vote. Here, he will stay but be slowly twisting in the wind for the next 18 months.

In a sense, this vote has assumed an importance somewhat akin to the impeachment vote on Bill Clinton, also 18 months before his second term ended. If the Democrats had deserted him on that vote, he would have had to leave office. If the Republicans desert Bush on this vote, he might as well do so.

Just when we need it — a blow for liberty!

Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, George Bush has acted as if he’s above the law — tapping phones without a court order, prying into credit card records without a search warrant, torturing prisoners of war — and, most egregiously, rounding up suspects and detaining them for years without charging them with any crime or putting them on trial.

Finally, a federal court has said: Enough’s enough. Read more...

President George W. Bush is now slowly twisting in the wind, disregarded by the Democrats, disliked by the country and increasingly disdained by his own party. The defeat of the immigration bill shows that all three are in play.

He needs to get back in the game. The key is to take some large policy — like Iranian nuclear weapons — and make it his own. Bush's flip-flops on climate change and his vigor in prosecuting Sudan are steps in the right direction, but he needs to get his head back in the game of deterring Iran's nuclear ambitions. That subject has long been the only one with the tensile strength to overcome Iraq in the voters' minds. He should begin acting like he is president again and taking this issue and making it his centerpiece.

Sure, it was a stretch for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to say that time had run out on a critical debate over immigration reform because the U.S. Senate had to move on to the no-confidence vote on Alberto Gonzales. The attorney general certainly inspires confidence in no one, but any real attempt to impeach him or force his resignation would obviously begin in the Judiciary Committee, where ranking Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) seems ready to help. Democrats held their vote, which failed like they knew it would, but they dragged vulnerable Republicans on the record, just like they wanted to.

Was it Reid's idea or that of Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Oversight and Courts Subcommittee of Judiciary and of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee? The firing of U.S. attorneys from the Department of Justice has turned out to be just the sort of scandal the new majority needs to cement its fragile 51-49 majority in the next election, and not only is Schumer leading the investigation into the firings, he is leading the party's campaign. No matter how you shake it, as he hunts for facts he is hunting for dollars and votes. Read more...

Not to carry this too far, but I find I agree in part with Ron Christie, not maybe about all of Gen. Pace's decisions or comments (especially about gays), but about the process.

The Democrats are entitled to question and criticize Pace and focus on the Iraq war. They are entitled to vote against him if they so choose. But for this administration to pull the nomination because they didn't want to take on the issue of Iraq shows a lack of political courage and a lack of belief in their policies. OK, so they got blowback from Democrats — at this point they are getting blowback from practically everybody, no matter the political stripe or ideology. Read more...