The Administration

A smart press strategy by Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) crack staff has muffled the potential political explosion of his announced support of an amendment to cut off funding for the troops as they fight in Iraq. But this story is not going away. In fact, Reid’s announcement is not merely a political tactic to get President Bush to the negotiating table. It is philosophical dogma to the hard left of the Democratic Party.

Democratic leftists want us to leave Iraq now. They wanted us to leave Vietnam, too, and guess what happened there. A communist takeover of Saigon, massacres, genocide and a crisis of confidence in the United States that led to a weakening of American influence from Iran to South America to Africa. Read more...

We barely had time to react to Matthew Dowd’s bomb of a confessional Sunday when another one exploded on Monday. Vic Gold, longtime friend of President George H.W. Bush and the Cheneys, has also left the reservation with a big, hot blast.

“For all the Rove-built facade of his being a ‘strong’ chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out-of-touch president in modern times ... Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots.” These are not the words of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) but of Gold in his new book, Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP. Read more...

April 15th. Yes, it’s tax day, but we all want to forget that. The other significance of that date? Bush really seems serious about focusing on it as the day “we will run out of money in Iraq.” He is playing politics with the war, just as he has since he started the conflict. Instead of working with Congress and finding a solution, Bush thinks he will have a Clinton-Gingrich budget-shutdown moment.

Of course, this is the administration that told troops “you go to war with the equipment you have” and proclaimed our veterans’ care was “fully funded.” Right. This is the administration that fired a general when he told the American people that the war might cost as much as $200 billion. Hmm. This is the administration and president who have been accused by the military and many Republicans of trying to wage a war “on the cheap.” Please. Read more...

Having just returned from a brief vacation, where I looked back at Washington from the Left Coast, I saw little blurbs of gossip and information that from far away reveal the big picture.

Here are the bits that came through the news:

1. Tony Snow, the best thing that has happened to this White House in four years, has cancer again, and it may have spread to his liver. This is bad and very sad news for all who know Tony personally and for this White House team that needs his leadership.


2. The Iranians' seizure of 15 British marines is needlessly provocative and possibly much more significant geopolitically than has been acknowledged by the White House thus far.


3. The Democrats are having a field day beating up the executive branch, especially the Justice Department, and the Attorney General has done a fairly lousy job explaining himself. Getting thrown under the bus by his ex-chief of staff yesterday was not helpful.


4. The Democrats finally won a short-term victory on the war supplemental. They got their votes, and some Republicans’, and now they have a bill that will surely be vetoed by the President. It is too early to tell who won this battle, and only God knows how much pork has yet to be added to get the conference report to final passage.


5. So here is the Big Picture. Washington is screwing around, playing political games here at home, while the Iranians are licking their chops and hoping that we leave Iraq so that they can finally dominate once and for all their neighbor and long-time adversary. The Iranians are so confident that they can win the endgame that they are playing a risky game of hardball by seizing those British Marines and then parading them on television. They are calculating that we have a weak hand because of our political shenanigans, and that we won’t do what it takes to win this game in the long run. I hope they are wrong, but given the realities of the situation today, they may be right.

Congress should promote and the president should appoint former Sen. John Danforth to replace Alberto Gonzales -- now.

Jack Danforth is one of the most respected and admired Americans in public life.  He is a lawyer of premier intellect and stature, a minister of unquestioned integrity and faith, and a Republican who is admired on both sides of the aisle in the Senate.

When I worked for Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Danforth was a friend and collaborator of Bentsen's and I saw his work up close. He is truly outstanding on every level.  While Sen. Bentsen has left us, I feel very confident suggesting that he would volunteer to be at Sen. Danforth's side, introducing him at confirmation.

While confirmation hearings for any Attorney General will and should raise hard and controversial issues, hearings for Danforth would elevate bipartisanship and civility.

Sen. Bentsen accomplished many great things. One issue we talked about often and at great length, which we could not accomplish, was his passionate judgment that the Attorney General should be an independent figure of stature, far above partisan politics.

If ever there were a president who needed an Attorney General of universal crediblity and independent legal stature, it is George Bush. Yes, there are many scandals to come, from the years of one party Republican rule and a president who believes his personal whims and ideologies take precedence over the time-honored requirement of faithfully executing the law.

The President is on extremely dangerous ground right now and personally engenders profound levels of partisanship, anger and even hate among far too many Americans and among America's friends around the world.  Read more...

When we take the dress off the pig, today Kyle Sampson said Alberto Gonzales is a liar.

The attorney general told the Congress and the nation he was not involved in the firings of U.S. attorneys. We can dress this up nine different ways, we can use the weasel words of official Washington, but this is clear:

Alberto Gonzales lied.

Here is the problem for the President:

He wants to replace Gonzales but has extreme problems finding a successor who is both honest and will accept the job.

The president is afraid of an honest attorney general because the trail of wrongdoing would be exposed by an AG who faithfully executes the law.

The president cannot get an AG who will play the cover-up game, because the cover-up AG candidates won’t accept the job for fear of being indicted.

This is an administration full of Scooter Libbys protecting Dick Cheneys. Read more...

I just watched President Bush join his Republican congressional allies at the White House to denounce publicly, once again, the Democrats' attempts to load the supplemental with pork and force a withdrawal date of U.S. forces from Iraq. There's no question the White House is in full throttle on this effort, and when you have the bully pulpit, you command attention.

But I fear the enemies/the terrorists/al Qaeda have already won. Think about it: By trying to legislate what nearly every American is feeling — bring the troops home — we have signaled to the insurgents that we admit defeat. I'm not trying to be Pollyanna-ish about this — that's the statement! Why am I so sure? Because terrorist organizations prey on uncertainties and indecision, and America is definitely full of that today. To the terrorists in their bombed-out shells of buildings in Basra today, perception governs reality. And the image they will peddle throughout the Islamic world is that they are on the verge of winning, however "winning" is defined, but winning nonetheless. Read more...

The question is: As the sun sets on the era of George W. Bush, which the American people deeply want to conclude, what comes next?

My proposal: the spirit and leadership in the tradition of JFK, not only in word, but in deed, asking not only what is easy, but what is hard.

When Congress returns, I hope to initiate a modest enterprise here on The Hill.

In the print edition I'll be writing a column with a panoramic view of the calls to action that JFK might issue were he with us today. Read more...

After all the talk about Elizabeth Edwards, here’s more bad news: White House spokesman Tony Snow’s cancer has also come back, and spread from the abdomen into the liver.

Enough already! I’ve read the book, but I still don’t understand why so many bad things happen to so many good people. And yes, I include Tony Snow on my list of good people.

Sure, we disagree on almost all the issues, and we have for a long time. I’ve debated the issues on his radio show; he’s been a guest on mine. And a few times, we went out on the road together as a left/right dog-and-pony show. Read more...

Let me get this straight: We now have a second-tier staffer pleading the Fifth? Of course, no one WANTS to testify before Congress on "Prosecutor-Gate." Especially when you know that what you have to say can bring down your boss or your boss’s boss. In this case, the AG is as good as gone anyway but what about Karl “the man” Rove?

Monica Goodling, the Justice Department liaison with the White House, knows a lot. She has also hired one of the best trial lawyers in the country, John Dowd. But her boss Kyle Sampson will testify this week. Why can’t she? Hard to believe she has more at stake than he does. I can see why Karl and Harriet Miers want to pass on making the truck up Pennsylvania Avenue, but pleading the Fifth when you are “the other Monica” doesn’t make much sense to me.

Dowd is trying the Libby defense — watch out, you can get prosecuted for lying. Duh! After all, wasn’t that what the anti-Clinton Republicans were screaming about for three years?

Let’s hope that Ms. Goodling does not lead a parade of Fifth Amendment pleaders in this cover-up. Of course, we all know what that does to the end result — the truth comes out … eventually. And the longer they drag this out the worse off they all will be.