Thursday, January 25, 2007
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Compiled by Stephen Bach CNN Washington Bureau Making news today... "I guess the pains of the hurricane are yesterday's news in Washington," Blanco said. President's Schedule: The president will return to the White House at 4:30 pm ET. Also on the Political Radar: ================================================================= Political Hot Topics (Today's top political stories from news organizations across the country) CHENEY DEFENDS IRAQ STRATEGY IN SITROOM INTERVIEW: Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday dismissed as "hogwash" the suggestion that blunders may have hurt the administration's credibility on Iraq and led members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to question President Bush's plan to send more troops to Baghdad. In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, conducted a day after Bush delivered his State of the Union address, Cheney was asked to respond to some Republicans in Congress who "are now seriously questioning your credibility, because of the blunders and the failures." To that, Cheney answered, "Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash." Cheney said the administration is committed to moving ahead with its plan to send more troops to Baghdad, even if Congress passes a resolution in opposition. CNN: Cheney: Talk of blunders in Iraq is 'hogwash' FULL TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW (pdf via CNN.com) SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES ANTI-SURGE RESOLUTION: A day after President Bush pleaded with Congress to give his Iraq policy one last chance, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee rebuffed him by approving a nonbinding resolution declaring his troop increase in Iraq to be against "the national interest." The committee voted 12 to 9 to send a resolution of disapproval of the president's Iraq policy to the Senate floor next week, setting up what could be the most dramatic confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration since the war was launched four years ago. Many Republicans voiced anguish over the president's policy, but only one, Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), a co-sponsor, voted in support of the resolution. Washington Post: Senators Rebuff Bush on Troop Plan GATES WANTS TO MINIMIZE "STOP-LOSS POLICY": Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is ordering military service chiefs to reduce the use of a controversial policy intended to keep troops in war zones beyond the end of their original commitments, according to a document obtained by The Hill. In a memo sent to the service chiefs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and undersecretaries of defense, Gates asked to see plans to minimize the use of the so-called stop-loss policy for active duty and reserve components by the end of next month. Gates's directive comes at a time when the White House's plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq by 21,500 is coming under intense criticism on both sides of the aisle, in part because it would extend the tours of duty of troops already on the ground and trigger stop-loss orders. The Hill: Pentagon cuts stop-loss TANCREDO PLEDGES TO FIGHT BUSH ON IMMIGRATION: House Republicans opposed to amnesty vowed yesterday to fight President Bush's proposal to legalize millions of illegal aliens as outlined in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. "The president worked hard to get a Congress that agrees with him on this and now he's got it," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, in reference to the Democratic takeover of both chambers of Congress in the November elections. "But we're still going to fight him on it." Mr. Bush on Tuesday reissued his call to welcome foreigners with a guest-worker plan, and he called for a path to citizenship for millions of those here illegally. Washington Times: GOP renews 'amnesty' defiance "EXASPERATED" REPUBLICANS LOOKING FOR PROMISED "RESPECT AND COMITY": Rep. Nancy Pelosi publicly and repeatedly pledged before November's election that if Democrats won a House majority and she became speaker they would treat Republicans with respect and comity and would foster bipartisanship. Instead, three weeks into a session in which the strong-willed Pelosi has rammed through important legislation and major rule changes, increasingly exasperated and angry Republicans are asking when the new Democratic speaker and her leadership team will keep their pledge to create a less-partisan, more-open atmosphere. San Francisco Chronicle: GOP in House call Dems heavy-handed ADVANCED AGE, HEALTH PROBLEMS OF SENATORS "RAISING QUESTIONS ABOUT THEIR ABILITY TO GOVERN": The average age of members of the U.S. Senate is older than it has ever been, according to Senate Historian Richard Baker. For many senators, advanced age is starting to show, raising questions about their ability to govern... The average age of the 100 senators is 62, up from 60 in the last Congress. Among the new Democratic committee chairmen, it is 69. And, of the five longest-serving senators, three are there today. Including the grand-daddy of seniority, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., 89. The Politico: Senate Shows Its Age; Health Problems Pose Challenge For Governing NEW RULES PUT A DAMPER ON SUPER BOWL EVENTS: With Super Bowl XLI set to kick off in the backyard of newly installed Republican National Committee Chairman Mel Martinez, the Miami event would appear to be the perfect setting for a high-dollar fundraiser. But the Florida Senator won't even be in the Sunshine State when the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts take the field on Feb. 4. Martinez isn't the only lawmaker who appears less than interested in trolling for campaign dollars and schmoozing with donors at such a high-profile event. Sources in the Capitol and on K Street say the glam and glitz of those big-ticket destinations has lost some of its shine in the new era of ethics and lobbying reform, the continuation of a trend in which the fundraising hoopla that surrounded events like the Super Bowl in years past diminished after the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002. Roll Call: Big Game? Not for D.C. Crowd BLANCO SLAMS BUSH FOR SOTU SNUB: Gov. Kathleen Blanco angrily criticized President Bush on Wednesday for not mentioning 2005's destructive hurricanes in his State of the Union speech, and said Louisiana is being shortchanged in federal recovery funding for political reasons. "I guess the pains of the hurricane are yesterday's news in Washington," Blanco said. "But for us it's still very real, very real, and it's something that we live every single day," the governor said. "But we will continue to fight, and we will continue to come on, and we will effect a recovery." Mayor Ray Nagin echoed Blanco's disappointment at Bush's omission of New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina, but he cautioned against reopening political rifts that developed after the storm. AP via NOLA.com: Blanco: Bush's speech shows hurricanes were 'yesterday's news' SOCIAL, ECONOMIC CONSERVATIVES ALSO STEAMED ABOUT WHAT BUSH DIDN'T SAY: Fallout from the war in Iraq, which already has weakened President Bush among the general public and in Congress, now is causing problems with the group that has been his mainstay: social and economic conservatives. These longtime loyalists, appreciative of Mr. Bush's record on issues ranging from tax cuts to his veto of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, also have supported his war policies. But Mr. Bush's annual State of the Union message Tuesday night aggravated their underlying fear: that the president might become so consumed by the worsening conflict in Iraq -- and chastened by Democrats' takeover of Congress -- that he will give up on the issues they care about. "I think the president left a lot of conservatives shaking their heads" by avoiding the issues atop their agenda, said Bill Lauderback, executive vice president at the American Conservative Union. Wall Street Journal: Bush's Conservative Base Frets D.C.'S NORTON, OTHER DELEGATES, GET "LARGELY SYMBOLIC" PRIVILEGE: The House gave D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton the right yesterday to vote on amendments to bills on the House floor, a privilege that legislators acknowledged is largely symbolic. The action, pushed through by the new Democratic-led House, restores a right that Norton (D) and four other non-state representatives received in 1993. It was taken away two years later, after Republicans won control of the House. Norton has been pushing for passage of a much broader bill that would give her a full vote. She supported the limited measure yesterday but expressed concern that it could slow the momentum toward giving the District a full vote by confusing activists and increasing tension with Republicans. Washington Post: Delegates Gain Limited Voting Rights WAS LIBBY THE FALL GUY TO PROTECT ROVE? AND IS THAT RELEVANT? [Scooter] Libby's lawyers said in an opening statement on Tuesday that he felt so abandoned by the White House as the leak investigation intensified in the fall of 2003 that he appealed to his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney subsequently wrote, according to the defense's opening statement: "Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meatgrinder because of the incompetence of others." The defense team's statements set off a debate across Washington about whether they were part of a legal gambit to divert attention from the underlying charge that Mr. Libby lied to F.B.I. agents and the grand jury or whether his lawyers had evidence of an effort within the White House to focus the blame on Mr. Libby. Even if the assertion is shown to be true, it is not clear how it would help refute the charges that Mr. Libby had perjured himself. New York Times: At the Libby Trial, Hints of Intrigue and Betrayal RUMSFELD'S TRANSITION OFFICE "HAS RAISED SOME EYEBROWS" AT THE PENTAGON: Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has left the Pentagon, but not the Defense Department. On Jan. 4, Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said. The Pentagon lists Mr. Rumsfeld as a "nonpaid consultant," a status he needs in order to review secret and top-secret documents, the official said. Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides, who include close adviser Stephen Cambone, are sifting through the thousands of pages of documents generated during his tenure. The Pentagon official said former secretaries are entitled to a transition office to sort papers, some of which can be taken with them for a library, for archives or to write a book. The transition office has raised some eyebrows inside the Pentagon. Washington Times: Rumsfeld's transition raises questions HEDGE FUNDER$ OFFER PIPELINE TO POTENTIAL DONORS: Hedge fund money, which now exceeds $1 trillion, has emerged in the last several years as a potentially powerful force in politics, as underscored by the significant role it is playing in the presidential aspirations of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani. During the 2006 election cycle, executives who work at the 30 biggest hedge funds made $2.8 million in contributions to political candidates or party committees, almost double the amount in 2000. Yet it is not just the money they donate directly that makes people in hedge funds attractive to campaigns. They also offer access to other potential donors in the financial world, which in recent election cycles has become one of the biggest sources of political contributions. New York Times: Hedge Fund Chiefs, With Cash, Join Political Fray INTERACTIVE, ADVANCED FEATURES ADDED TO CAMPAIGN SITES: As 2008 White House hopefuls seek to distinguish themselves in a crowded field, many have created rich and highly interactive Web sites to connect with voters and provide mouse-click entrée into campaign operations and the candidate's political and personal life. Features range from the quirky to the serious, with contenders employing vlogs, blogs, links to favorite pop-culture sites, and, in one case, a virtual map of supporters with instant communication capability... Several early Democratic favorites have embraced the message control that Web videos offer in this brand-conscious race: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., both announced their exploratory campaigns through online videos, allowing them to make direct, personal appeals to voters without the pesky intrusion of reporters' questions. The Politico: 2008 Sites Take Aim at Big Hits THE FEBRUARY '08 "COAST-TO-COAST BATTLEFIELD": As many as four big states -- California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey -- are likely to move up their 2008 presidential primaries to early next February, further upending an already unsettled nominating process and forcing candidates of both parties to rethink their campaign strategies, party officials said Wednesday. The changes, which seem all but certain to be enacted by state legislatures, mean that the presidential candidates face the prospect of going immediately from an ordered series of early contests in relatively small states in January to a single-day, coast-to-coast battlefield in February, encompassing some of the most expensive advertising markets in the nation. The changes would appear to benefit well-financed and already familiar candidates and diminish the prospects of those with less money and name recognition going into such a highly compressed series of contests early next year. New York Times: Big States' Push for Earlier Vote Scrambles Race NOT CLEAR IF OBAMA'S "MULTIRACIAL MESSAGE CAN EXCITE BLACK VOTERS": The question of how Obama chooses to define and approach race looms large as he moves closer to formally launching his campaign next month. Although he rides a wave of enthusiasm among Democrats who like his vision of a different kind of politics and see him as an alternative to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), it is not clear that his multiracial message can excite black voters hungry for affirmation of their top concerns... Some of Obama's longtime black supporters in Illinois are grumbling about the largely white crowd of advisers who now surround Obama as he gears up his national campaign... Complicating matters is that Obama appears certain to encounter fierce competition for the black vote from the other leading Democratic presidential contenders. Washington Post: Obama's Appeal to Blacks Remains an Open Question KERRY WILL FOCUS ON SENATE IN '08: A tearful Senator John F. Kerry launched the next phase of his Senate career yesterday with a vow to hasten an end to the Iraq war, as the man who spent the past four years gunning for the presidency turned his attention to building a statesmanlike legacy in the Senate. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, choked back tears on the Senate floor as he bowed out of the 2008 presidential race and said he would run for a fifth Senate term next year. He said his mission would mirror the one he brought to Congress with his famous Senate testimony in the midst of the Vietnam War: to end an unpopular war. Boston Globe: Charting a future as Senator Kerry |
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The CNN Political Ticker provides the latest political news.To sign up for our twice daily Ticker emails, visit CNN.com member services page. If you do not have a CNN.com account, you can register here. If you have any feedback, suggestions or news tips, drop us a line here. NEW IN THE TICKER
• Senate committee approves Petraeus as Iraq militar...• Edwards offers Kerry his 'best wishes' • Byrd says Bush needs congressional OK for widening... • Lou Holtz to address House Republicans • Sharpton to discuss civil rights issues with four ... • Cheney: Talk of blunders in Iraq is 'hogwash' • Clinton favors public financing, but opts out • Kerry: 'This isn't the time' for a White House bid... • Cheney: Bin Laden still alive • VP shrugs off McCain, mildly criticizes Clinton SUBSCRIBE
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