Archive: June 20, 2005
"Coming to office after the more casual Clinton administration," President Bush "imposed a strict dress code and standards of promptness for employees, visitors and even the rumpled press corps," the
Houston Chronicle reports.
"Members of the White House press corps understand that, as a rule, touching the furniture in the Oval Office is strictly forbidden. Even when Bush brings a group of journalists in for an informal chat, he does not invite them to sit."
It's a far cry from the "
total wreck" Bush lived in while in Alabama in 1972.
Should there be a vacancy in the Supreme Court, the White House is prepared to "roll out" a nominee "almost immediately if dictated by strategy and calendar," the
Austin American-Statesman reports. The first move for the White House would be a decision on timing. "The goal is to move quickly, but not if it leaves a nominee hanging out as a target until after the Senate's August recess."
Meanwhile, according to the
New York Times, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has not yet told his colleagues his plans. Itís believed that he has not yet informed President Bush, either.
"I thought Durbin was totally out of line. I watched some of his
comments on the floor of the United States Senate. For him to make those comparisons was one of the more egregious things I'd ever heard uttered on the floor of the United States Senate."
-- Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview with radio host
Steve Gill. Perhaps the vice president has forgetten his own
flare up with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) last year?
Update:
Andrew Sullivan says "I've now read and re-read Senator Dick Durbin's comments on interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. They are completely, perfectly respectable. The rank hysteria being perpetrated by some on the right is what is shameful...
"I'm just amazed that some can view what has happened and their first instinct is to attack those who have criticized it, rather than those who have perpetrated it. It is this administration that has brought indelible shame on America, and it's people like Dick Durbin who prove that some can actually stand up against this stain on American honor and call it what it is. Good for him. Thank God for him."
The
New Yorker runs a fascinating profile of Patrick Henry College, an institution "that trains young Christians to be politicians." In the days before the 2004 election, all students were excused from classes "because so many of them were working on campaigns or wanted to go to the swing states to get out the vote for George W. Bush."
Most interesting fact: Eighty-five percent of the students are homeschooled before entering college.
"In conservative circles, however, homeschoolers are considered something of an Èlite, rough around the edges but pure -- in their focus, capacity for work, and ideological clarity -- a view that helps explain why the Republican establishment has placed its support behind Patrick Henry, and why so many conservative politicians are hiring its graduates."
Analysts speculate that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchisonís (R-TX) decision to
forgo a gubernatorial race was based, in part, on her ambitions for 2008. Her announcement will "solidify her nationally at a time when Republican women seem poised for higher office," the
Washington Times reports. "Mrs. Hutchison is vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and with her high public profile she has been touted as a possible vice presidential candidate in 2008."
The
Dallas Morning News reports that Hutchinsonís re-election as a senator "would be virtually guaranteed," and that could "make Ms. Hutchison an attractive choice for vice president."
Meanwhile, lobbyist Bill Miller told the
San Antonio Express News, "The Republicans are going to want a woman on the ticket. She's attractive. She's articulate. She's from Texas. She's kind of the Hillary counterpart on the Republican side."
Billionaire Tom Golisano is being wooed by Republican leaders in New York to run if, as expected, Gov. George Pataki (R) "doesn't seek a fourth term next year," the
Rochester Democrat Chronicle reports. Golisano, who has run for governor three times on the Independence Party ticket, has met with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R) to discuss his interest in the race, and several other Republican heavyweights have "met with him or have put out feelers."
The
Washington Post fronts an interesting and lengthy piece on Mark Felt, a.k.a. Deep Throat.
"By day, Felt was the loyal, super-efficient government executive, ordering leak investigations and writing obsequious notes to acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray. By night, in 2 a.m. meetings with Bob Woodward in an underground parking garage, he fulminated against the dirty tricks of the Nixon White House and worried about threats to the U.S. Constitution."
Meanwhile,
David Corn wonders why he wasn't given credit in the story.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) "is in the last stages of editing her new novel,"
A Time to Run, which will be published in November.
"The book, co-written with Mary-Rose Hayes, follows the political path of Ellen Fischer, the wife of a Senate candidate who dies during the campaign,"
The Hill reports. "Fischer takes over the campaign and overcomes all odds to win the Senate seat. When an old love interest re-enters her life, there are serious political and romantic ramifications."
"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
-- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), quoted in
U.S. News and World Report.
With Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) saying he
intends to run for President in 2008, it's worth visiting the
Washington Post's archives to remember the events that forced him from the race in 1988.
As potential presidential candidates gear up their campaigns,
Roll Call notes that "no fewer than five" political consulting firms "have multiple candidates mulling over 2008 presidential runs." Polling firms are in the same situation.
"The talent primary is perhaps the most behind-the-scenes of fights in the run-up to the nomination -- but also one of its most important."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-TN) "second trip to South Carolina in less than a month is a sign the Tennessee Republican is testing his political potency in a key state in the 2008 presidential primary," the
AP reports.
When asked about his future after leaving the Senate next year, Frist said, "I'm thinking about being a medical missionary, I'm thinking about returning to my cardiac-surgical practice and doing heart transplants where I have the opportunity to making people's lives better who are going to die of heart disease and I'm thinking of other ways of public service, including government."
"I've just never wanted to do it... I didn't run for class president any time that I can remember."
-- Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in a
Fox News interview, on why she's not going to run for president.
"Five months after President Bush was sworn in for another four years, his political authority appears to be ebbing, both within his own party, where members of Congress are increasingly if sporadically going their own way, and among Democrats, who have discovered that they pay little or no price for defying him," the
New York Times reports.
"The cumulative effect of his difficulties in the last few months has been to pierce the sense of dominance that he sought to project after his re-election and to heighten concerns among Republicans in Congress that voters will hold them, as the party in power, responsible for failure to address the issues of most concern to the public."
Reuters has a similar-themed article, noting Bush "is struggling to regain the confidence of Americans concerned about the direction of the Iraq war and the U.S. economy."
Newsweek looks at the impending breakup of the AFL-CIO and what it means to Democratic politics.
"For reasons of philosophy, money and ego -- the Potomac power mixóthe slice of America that used to be called 'Big Labor' may soon collapse. A breakup would have broad implications in the workplace, pitting one set of unions, and one vision of unionism, against another. In politics, it would create competing spheres with one of them -- the renegades -- more willing to work with Republicans and more focused on organizing drives than on electoral politics."
Sen. Robert Byrd's
new autobiography "is the latest in a long series of attempts by the 87-year-old Democratic patriarch to try to explain an event early in his life" -- his membership in the Klu Klux Klan --"that threatens to define him nearly as much as his achievements in the Senate," the
Washington Post reports.
Byrd's "latest account is consistent with others he has offered over the years that tend to minimize his direct involvement with the Klan and explain it as a youthful indiscretion."
The
Charleston Gazette says the book often reads "like a personal diary."
The November special election called by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) "has muddled the nascent campaigns of several dozen contenders for statewide office just as the 2006 races are taking shape," the
Los Angeles Times reports.
"Measures on the November ballot will devour millions of dollars that might otherwise flow to the 2006 candidates. The special election -- smack in the middle of their campaigns -- is also likely to disrupt efforts by the wide field of early contestants to rouse public attention."
As New York Gov. George Pataki (R) "prepares to reveal his political plans for 2006," New York's Republican Party "is riven by conflicts in finding formidable candidates for three key races next year: for governor, attorney general and the United States Senate seat held by Hillary Rodham Clinton," the
New York Times reports.
"This unusual early state of anxiety about 2006 has built up over months of silence from Mr. Pataki, whose campaigns have been a center of gravity for the party for a dozen years. He has signaled that he will decide on whether to run for a fourth term in the next few weeks, and if he does not run - as is the conventional wisdom in the capital -- Republicans fear the Democrats could win control of all major statewide offices for the first time in generations."
Pennsylania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) has "a huge head start" on his potential Republican competitors in 2006, having raised $7.2 million in re-election funds, the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. As in his first race, Rendell hopes to surpass $40 million in total campaign contributions.
