The Senate unanimously approved a patch to fix the deep cuts that have furloughed air traffic controllers and delayed flights across the country, NBC News reports.
“The House could take the bill up tomorrow and pass it with 2/3 support of that chamber. All of this was a last minute scramble to avert a crisis that was becoming more and more politically problematic by the day.”
Harry Enten: “Bush’s retrospective approval is the second worst among presidents in the last 50 years ago. To save you doing the math, Carter’s 52% approval rating is higher than Bush’s 47%. Only the Watergate-tainted Richard Nixon recorded a lower retrospective approval than Bush… Thus, not only did Bush tie for the second worst final approval rating while in office, but he is also has the second worst retrospective job approval rating.”
A new Survey USA poll in Los Angeles finds Wendy Greuel has surged into a small lead over Eric Garcetti, 45% to 42%.
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“From the day I asked Dick to run with me, he served with loyalty, principle and strength. Proud to call you friend.”
— Former President George W. Bush, in remarks about former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Week lists the nice things President Obama and Bill Clinton said about George W. Bush today at the dedication of his presidential library.
The Daily Beast has a photo gallery of the festivities.
David Leonhardt: “The rise in approval ratings of former President George W. Bush has received some attention this week, in advance of the opening of his presidential library in Dallas. But that rise is exactly what one would expect, based on the history of other ex-presidents’ approval ratings.”
Ron Brownstein: “What could dissolve the powerful electoral coalition that powered both of President Obama’s victories? The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll points to the greatest risk: continuing economic dissatisfaction.”
House Republicans “will take on the immigration issue in bite-size pieces, shunning pressure to act quickly and rejecting the comprehensive approach embraced in the Senate,” the AP reports.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) also “declined to commit to finishing immigration legislation this year… The approach Goodlatte sketched out was not a surprise, but it was a sign of the obstacles ahead of congressional passage of the kind of far-reaching immigration legislation sought by Obama and introduced last week in the Senate by four Republican and four Democratic lawmakers.”
Matt Taibbi: “Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world’s largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.”
“You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates… That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world’s largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world’s largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps.”
During his speech at the dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library, Salon notes Bill Clinton joked about Bush’s dog and landscape paintings – as well as those nude paintings of Bush himself in the shower.
Said Clinton: “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to anyway. Your mother showed me some of your landscapes and animal paintings and I thought they were great. Really great. And I seriously considered calling you and asking you to do a portrait of me until I saw the results of your sister’s hacked e-mails. Those bathroom sketches were wonderful, but at my age I think I should keep my suit.”
The White House said that U.S. intelligence agencies now assess, with “varying degrees of confidence,” that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, the New York Times reports.
While former President George W. Bush says he wants his brother Jeb to run for president in 2016, their always-blunt mother told CNN she feels differently.
Said Mrs. Bush: “He’s by far the best qualified man, but no. I really don’t. I think it’s a great country. There are a lot of great families, and it’s not just four families or whatever. There are other people out there that are very qualified and we’ve had enough Bushes.”
Stu Rothenberg looks at Mark Sanford’s flailing comeback attempt in South Carolina and concludes, “Republicans are on quite a streak when it comes to throwing
away elections.”
“This tossup contest tilts toward the Democrat.
If Colbert Busch wins the seat next month, it won’t be because most
voters wanted her to represent them in Congress. It will be because many
voters — Republican voters — concluded that Sanford was unacceptable.”
“With Congress and the flying public up in arms over airline delays
caused by Federal Aviation Administration furloughs, lawmakers seem
somehow caught off guard by the extent of the problem caused by the
sequester,” Roll Call reports.
A day before sharing the stage with his Republican predecessor, President Obama raised money for Democrats at a supporter’s sprawling home in Texas, the AP reports.
“Even as he sought to build up his party on Wednesday, Obama hinted at a more bipartisan tone set to envelop Dallas on Thursday, when the Obamas attend the dedication ceremony for former President George W. Bush’s presidential library. He vigorously defended the Republican whose record as president he derided in both of his presidential campaigns.”
First Read: “Meanwhile, are we the only ones surprised that Obama decided to hit a fundraiser in Dallas last night… It’s an odd tone.”
First Read: “To be sure, Bush supporters tout his accomplishments, such as the No Child Left Behind education law, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the Africa/AIDS work, and the Roberts-Alito appointments to the Supreme Court. Other events — like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 financial crisis — would have challenged any president.”
“But it’s the Iraq War that Bush will find hard to escape. After all, it was a war of choice that resulted in the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, the deaths of many more civilians, the destabilization of the Middle East (think Iran would be the threat it is today without the Iraq War?), and the election of Barack Obama in 2008 (who essentially campaigned against Bush in his two winning elections). More importantly, the war’s primary justification — Iraq having weapons of mass destruction — turned out to be incorrect.”
“He’d be a marvelous candidate if he chooses to do so. He doesn’t need my counsel ’cause he knows what it is, which is ‘run.'”
— George W. Bush, in an interview with ABC News, urging brother Jeb Bush to run for president in 2016.
New York Times: “It has become an awkward ritual of the modern presidency that the current occupant of the Oval Office is called upon to deliver a generous historical judgment of the previous one. With the opening of each new presidential library, the members of the world’s most exclusive fraternity put aside partisan differences to honor the shared experience of running the nation in difficult times.”
“The task in such moments is especially acute when, as with Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush, the current and previous presidents come from opposing parties and such different sensibilities. The incumbent must hit grace notes without appearing inconsistent with past criticism or, worse, hypocritical. Sometimes a president goes through the motions, dutifully reading what aides put before him. Other times, library dedications have become bonding moments when presidents genuinely grow closer.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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