Posted by Mark Silva at 6:15 am CDT
The first look around the Swamp today finds the biggest story of the hour: President Bush promising a court battle if Democratic congressional leaders make good on their threats of subpeonaing White House officials in the investigation of the firings of several federal prosecutors. There is plenty more out there as well, in these crisp transitional days before the cherry blossoms come into full bloom.
We’ve got Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and “Ah-nold” in the scope:
NO FISHING: A defiant President Bush vowed Tuesday to fight any effort by Congress to compel the testimony of top White House advisers about the firing of federal prosecutors, setting up a potential constitutional showdown and the first major direct confrontation with the new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill, the Tribune reports this morning.
The president also defended embattled Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales and accused Democrats more broadly of trying to score “political points” rather than “gather facts” over the dismissal of eight United States attorneys. He offered instead to release all White House communications related to the issue and to allow the aides to be interviewed privately but not under oath, a proposal that Democrats rejected.
“There is no indication that anybody did anything improper,” the president said during a brief statement in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, standing before a portrait of George Washington as he asserted the presidential prerogative of confidentiality in his office and fielding a few questions about the dispute. “We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants.” RAISING BENJAMINS — Candidates for the 2008 presidential election are collecting contributions at a record-setting pace and are racing to load their schedules with fundraising events ahead of March 31, the campaign’s cutoff for financial reports that will be filed next month, the Washington Post notes, with a nod toward the tens of millions of dollars that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to show in her first report.
Clinton (D-N.Y.) mingled with about a thousand donors last night at Washington’s Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for her campaign’s second million-dollar-plus fundraiser in three days. It is not simply Clinton’s outsize fundraising power driving the vacuum-cleaner mentality, the Post says. A confluence of other factors — including voter dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, wide-open fields in both parties, higher donation caps, and a rush by large states such as California and Texas to move their primaries to the front of the nominating process — has compelled campaigns to establish virtually round-the-clock fundraising schedules, with candidates and surrogates participating in sometimes a dozen events or more in a day. Her campaign officially has projected a $15 million first-quarter lunch, which means it will probably be much higher.
The result: More than a year and a half before the election, the collective field could match in a single quarter the nearly $100 million that President Bush raised during his entire record-breaking primary effort two presidential cycles ago. Election Commission last week. See the story.
GORE ENCORE: the Democratic presidential nominee of 2000, the one who won the popular vote, returns to Capitol Hill today. The last time Al Gore appeared publicly inside the United States Capitol, he was certifying the Electoral College victory of President George W. Bush in that 2000 election, the New York Times notes.
Gore returns today, a heartbreak loser turned Oscar boasting Nobel hopeful globe trotting multimillionaire pop culture eminence, as the Timesmen put it. For Gore, who calls himself a “recovering politician,” returning to Capitol Hill is akin to a recovering alcoholic returning to a neighborhood bar. He will, in all likelihood, deliver his favorite refrain about how “political will is a renewable resource” and how combating global warming is the “greatest challenge in the history of mankind.”
He will also embrace old friends, pose (or not) for cellphone photos and greet the legion of climate change disciples who swear by the “Goracle” as a contemporary sage, the Times reports. And, of course, he will be asked whether he plans to run for president in 2008, something he has said no to a million times or so, if never quite definitively. On Tuesday at a Washington hotel, where Mr. Gore addressed a group of institutional investors, he was urged on accordingly. “Run, Al, run,” one attendee shouted. See the story.
AGENDA’S IN THE MAIL: The Washington Times notes, perhaps with some glee, today that “none of the elements of the newly minted Democrats’ congressional agenda have made it to President Bush’s desk,” and the prospects of signature bills such as federal funding for stem-cell research or homeland-security improvements becoming law any time soon are doubtful.
Much of the Democratic agenda — dubbed “Six for ’06” — sailed out of the House with bipartisan support, but all of it has stalled in the Senate as leaders scramble to deal with the Iraq war. “I don’t think they’ve gotten anything done,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio said of the Democrats. “How many bills have they sent to the president? None? Somewhere around there.”
A minimum-wage increase, which seems the most likely of the Democratic plans to get Bush’s signature, has not yet been sent to the president because House and Senate leaders are still bickering over specifics. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland last week grumbled over what he called a “slowdown” in the Senate, while acknowledging his counterpart in that chamber has an uphill battle to pass legislation in a closely divided body. “I would like to have passed them all by now,” he said. “I’m frustrated by it, yes.” See the story.
COLD WAR-STYLE ARMS DEALS: The State Department and the Pentagon are quietly seeking congressional approval for significant new military sales to US allies in the Persian Gulf region, the Boston Globe reportss. This is part of a broader American strategy to contain Iranian influence by strengthening Iran’s neighbors and signaling that the United States is still a strong military player in the Middle East.
But the arms sales, which follow a recent upgrade of US Patriot antimissile interceptors in Qatar and Kuwait and the deployment of two aircraft carriers to the Gulf, could spark concerns that further U.S. military buildup in the volatile region would bring Washington closer to a confrontation with Iran.
Senior U.S. officials have been tight-lipped in public about what systems they hope to sell, citing the need to get congressional support for the measure first and skittishness among Arab allies that don’t want the publicity, the Globe notes. Current and former US officials and analysts familiar with the discussions say items under consideration include sophisticated air and missile defense systems, advanced early warning radar aircraft that could detect low-flying missiles, and light coastal combat ships that could sweep the Gulf for mines and gather underwater intelligence. The arms sales are a Cold War-style geopolitical maneuver designed to isolate Iran by arming its neighbors against a perceived common threat. See the story.
NOT RUSH’S SERVANT — This story plays out far beyond the horizon of the Swamp, yet somehow stories such as these have a way of coming home to Washington eventually: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of Calee-foh-neea says he is not Rush Limbaugh’s ”servant.” The Los Angeles Times has the story.
After repeatedly being asked about his conservative critics, including talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped his diplomatic veneer Tuesday and declared their views irrelevant to his work in California, the Times notes. “All irrelevant. Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant. I am not his servant,” the governor said on NBC’s “Today” show.
Limbaugh quickly declared on his own radio program that Schwarzenegger, lacking the communications skills to persuade Californians of his Republican values, had sold them out. “If he had the leadership skills to articulate conservative principles and win over the public as [former President] Reagan did, then he would have stayed conservative,” said Limbaugh, often seen as the embodiment of all conservative viewpoints.
The tiff marks Schwarzenegger’s most high-profile repudiation of a conservative critic. Many fellow Republicans view his support of stem-cell research, mandatory curbs on carbon dioxide emissions and universal healthcare as a betrayal of his party’s ideals. In the NBC interview, Schwarzenegger said he was “the people’s servant of California.” See the story.
