Updated Karl Rove, the top adviser to former President Bush, and Harriet Miers, a former White House counsel in the previous administration, will give testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in its investigation of the firings of United States attorneys, House leaders announced tonight.
The two will give sworn depositions; the Judiciary Committee reserved the right to ask them to testify in public.
For the moment, the agreement appears to have ended a lengthy standoff between top Bush advisers and Congressional leaders who had tried to compel them to testify under oath. Many of the attorneys’ firings were criticized as political, and the controversy led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Just four days before Mr. Bush left office this year, his most recent White House counsel, Fred Fielding, had advised Mr. Rove that he should continue to resist testifying before Congress. The Bush White House had asserted that Mr. Rove had immunity from having to testify about advice he had given to the president and that these matters were protected under executive privilege.
We will see what happens when Karl Rove sits before the House Judiciary Committee.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Earlier this week, Sen. Patrick Leahy called for a special commission to investigate possible government wrongdoing by the Bush administration in its anti-terror policies, as well as possible attempts to politicize the Justice Department through the firing of U.S. attorneys who were viewed as potentially disloyal to the administration. While Americans appear to support some kind of investigation into these matters, no more than 41% favor criminal probes.
These results are based on a Jan. 30-Feb. 1 USA Today/Gallup poll. In addition to Leahy's recent call for a "truth commission" that would investigate but not prosecute Bush administration officials, a House committee led by Rep. John Conyers is awaiting responses to subpoenas of former Bush administration officials regarding Bush-era policies and actions.
For each of three controversial actions or policies of the Bush administration, survey respondents were asked whether there should be a criminal investigation by the Justice Department or an investigation by an independent panel that would issue a report of findings but not seek any criminal charges, or whether neither should be done.
While no more than 41% of Americans favor a criminal investigation into any of the matters, at least 6 in 10 say there should be either a criminal investigation or an independent probe into all three. This includes 62% who favor some type of investigation into the possible use of torture when interrogating terrorism suspects, 63% who do so with respect to the possible use of telephone wiretaps without obtaining a warrant, and 71% who support investigating possible attempts to use the Justice Department for political purposes.
So far, President Obama has been reluctant to pursue such investigations, but Leahy and Conyers in particular are calling for an accounting of what happened on Bush's watch.
A couple of points here. It is obvious that the Obama administration doesn't want a congressional investigation into the Bush administration wrongdoings--George W. Bush is out of the White House, and President Obama wants Congress to concentrate on cleaning up the Bush administration messes with the reforms in the financial industry, housing, the economy, the frozen credit market, and such. There may also be a fear that, if the Obama administration concentrates heavily into investigations of the previous Bush administration, then President Obama may be on the receiving end of investigations by a successive Republican White House, or Congress, intent on exacting revenge against the Obama administration. Instead of political brinkmanship here, you could call this political fearmanship.
Unfortunately, President Obama is completely wrong here. Too many wrongdoings and criminality by the Bush administration have been exposed during the past eight years. We all know what those wrongdoings were--the Bush domestic spying program, the use of torture, the Valerie Plame outing, the politicization of the Justice Department, and the firing of the U.S. attorneys. As much as I would like to see criminal investigations into some of the top Bush administration officials--particularly Dick Cheney and Karl Rove--I seriously doubt that any criminal investigations, or indictments, will be handed down against these officials. Instead, I'll accept the independent, or congressional, investigations into the causes for these Bush wrongdoings, and what steps could be taken to stop a future administration from engaging in these same criminal acts. However, the American people are demanding these investigations, as per the Gallup poll.
One interesting detail here is, again, the partisanship that divides American opinions regarding the investigations into the Bush administration:
Perhaps not unexpectedly, a majority of Democratic identifiers favor a criminal probe into all three matters -- including 54% who do so with respect to warrantless wiretaps, 51% for the possible use of torture, and 52% for the firing of U.S. attorneys.
In contrast, Republicans are most likely to oppose any type of investigation, including a majority who say so in regard to the possible use of torture (54%) and warrantless wiretaps (56%). Republicans are more receptive to an investigation into possible efforts to politicize the Justice Department, with 24% favoring a criminal probe and 28% in favor of an independent panel report. Still, the greatest number (43%) of Republicans think there should be no investigation into the Justice Department matter.
Independents' views on all three matters fall in between those of Republicans and Democrats, with a majority favoring some type of investigation but (unlike Democrats) not a criminal probe.
There is not much to say here. Democrats are angry at the past eight years of Bush wrongdoing, and they want punishment enacted against the top Bush officials. Of course, the top three Bush wrongdoings are the domestic spying, torture, and U.S. attorney firings--all three have been written in the news media, and on liberal blogs. So it is now wonder that Democrats want criminal investigations enacted against the Bush administration officials. In contrast, the Republicans want these investigations to end. President Bush is out of the White House, so let's end the investigations. It is ironic that a majority of Republicans are against investigations into torture and domestic spying. I'm guessing that the Republicans want to cover up these potential Bush administration abuses, fearing a combination of criminal charges handed down against former Bush officials, and a further tarnishing of a failed Bush legacy. So the political partisanship continues on.
Sometimes I come across stories that are just so absurd that I wonder how these stories even make it into the news--or are some of these folks involved in these stories that stupid? This one from the New York Times makes me wonder who doesn't have any clothes on? From the NY Times:
At least one prominent former Bush official has the following message for President Obama: I don’t care if it’s warm enough to grow orchids in the Oval Office. Put your suit jacket on.
In an interview scheduled to run Wednesday night, Andrew H. Card Jr. told the syndicated news show Inside Edition that “there should be a dress code of respect” in the White House and that he wished Mr. Obama “would wear a suit coat and tie.”
Mr. Card, who was George W. Bush’s first chief of staff, becomes the first member of that famously buttoned-up administration to criticize the more relaxed Obama dress code.
“The Oval Office symbolizes…the Constitution, the hopes and dreams, and I’m going to say democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it’s appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the President.”
Mr. Card went on to add that, while he would not criticize Mr. Obama for his appearance, “I do expect him to send the message that people who are going to be in the Oval Office should treat the office with the respect that it has earned over history.”
You can listen to Andrew Card's comments on President Obama's dress code here via YouTube:
Now personally, I could care less what the dress code is for President Obama, or even the dress code was for George W. Bush--I'm more concerned about how our leadership will react to the challenges, and crisis, that this country faces each day. I consider George W. Bush a failure in office--not because of what he wore in office, but rather the long-term damage he wrought upon this country with his misguided economic policies, his disastrous war in Iraq, his domestic spying on Americans, his trampling of legal rights, his politicizing the Justice Department with the firing of the U.S. attorneys, his use of torture--the list goes on. And yet here is Andrew Card claiming that a dress code symbolizes the Constitution, when Card's own boss used the Constitution as toilet paper for eight years--while wearing a suit jacket? Mr. Card, are you that much of a frickin' moron?
The knives are already out just two weeks after Bush left the White House, as some of his closest friends and former aides begin lobbing sharp criticisms at the Obama administration.
The comments mark a departure from the general rules of decorum that held sway during the final weeks of the Bush administration, when the departing president and his aides made a point of fostering a cordial relationship with the Obama team. Bush himself has refrained from criticism so far, making no public remarks since returning to Texas.
"It's certainly unbecoming, especially for a former vice president," Thomas E. Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, said in reference to the remarks by Cheney and others. "It reinforces the fact that there's a lot of bitterness about the low public standing of Bush and the administration as they left office, and the soaring standing of Barack Obama. A lot of these people are still caught up in these ideological battles and can't let go."
Now this is a very interesting analysis here. We've come off a very bitter election, where the GOP spin-machine threw the kitchen sink at Democratic candidate Barack Obama with terrorism fears, Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, character assassinations--everything they could throw at Obama, in the hope that it would stick, and force Obama's poll numbers down before the November election. Not only did the Republican Party fail to keep Obama from being elected into the White House, but they also lost seats in both the U.S. Senate, and the House. The GOP got spanked in last November's election. Instead of reflecting why the Republicans got spanked, and determining how to adjust their political policies to reflect the electorate's concerns, these former Bush aids seem more concern in lashing out against President Obama in petty bitterness. According to the WaPost:
Other historians and political experts say that, in general, former presidents and their senior aides tend to withhold public criticism during the start of a successor's term, although there have been anomalies. While a defeated Al Gore laid low in 2001, former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton -- a new senator from New York -- publicly attacked Bush in March of that year for allegedly attempting to "turn back the clock on the Clinton administration."
This year, the hard feelings among some Bush supporters began to flare immediately after Obama's inaugural address, which included some implicit criticism of Bush and his tenure. GOP consultant and former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon wrote in a blog posting after Bush's trip home Jan. 20 that some felt Obama took "unnecessary shots" and used "borrowed ideas," although he also stressed that Bush himself expressed no concerns. Longtime Bush advisers Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett offered similar views in interviews and appearances.
Then Gonzales, who resigned as Bush's attorney general under a cloud of scandal in 2007, told National Public Radio that he disagreed with testimony from attorney general nominee Eric Holder, who said the CIA interrogation technique called waterboarding was torture.
Holder "needs to be careful in making a blanket pronouncement like that," Gonzales said, because it could affect the "morale and dedication" of intelligence officials.
Presidential historian Robert Dallek said the wave of criticism "speaks to their defensiveness," noting that Bush spent much of his last two months in office defending his rocky White House tenure.
"This was an administration that left so much under a cloud," Dallek said. "They're just continuing a pattern of aggression in defending their failed record, which is what the current judgment is among most Americans."
So in the end, what we have here is former Bush aids that are angry. They are angry at Barack Obama winning the presidency, even after all the fear-mongering and character assassinations that the GOP heaped on Obama during the presidential election. They are angry at the reversal in public opinion polls, showing their disgraced president leaving office, while their opponent enters office in a wave of positive public opinion. They are certainly angry at President Obama reversingawiderangeofBushactionsandexecutiveorders. And finally, these former Bush aids are angry at how George W. Bush's presidential legacy is being examined in critical views--views that are showing the flaws and failures of this former president. It is just pure spite and anger that is coming from these former Bush aids, and the only direction they can direct their anger is towards the presidential successor of George W. Bush.
Just four days before he left office, President Bush instructed former White House aide Karl Rove to refuse to cooperate with future congressional inquiries into alleged misconduct during his administration.
On Jan. 16, 2009, then White House Counsel Fred Fieldingsent a letter (.pdf) to Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin. The message: should his client receive any future subpoenas, Rove "should not appear before Congress" or turn over any documents relating to his time in the White House. The letter told Rove that President Bush was continuing to assert executive privilege over any testimony by Rove—even after he leaves office.
A nearly identical letter (.pdf) was also sent by Fielding the day before to a lawyer for former White House counsel Harriet Miers, instructing her not to appear for a scheduled deposition with the House Judiciary Committee. That letter reasserted the White House position that Miers has "absolute immunity" from testifying before Congress about anything she did while she worked at the White House—a far-reaching claim that is being vigorously disputed by lawyers for the House of Representatives in court.
The letters set the stage for what is likely to be a highly contentious legal and political battle over an unresolved issue: whether a former president can assert "executive privilege"—and therefore prevent his aides from testifying before Congress—even after his term has expired.
"To my knowledge, these [letters] are unprecedented," said Peter Shane, an Ohio State University law professor who specializes in executive-privilege issues. "I'm aware of no sitting president that has tried to give an insurance policy to a former employee in regard to post-administration testimony." Shane likened the letter to Rove as an attempt to give his former aide a 'get-out-of-contempt-free card'."
This is just amazing. Former President George W. Bush is now claiming that he has executive privilege--even after he has left office. The House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has no intention of backing down now, having issued another subpoena against Karl Rove to testify before the Judiciary Committee next Monday on his role in the firing of the U.S. attorneys and the prosecution of former Democratic governor of Alabama Don Siegelman. Conyers stated in a press release, "After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him [Rove] to talk,"
The big question now is what will the Barack Obama administration do on this issue? Newsweek reports that a copy of Fielding's letter, and the subpoena, have been submitted to President Obama's White House counsel, George Craig, and everyone is waiting for President Obama's position on this issue. In other words, Karl Rove is praying that President Obama will save his ass in allowing former President Bush to exert executive privilege beyond Bush's term in office. And there are still the previous subpoenas that have been issued, by the House Judiciary Committee, against Rove and Harriet Miers. According to Newsweek:
"The Justice Department is due to state its position on executive privilege to the U.S. Court of Appeals in a few weeks in response to the House's attempt to enforce its previous subpoenas for Miers and Bolten, who were subpoenaed to turn over documents relating the U.S. attorneys firings. Both refused to comply, or even show up—relying on the Bush Justice Department's sweeping position on "absolute immunity" from testifying before Congress."
So this entire executive privilege against testifying before Congress is quickly coming to a close. Bush is out of office, and this sweeping declaration of presidential dictatorial power is now being decided by a new president, who was a constitutional law professor. Countdown with Keith Olbermann has a good roundup on this story, including speculation that the Obama administration may deny executive privilege for Rove to avoid testifying before Congress. From Countdown:
Millions of Americans lost more than a quarter of their 401(k) retirement savings in 2008 because of the stock market's collapse, a setback that could force them to work longer or severely curtail their spending as they grow older.
In an analysis of their participants' accounts, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard and T. Rowe Price -- three of the nation's largest 401(k) plan providers -- also found that some employees were further eroding their savings by taking hardship withdrawals to pay for current financial needs.
Many Americans have seen their wealth evaporate with the drop in home values, the rise in the cost of living and the stagnation of wages. Now, as they tap into nest eggs to pay bills, they face leaner retirements as well. Particularly vulnerable are baby boomers who expected to retire in the next few years.
"With a hardship withdrawal, I'm going to eat my retirement for breakfast, lunch and dinner right now," said Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York. "That is worrisome. It shows that the outcome of this crisis is not only that the account balance is down, but that they're taking out part of their principal. . . . It means that it will take longer to retire."
[....]
The stock market's dramatic collapse revealed the vulnerability of a system that requires workers to make investment decisions that professionals once made for them. To make matters worse, many cash-strapped employers have recently been suspending their contributions to employees' accounts.
"The financial collapse just drives home how fragile these plans are," said Alicia Munnell, director of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research.
In a study released yesterday, Fidelity Investments reported that the average 401(k) balance dropped 27 percent, to $50,200, last year from $69,200 in 2007. Fidelity has more than 11 million plan participants.
Vanguard, which has 3.5 million participants, reported the average account balance for 2008 fell 28.5 percent to $56,050 from $78,411 in 2007. T. Rowe Price's 1.7 million participants also had a 27 percent loss on average.
And to think that then-president George W. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security?
I know that everyone has seen this video, but I do have a few comments on it. First the story of President Bush, shoes, and his failed legacy that is the U.S. war in Iraq. From The New York Times:
BAGHDAD — President Bush made a valedictory visit on Sunday to Iraq, the country that will largely define his legacy, but the trip will more likely be remembered for the unscripted moment when an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at Mr. Bush’s head and denounced him on live television as a “dog” who had delivered death and sorrow here from nearly six years of war.
The drama unfolded shortly after Mr. Bush appeared at a news conference in Baghdad with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to highlight the newly adopted security agreement between the United States and Iraq. The agreement includes a commitment to withdraw all American forces by the end of 2011.
The Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, a correspondent for Al Baghdadia, an independent Iraqi television station, stood up about 12 feet from Mr. Bush and shouted in Arabic: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” He then threw a shoe at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly avoided it.
As stunned security agents and guards, officials and journalists watched, Mr. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” That shoe also narrowly missed Mr. Bush as Prime Minister Maliki stuck a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him.
Mr. Maliki’s security agents jumped on the man, wrestled him to the floor and hustled him out of the room. They kicked him and beat him until “he was crying like a woman,” said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party, which is led by Mr. Maliki. Mr. Zaidi was then detained on unspecified charges.
Other Iraqi journalists in the front row apologized to Mr. Bush, who was uninjured and tried to brush off the incident by making a joke. “All I can report is it is a size 10,” he said, continuing to take questions and noting the apologies. He also called the incident a sign of democracy, saying, “That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves,” as the man’s screaming could be heard outside.
[....]
Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq. It means that the target is even lower than the shoe, which is always on the ground and dirty. Crowds hurled their shoes at the giant statue of Mr. Hussein that stood in Baghdad’s Firdos Square before helping American marines pull it down on April 9, 2003, the day the capital fell. More recently in the same square, a far bigger crowd composed of Iraqis who had opposed the security agreement flung their shoes at an effigy of Mr. Bush before burning it.
In one sense, I almost feel sorry for President Bush. Here is a man who doesn't fully understand the significance of the shoes being thrown at him, nor does he understand the enormous amount of death and destruction he has brought upon the Iraqi people. President Bush still believes he will be vindicated by history for his sending the U.S. into this war. And yet, this shoe-thrower, Muntader al-Zaidi, has become a hero in the Arab world for expressing the Iraqi peoples' anger against the U.S. occupation. The American people still oppose the U.S. war in Iraq by a clear majority of over 60 percent. President Bush's disapproval ratings are still hovering around 70 percent, while President-elect Barack Obama's approval ratings are hovering at around 68-to-75 percent. And let us not forget how theentireworldcelebrated Barack Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential race. President Bush disgraced himself when he gave the order to invade Iraq. He disgraced himself with the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq, the failed reconstruction of Iraq, and now this shoe-throwing incident which clearly shows how he cannot even travel anywhere in the world without being exposed to protestation and derision. I do not think he even understands the contempt that the world has for him, considering how he made such a terrible joke about the shoe size. In around 34 days, George W. Bush will leave the Oval Office, and Barack Obama will be sworn in to clean up the entire mess that Bush left us with his failed legacy. I almost feel sorry for President George W. Bush.
But then again, with the terrible crap that Bush has left this country in, I do not.
The first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, scheduled for tonight, remained in limbo last night after the presidential candidates left a White House meeting without a deal on a $700 billion economic rescue plan.
Democrats immediately blamed McCain for disrupting the effort at compromise, saying his decision to suspend his campaign and return to Washington shifted the klieg lights of the White House contest to the tense and delicate congressional negotiations.
[....]
At the White House, the gathering turned contentious when House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) brought up a new set of principles that conservative House Republicans had been laid out earlier in the day.
Boehner's move was received poorly by Obama and the other Democrats, who quickly pressed McCain to say whether he supported Boehner's position, according to a detailed account of the meeting. McCain declined to commit, one source said.
[....]
For much of yesterday, McCain shuttled between meetings and his Senate office, but rarely came close to the Capitol suites and committee rooms where the talks were taking place. He had returned to his Crystal City condominium by 6 p.m., where aides said he continued to work the phones in support of the deal.
Earlier, McCain had emerged from his office in the Russell Senate Office Building to a crush of reporters, saying nothing as he made his way to Boehner's office. In tow were a trio of his closest allies, Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), as well as top campaign aides Rick Davis and Mark Salter.
Boehner and McCain discussed the bailout plan, but Republican leadership aides described the conversation as somewhat surreal. Neither man was familiar with the details of the proposal being pressed by House conservatives, and up to the moment they departed for the White House yesterday afternoon, neither had seen any description beyond news reports.
At 1:25 p.m., McCain left Boehner's office through a back door, walking across the Capitol's rotunda to the applause of tourists. Graham conceded the group knew little about the plan the nominee had come to Washington to try to shape.
Mr. McCain goes to Washington to play presidential politics. It was all about the McCain campaign trying to make John McCain appear "presidential" in rejecting a compromise bailout plan, created by President Bush and the congressional Democrats, for some surrealistic House GOP plan that neither McCain, or even Boehner, had a clue about the details of the House GOP plan. And let us not forget that McCain never bothered to read the three-page long Bush / Paulson bailout plan. John McCain's crass, presidential ambitions totally destroyed whatever bailout agreement was taking shape this week between the Bush administration and the congressional Democratic leadership.
John McCain is clearly incapable of running the Oval Office. At this point, I would say that President George W. Bush is a better president than John McCain could ever become.
Inside an intense White House meeting over the financial crisis on Thursday, where nearly every key player came to an agreement on the outlines of the bailout package, Sen. John McCain stuck out. The Republican candidate, according to sources with direct knowledge, sat quiet through most of the meeting, never offered specifics, and spoke only at the end to raise doubts about the rough compromise that the White House and congressional leaders were nearing.
McCain's reluctance to jump on board the bailout agreement could throw the entire week-long negotiation into a tailspin. Sen. Chris Dodd, after leaving the White House, suggested on CNN that the tenuous process could be derailed by what he viewed as McCain's political motives.
"What happened here, basically, if you want an honest appraisal of the thing, we have been spending a lot of time and I am tired. I have spent almost seven straight days at this in trying to come out with a workout plan for our economy a rescue plan," said Dodd. "What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours and took us away from the work we are trying to do today. Serious people trying to do serious work to come up with an answer."
According to the source with knowledge of the White House gathering -- which featured both presidential candidates, congressional leaders and the President -- virtually ever key figure in the room, save McCain and GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, were in agreement over a revised version of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's plan.
Towards the end, McCain finally spoke up, mentioning a counter-proposal that had been offered by some conservative House Republicans, which would suspend the capital gains tax for two years and provide tax incentives to encourage firms that buy up bad debt. McCain did not discuss specifics of the plan, though, and was non-committal about supporting it.
I am trying to analyze John McCain's behavior during the Bush photo-op meeting with congressional leaders and Barack Obama. And the only thing I can think of is what the frickin' hell was McCain doing there? Everyone was in agreement with the outline for the bailout--President Bush, Barack Obama, the House and Senate congressional leaders. Everyone except John McCain and GOP Sen. Richard Shelby. McCain sits silently through the entire meeting, never offers any specifics, only to say, at the end of the meeting, that he pretty much opposes the bailout package. McCain then made a counter-proposal:
Towards the end, McCain finally spoke up, mentioning a counter-proposal that had been offered by some conservative House Republicans, which would suspend the capital gains tax for two years and provide tax incentives to encourage firms that buy up bad debt. McCain did not discuss specifics of the plan, though, and was non-committal about supporting it.
Paulson, however, argued directly against the conservative proposal. "He said that he did not think it would work," according to the source. At another point in the meeting, President Bush chimed in, "If money isn't loosened, this sucker could go down" -- and by sucker he meant economy.
CBS News reports that the McCain counter-proposal included more corporate tax breaks and more government deregulation:
So what happened? I think presidential politics went to McCain's head. First I think that McCain opposed the $700 billion Bush/Paulson bailout plan because Barack Obama initially supported the plan. I don't believe McCain could ever support anything with Barack Obama. Second, any Bush bailout plan to be passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress would require some serious concessions. And there were some concessions made on the plan regarding the limiting of CEO compensation, doling out smaller chunks of $200 billion to the Treasury to buy up the bad debt, and then have Congress oversee the success or failure of the program. Also, any such bailout plan would have some regulatory oversight. President Bush and the Congressional Democrats agreed on an outline to such a bailout plan. The Conservative Republicans were balking on such a plan. When John McCain came to Washington, he would not accept any such government regulation, and threw his (non-committal) support for the conservative Republicans in proposing the alternative plan. By opposing the bailout package, McCain had embolden the conservative Republicans into walking out of the negotiations. According to the Washington Post:
As Friday began it was unclear the state of the negotiations on the rescue plan. After a day of apparent negotiating progress a renegade bloc of Republicans moved to reshape the a massive bailout plan, of the U.S. financial system yesterday, surprising and angering Bush administration and congressional leaders who hours earlier announced agreement on the "fundamentals" of a deal.
At a meeting at the White House that included President Bush, top lawmakers and both presidential candidates, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) floated a new plan for addressing the crisis that has hobbled global markets.
Democrats accused Boehner of acting on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in trying to disrupt a developing consensus. The new proposal also displeased White House officials, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who chased after Democrats leaving the meeting and -- half-jokingly -- dropped to one knee and pleaded with them not to "blow up" the $700 billion deal, according to people present at the meeting.
[....]
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who had attended the meeting on behalf of House Republicans, denied that an agreement had been reached. While progress was made on peripheral issues, Bachus said, House Republicans remained adamantly opposed to the central point of the plan: purchasing bad assets from struggling firms.
"There's not a deal. There's not a deal made. There was progress on the issues," Bachus told reporters. He said House Republicans "would prefer a loan where we fix an interest rate or we would prefer insurance" rather than having the government buy up bad assets.
Bachus said many of those ideas were supported by McCain, who returned to Washington yesterday to participate in the negotiations. Bachus said he spoke to McCain on Wednesday, had breakfast yesterday with two McCain advisers and spoke to McCain again immediately after the morning meeting.
But, Bachus said, "John's not trying to call the shots for the House caucus, I can tell you that. He's just opposed to the plan in its present form."
[Representative Barney] Frank (D-Mass.) reacted angrily to Bachus's remarks, saying lawmakers had been well on their way toward a bill they could put to a vote and accusing McCain of engineering a breakdown. "This is the presidential campaign of John McCain undermining what Hank Paulson tells us is essential for the country," he said.
Despite expectations that a deal was near, Boehner took off in a different direction during the meeting, saying the bailout plan was not gaining traction among rank-and-file House Republicans.
As Obama and Frank peppered Boehner with questions about the new proposal, Bush rejected the idea as a too-broad rewrite of his administration's plan, according to the handwritten notes of one Democrat present.
"Don't start over," Bush said. "Don't start over."
It seems that the House Republicans were following John McCain's "leadership." By refusing to accept the bailout, McCain gave an opening to the House Republicans to offer their own alternative plan--one that was opposed by both President Bush and the Democrats (talk about an alliance here). Had John McCain agreed to the Bush bailout plan, any opposition by the House Republicans would have been stifled, and President Bush may have signed such an agreement by Saturday. So Mr. McCain went to Washington, and completely screwed up the Wall Street bailout negotiations for his presidential ambitions first, country second.
First, the bailout package. According to the text of the proposed bailout plan, the Secretary of the Treasury "is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States." In other words, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will be given dictatorial powers in determining how to bail out Wall Street with a blank check, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. In addition, Paulson will report to Congress on the first three months after exercising the plan, and then report semiannually. Congress will have no oversight on this plan, nor will Paulson provide much information about how he will be spending the American taxpayers' money on this bailout. "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Whatever Paulson says, is law, and is not reviewable, nor can the courts overturn Paulson's dictatorial orders. It is breathtaking in the scope of absolute authority that Paulson, and the Bush administration, will be given in control of the U.S. economy for the benefit of Wall Street's greed and corruption. Finally, you can bet that Secretary Paulson will not demand any increased regulations or oversight of the subprime mortgage industry, or the debt contracts that got Wall Street into trouble in the first place--Wall Street certainly would not want more government oversight into their financial dealings, even though they are asking for a financial bailout from the government after getting into trouble in the first place. And while the government is bailing out Wall Street financial firms, there is complete opposition from the Bush administration, the Republicans, and the banking industry, for the Democrats proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to adjust the terms of homeowner mortgages. So it is okay for the government to bail out Wall Street, but not Main Street. And the Bush bail out plan doesn't say anything about Wall Street CEOs' "golden parachute" executive compensation plans, even as these same CEOs drove these Wall Street firms' excessive greed for this subprime mortgate mess, allowing these CEOs to walk away with millions as their firms go bankrupt. This is such a bad deal for the American taxpayer. We are bailing out Wall Street greed for nothing in return. Is it no wonder that 44 percent of Americans oppose the Bush administration's $700 billion Wall Street bail out plan?
Second, I need to say something about the Bush administration's PR-strategy in pushing Americans to support this $700 billion boondoggle of a Wall Street bail out plan. First, the Bush administration creates this plan to give Paulson, and the Bush administration, almost dictatorial powers over the U.S. economy in order to resolve this financial crisis. Then President Bush gives a prime-time speech, saying that the U.S. economy "is in danger" of a "long and painful recession" if Congress doesn't pass his $700 billion Wall Street bail out plan. Haven't we seen this strategy before--say, the push for giving Bush absolute power for going to war in Iraq to protect us from Saddam's WMDs? Say, the push for giving Bush absolute power to domestically spy on American citizens to protect us from terrorists? Say, the push for giving Bush even more power to escalate the Iraq war with the troop surge from al Qaeda insurgents? Or even the new Bush push for giving even more economic powers to bail out Wall Street from an evil recession? There is a pattern, where the Bush administration would incite fear of a terrible enemy coming to get Americans--it doesn't matter if it is the bogyman Iraqis, the bogyman terrorists, or even the bogyman recession--and demand that Americans give even more power to the Bush administration for the broken promise of protection. This is getting old. And it is not that President Bush is playing these fears on the American people. Bush is also playing these fears on Congress, demanding that Congress submits to his will, or Congress will become the unpatriotic enemy of America, surrendering to whatever bogyman Bush decides to present. Now it will be Congress' fault for this latest bogyman recession because Congress failed to pass Bush's $700 billion Wall Street bail out plan, even though the Bush administration was also responsible for not providing the regulatory oversight on Wall Street for the past eight years of this subprime mortgage collapse, and the economic fallout. At this moment, Congress is brokering a deal on this Bush Wall Street bailout package.
More to come.
Update: It appears that Congressional leaders have agreed on an outline for the government bail out plan of Wall Street. From The New York Times:
WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators from both parties said Thursday that they had reached general agreement to move forward with the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion rescue effort of the nation’s financial system.
Emerging from a nearly three-hour meeting in the Capitol, Republicans and Democrats said they would continue working through the day to complete the legislative language and would begin final negotiations with the Treasury.
It was unclear if a final draft would be ready by 3:55 p.m. when Congressional leaders are scheduled to meet at the White House with President Bush and the two presidential candidates, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.
But lawmakers in both parties said that few substantive differences and no major obstacles remained. They said the bill would authorize the full $700 billion requested by President Bush, but that Congress was intent on disbursing the money in installments.
One plan under consideration would release $250 billion immediately, with another $100 billion available at the discretion of the president.
They also said that there would be limits on pay packages for executives whose firms seek assistance from the government and a mechanism for the government to be given an equity stake in some firms so that taxpayers have a chance to profit if the companies prosper in the months and years ahead.
So the deal will be that Congress will disburse the $700 billion in installments, hopefully with some serious oversight into how Treasury Secretary Paulson will be spending the money. Congress will be limiting Wall Street CEO pay packages for firms asking for the bail out money, and there will be some government equity stake in these firms. No deal on the bankruptcy judges modifying mortgage plans for individual homeowners. However, this detail was very interesting:
A senior Republican lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to undermine the party leadership, said there was a “violent reaction” among House Republicans to the Paulson plan. He said backers of the alternative, one of several that have been proposed, believe that they can force negotiators to accept it as part of a larger deal.
It appears that the Republicans were shocked and angered over the Bush $700 billion Wall Street bail out plan. The Republicans were offering their own versions of differing plans, including one by Representative Eric Cantor, the minority whip, which would rely on government-provided mortgage insurance to Wall Street firms, rather than taxpayer-purchases of mortgage securities. The Republicans appeared to be in opposition of the Bush Wall Street bail out plan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that she would not approve of any bail out plan without Republican support. So a congressional bail out plan will probably come out over this weekend, looking at the negotiations taking place between the House and Senate. The big question will be how much oversight will Congress demand within this plan? And will the congressional Republicans accept such a plan?
I will be honest, I never would have expected President Bush to make a withdrawal timetable deal for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. From MSNBC News:
BAGHDAD - Iraq and the U.S. pushed close to a deal Thursday setting a course for American combat troops to pull out of Iraqi cities by next June on the way to broader withdrawal from the long and costly war by 2011.
Subject to final approval by the top Iraqi leadership, the exit date for U.S. troops would be December 2011, although the Americans insist on linking that target to additional security and political progress.
President Bush has long resisted a timetable for pulling out, even under heavy pressure from a nation distressed by American deaths and discouraged by the length of the war that began in 2003. But that has softened in recent weeks.
The timing has major political importance in both Iraq and the U.S.
The two contenders to replace Bush as U.S. commander in chief, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, spar almost daily over the future course of the war.
Obama wants all U.S. combat forces out of Iraq within 16 months of his taking office, saying they are needed more urgently in Afghanistan. McCain says recent security improvements in Iraq show that decisions on the timing of further pullouts should be determined by circumstances on the ground rather than by prearranged timetables — a position the White House has vigorously held until recently.
The administration has inched toward the Iraqi view that setting at least a target date for withdrawal would make it politically palatable for Iraq's government to accept a substantial U.S. troop presence beyond this year.
This is just huge. This presidential campaign has really been defined by two major issues--the slowing U.S. economy, and the U.S. war in Iraq. Both Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate John McCain have staked opposing positions on the war. Obama wanted to remove U.S. combat forces within 16 months after he enters office--around the summer of 2010. McCain wanted to continue the war in Iraq until Iraqi forces could defeat al Qaeda terrorists. Congressional Republicans have been attacking Democratic withdrawal timetables for the past couple of years. President Bush threatened to veto Iraq war spending bills if they contained withdrawal timetables. Iraq was one of the big issues in defining the presidential election for this year. And now President Bush may have just thrown the Iraq chessboard in the air. Because President Bush has now accepted a Democratic withdrawal timetable, which has been agreed upon by the Maliki government, who also expressed the demand for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. I'm sure that the Obama campaign will welcome the Bush withdrawal timetable plan without any criticism. But how will the McCain campaign respond, even as McCain has claimed that a U.S. pullout of Iraq would result in genocide and a civil war? McCain has even insisted that he knows what the Iraqi people want, and that the Iraqi government cannot order the U.S. to withdrawal from Iraq. John McCain has taken a hard-lined approach of continuing the U.S. war in Iraq for the next hundred years. Will he support President Bush's troop withdrawal plan or reject it? Or will McCain enthusiastically support the withdrawal plan until he is elected into office, and then rip it to shreds in order to continue his war? I can't really say.
1. This is very good news for Democrats. It means that our eventual withdrawal from Iraq will not only be a bipartisan action, it will have been the creation of a Republican president. This is going to make it almost impossible for conservatives to ramp up any kind of serious stab-in-the-back narrative against anti-war liberals.
2. Basic Obama spin: "I'm glad to see that President Bush has finally come around to my view etc. etc." This ought to be a big win for him: he visits Iraq, meets with Nouri al-Maliki, gets Maliki's endorsement for a near-term troop withdrawal, and then gets to applaud as President Bush signs on.
3. Looking ahead, it's also a big win for Obama if he wins in November. Instead of a bruising congressional battle on withdrawal starting in January, he can just continue along the path Bush has set out. At most he'll tweak it a bit, which he can do on his own and without expending a lot of political capital.
4. This is also good news for Dems in conservative districts, since it eliminates a campaign issue that potentially hurts them.
5. Basic McCain spin: "It's good news that Iraq is now secure enough that we can envision bringing our troops home etc. etc." He'll also talk about how the surge deserves all the credit and he'll claim that 2011 is a totally different thing than Obama's plan to withdraw by 2010. This isn't great spin, but it's probably the best he's got.
6. Outside of spin alley, the news for McCain is mixed. The agreement takes Iraq largely off the table as a partisan campaign issue, which might be good (the public supports withdrawal, so it's been an Achilles heel for him) or might be bad (it takes the spotlight off foreign affairs, which he considers his strong suit). Overall, though, it's got to be a negative for a guy who just a few months ago was talking about staying in Iraq for a hundred years.
7. I wonder what McCain's initial reaction to this is going to be? When rumors of an agreement like this were being floated last month, he insisted that he had talked to Maliki personally and he knew that Maliki didn't really want a timetable for withdrawal. Looks like he was wrong about that. Is he going to stick to that line, or, like Jerry Brown after Prop 13 passed in 1978, is he suddenly going to become withdrawal's greatest advocate?
This is certainly going to be a huge game-changer for Obama, since now Obama can claim that Bush has come around to a withdrawal timetable that Obama has advocated, while McCain has been completely wrong about Iraq. Drum also makes another interesting point in that the Iraq agreement takes McCain's signature foreign policy issue off the election table, forcing the McCain campaign to rethink another signature campaign issue. Considering how McCain's economic or domestic policy issues are practically a disaster, that may also be a problem for the McCain campaign.
I'm seeing severalstoriescomingouttoday on TPM, It seems like Republican presidential candidate John McCain has created his own "State Department" to handle the Georgia-Russia crisis independent of the U.S. State Department or the Bush administration. I'm going to start listing the stories here:
McCain Announces That Lieberman And Graham Are Going To Georgia: At a press conference, John McCain announced that he is sending two top campaign surrogates, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, to visit Georgia. McCain said "The situation in Georgia remains fluid and dangerous. As soon as possible my colleagues senators Lieberman and Graham will be traveling to Georgia. They're both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I hope that other members of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate will go together." TPM reports that McCain's delegation is to "showcase" McCain "as a man of action during a time of international crisis and to remind people that the world is a dangerous place that's still filled with aggressive actors, something that the McCain camp presumably thinks will play in his favor." McCain's announcement of this trip "also seems designed to shoulder Bush aside as the primary GOP leadership figure here."
Georgian President Saakashvili claims U.S. military to take control of Georgia's air and seaports: Georgian President Saakashvili told his countrymen that the U.S military will be moving in to take control of the Georgia's air and seaports. Georgia is still involved in a crisis with Russia over the South Ossetia region. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell immediately denied Saakashvili's claim, saying that the U.S. military is not taking c control of any air or seaports, but rather "The role of the U.S. military is strictly to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the victims of this conflict." McCain has urged that NATO should deploy peacekeeping forces into Georgia, and that Russia should be kicked out of the G-8 group. It certainly makes me wonder if Saakashvili believes that McCain is controlling U.S. foreign policy over the Georgia crisis, and that U.S. forces will come to the aid of Georgia.
McCain has been on the phone with Georgia's president every day of crisis: This is actually a Chicago Tribune story that TPM linked to. McCain tells Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman that he has been on the phone with Georgia's president every day. "The events of the last few days show that there are many places in the world where we don't necessarily anticipate this kind of conflicts breaking out," McCain said. "And it does require a steady hand on the tiller and an experienced one." It is almost like McCain is trying to play a Cold War president with this crisis.
The Lunacy continues:TPM reports that Max Boot--who is on the Council of Foreign Relations--advocates that the U.S. should be arming Georgia with Stinger anti-aircraft and Javelin anti-armor missiles. While I'm not sure if Boot is a part of the McCain campaign, this advocation of arming Georgia with missiles certainly plays into the McCain campaign's hard-lined approach of supporting Georgia in the crisis.
Georgian president call for McCain to "move from words to deeds:" This CNN Political Ticker story reports that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has called for John McCain, and American leaders, to do more for his country in response to the Georgia-Russian conflict. “Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians now,’” Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. “Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s time to pass from this. From words to deeds.” McCain told a Pennsylvania crowd yesterday that he called Saakashvili to express his solidarity with the Georgian people, saying "Today, we are all Georgian." Saakashvili urged that the U.S. should take the lead in sending an international peacekeeping force to Georgia, saying that "America is losing the whole region."
Lonely Night in Georgia: Slate's Fred Kaplan gives an interesting analysis on how the Bush administration enticed Saakashvili into sending 2,000 Georgian troops to Iraq as a U.S. ally with promises of NATO membership for Georgia, weapons and training, and even Georgian hopes that the U.S. military will intervene against Russia if a crisis erupted. The Georgian people were duped by the Bush administration's empty promises for their support in the Bush war in Iraq.
McCain continues to compound the blunder: Gregory Djerejian provides another analysis in The Belgravia Dispatch on how McCain would "double-down, and cheer-lead" NATO's revisiting of Georgia's membership into the organization, and how such hard-lined bluster would anger Russia, perhaps even forcing the U.S. into a shooting war with Russia. And the Georgians are feeling angry at the U.S. because they believed that the U.S. would come to their aid when the crisis with Russia erupted.
All of these stories could have their own posting here, but I want to look at an overall pattern here regarding both the Bush administration's policy with Georgia, and McCain's response. First, the Slate article by Kaplan and Gregory Djerejian's article of McCain doubling down on the Georgia crisis provide a good historical analysis of the Bush neocon's desire to use Georgia as a U.S. ally in the Iraq war. The Bush White House dangled the incentives of NATO membership and U.S. weapons and training to Georgia, making Saakashvili believe that the U.S. would come to Georgia's aid in the face of Russian aggression. It is almost like the neocons were reminiscing for the Cold War between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, and perhaps they though they could use Georgia as a means to contain Russia. In reality, such a supposed security arrangement between the U.S. and Georgia was nothing more than hollow talk on the Bush administration's side. The problem here is that Saakashvili, and the Georgian people, actually believed it.
The second problem here is with the McCain campaign. McCain is also using Saakashvili and Georgia for his own political means of taking the White House. McCain is taking the neocons' approach of using Georgia to confront Russia as a ploy to show how McCain would handle the current crisis. You can see this with McCain sending his own mini-State Department "envoys" to Georgia as a means of resolving the crisis. McCain pushes this "presidential act" of calling Saakashvili every day, or telling Saakashvili that "we are all Georgian." The neocons provide support for the McCain campaign with suggestions of arming Georgia with missiles. In the end, McCain wants to be the primary GOP leadership figure on this crisis, pushing President Bush aside, and forcing U.S. policy into a confrontational approach towards Russia. It is a PR-play here, even though McCain has no power to shape U.S. policy on this crisis. So McCain uses Saakashvili for this political end. Saakashvili believes that McCain is speaking for the U.S. government, demanding that the U.S. intervenes on Georgia's behalf within the crisis. The Bush administration does not have the military power to intervene against Russia in the region, even as top Bushofficials demand that such Russian aggression against Georgia should be answered for. What we are really seeing here is that the neocons are continuing to use Georgia for their own political ends, moving from the Bush administration into the McCain campaign. It is a scary cycle, considering how a blustering, hard-lined McCain administration may confront Russia--perhaps sending the U.S. into an shooting war with Russia.
Talk about another monkey wrench being thrown into this mess. It seems like that the American people, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government, the Iraqi prime minister, and the Democratic presidential candidate all want U.S. forces out of Iraq. The Pentagon has stated that U.S. troops will need to be removed from Iraq or the U.S. military will be broken. Only President George W. Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain are the only ones that want to continue this disastrous war, regardless of what anyone says.
Well, the story of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's backing of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's troop withdrawal timetable has now entered into the Twilight Zone. According to The New York Times Caucus blog:
Update: A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister has issued a statement saying his remarks were “misunderstood and mistranslated,” but did not address a specific error. Full statement below.
The policies and whims of American leaders have played a major role in politics in Iraq and elsewhere. And now, Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, dipped his toes in the United States’ race for the White House.
Mr. Maliki essentially endorsed Senator Barack Obama’s plan for withdrawing troops from Iraq in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel.
[....]
Dr. Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, issued a statement saying Mr. Maliki’s statement had been “as not conveyed accurately regarding the vision of Senator Barack Obama, U.S. presidential candidate, on the timeframe for U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq,” but it did not address a specific error. It did soften his support for Mr. Obama’s plan and implied a more tentative approach to withdrawing troops. More of the statement, which came from the U.S. military’s Central Command press office:
Al-Dabbagh explained that Mr. al-Maliki confirmed the existence of an Iraqi vision stems from the reality with regard to Iraq security needs, as the positive developments of the security situation and the improvement witnessed in Iraqi cities makes the subject of U.S. forces’ withdrawal within prospects, horizons and timetables agreed upon and in the light of the continuing positive developments on the ground, and security that came within the Strategic Plan for Cooperation which was laid and developed by Mr. Maliki and President George Bush. The Iraqi government appreciates and values the efforts of all the friends who continue to support and supporting Iraqi security forces.
Al-Dabbagh underscored that the statements made by the head of the ministerial council (Prime Minister al-Maliki) or any of the members of the Iraqi government should not be understood as support to any U.S. presidential candidates.
So now even though Maliki first claimed that he supports Obama's 16-month withdrawal timetable, the official Iraqi government's position is that Maliki statement was "not conveyed accurately regarding the vision" of Obama's vision, or a possible withdrawal timetable for U.S. troops in Iraq. Such a possible timetable would be set according to security conditions in Iraq and the Strategic Plan for Cooperation that was developed between Maliki and the Bush administration. Now Maliki no longer supports any U.S. presidential candidate.
And even Maliki has suddenly reversed himself in claiming he does not support any U.S. presidential candidate. According to the Caucus:
“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months,” Mr. Maliki said, according to the magazine’s online English edition. “That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”
Naturally, Mr. Maliki did not want to imply he was backing one candidate over another in a foreign election:
“Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business,” he said. But then, apparently referring to Republican candidate John McCain’s more open-ended Iraq policy, Maliki said: “Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems.”
So Maliki first claims that he supports Obama's 16-month troop withdrawal timeline, but then rejects that he is endorsing one candidate over the other. The simple fact here is that Maliki is endorsing Obama's candidacy because Obama will withdrawal U.S. troops from Iraq. It is a "realistic" premise that Maliki supports. Maliki has also rejected Republican presidential candidate John McCain's 100-year-war-in-Iraq policy by saying that "Artificially prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems. Maliki has inserted himself into the presidential election, irregardless of whatever the official Iraqi government statement is. Is this going to influence the result of the U.S. presidential elections? I don't think so. Of course American voters may consider Maliki's support for Obama's troop withdrawal plan as another political point of contention between the two political parties on the issue of Iraq, but that will be as far as it will go. I could care less about what any government in the world would say in choosing between the two candidates--this just becomes another public opinion poll between the candidates. I would be more concerned about foreign governments contributing money to either presidential campaigns as a means of influencing elections--that I will not support for either Obama or McCain's campaign. While Obama has banned lobbyists from raising money for his campaign, McCain has allowed lobbyists working for foreign governments to both contribute money to his campaign and have those lobbyists work for his campaign. According to this February 1, 2008 ABC News story:
On his quest for the White House, McCain has five fundraisers who lobby for foreign interests. His campaign co-chair and chief moneyman, Thomas Loeffler, has lobbied for Saudi Arabia for five years. Loeffler personally arranged a meeting between Sen. McCain and Prince Turki al-Faisal, then-Saudi ambassador to the United States, in May of 2006. Loeffler, a former congressman and longtime Republican fundraiser, chairs the firm that helped the Saudi kingdom join the World Trade Organization, fight anti-Saudi legislation and improve its image in the war on terrorism. The Saudi royals paid Loeffler's firm more than $11 million in two years for its efforts on their behalf.
Loeffler did not respond to repeated calls requesting comment, but when asked about his work for Saudi Arabia last April, Loeffler told the National Journal that he would handle "all of the work" of his firm while working on the McCain campaign. He also said, "I do not find a conflict of interest at this time," according to the magazine.
McCain's fundraisers also include lobbyists for Peru, the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and Dubai.
One of them, Peter Madigan, works for the government of Colombia to promote a U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement. His firm is also paid to "seek appropriations for the Government of Colombia," according to filings. The firm's lobbyists have distributed papers defending Colombian President Alvaro Uribe against allegations of ties to paramilitary groups, and promoting the controversial anti-drug program "Plan Colombia" as achieving "strengthening of human rights."
Madigan, who also lobbies on behalf of Dubai, serves with Sen. McCain on the board of the International Republican Institute, which seeks to advance freedom worldwide.
So not only is McCain in bed with the lobbyists, but he is also in bed with lobbyists working for foreign governments. Do you really want McCain in the White House?
A number of media outlets likewise professed to being confused by the statement from Maliki's office. The New York Times pointed out that al-Dabbagh's statement "did not address a specific error." CBS likewise expressed disbelief pointing out that Maliki mentions a timeframe for withdrawal three times in the interview and then asks, "how likely is it that SPIEGEL mistranslated three separate comments? Matthew Yglesias, a blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, was astonished by "how little effort was made" to make the Baghdad denial convincing. And the influential blog IraqSlogger also pointed out the lack of specifics in the government statement.
SPIEGEL sticks to its version of the conversation.
The White House this afternoon accidentally sent to its extensive distribution list a Reuters story headlined "Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine."
The story relayed how Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told the German magazine Der Spiegel that "he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months … ‘U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,'" the prime minister said.
The White House employee had intended to send the article to an internal distribution list, ABC News' Martha Raddatz reports, but hit the wrong button.
The misfire comes at an odd time for Bush foreign policy, at a time when Obama's campaign alleges the president is moving closer toward Obama's recommendations about international relations -- sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, discussing a "general time horizon" for U.S. troop withdrawal and launching talks with Iran.
Something tells me that the Bush administration just crapped a huge brick in its pants when they sent this email out. First this was a huge goof on part of the Bush White House, in that they wanted to send this story to their partisan pundits and bloggers so that they would use the story to attack the Obama campaign on the policy of a U.S. troop withdrawal time line. But more importantly, this story reveals something else about the Bush administration's pro-war policy in Iraq. It shows fear within the Bush administration and the Republican Party. Iraqi Prime Minister Malikis' support of Democratic candidate Barack Obama's troop withdrawal timetable provides a powerful opening to the American people on how to exit a war that almost two-thirds of the American people oppose. They may not have previously supported Obama's timetable, but with the Iraqi prime minister endorsing Obama's plan, then this is a powerful incentive for ending this failed Bush war that the American people are opposed to. It completely undercuts the entire pro-war positions of both the Bush administration and GOP presidential candidate John McCain. The Bush administration's plan was to send this story out to their partisan hacks and bloggers in order to both attack Obama and discredit Maliki in supporting a strategy that would cause both the U.S. and Iraq to surrender to the al Qaeda terrorists. Instead, the email was sent to reporters, magnifying this latest screw-up by the Bush White House.
I found two rather conflicting news stories that really show just how screwed up our politicians in Washington are, regarding the U.S. economy. Let us start with this first New York Times story, titled Economy Will Stay Sluggish, Bernanke Tells Congress:
WASHINGTON — Warning of the risks of a further slowdown and higher inflation, Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, offered a gloomy assessment of the economy on Tuesday as President Bush, speaking a few blocks away, urged Americans to have faith in the country’s financial foundation.
In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Bernanke avoided the word “recession” in characterizing the current economy, noting instead that consumer spending and exports were keeping growth “at a sluggish pace” while the housing sector “continues to weaken.”
He added that spending for personal goods had “advanced at a modest pace so far this year, generally holding up somewhat better than might have been expected given the array of forces weighing on household finances and attitudes.”
While the risks to the overall economy were still “skewed to the downside,” he said, inflation “seems likely to move temporarily higher in the near term.”
So Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is telling Congress, and the American public, that the U.S. economy will grow "at a sluggish pace" due to the housing problems, inflation will increase, and consumer spending will "advance at a modest pace." In other words, the U.S. economy will enter into a recession, even though Bernanke avoids using the word "recession." So the crap is hitting the fan.
Now let us head over to the Bush White House, and hear what King George, The Deciderer had to say about the U.S. economy. From MSNBC News:
WASHINGTON - President Bush urged lawmakers on Tuesday to move quickly to help prop up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while declaring the nation's financial system to be "basically sound."
"We must ensure that they can continue providing access to mortgage credit during this time of financial stress," Bush said of the two mortgage giants.
[....] Bush said the two troubled mortgage companies play a central role in the nation's housing-finance system and that government action to help them were not bailouts, since the two would remain shareholder-owned companies.
"I don't think the government ought to be involved in bailing out companies," Bush said.
Amid soaring gas prices, the toughest real estate market in decades, falling home prices and financing that's harder to come by, Bush said: "It's been a difficult time for many American families."
But he also said that the nation's economy continues to grow, if slowly.
[....]
"I understand there's a lot of nervousness," Bush said. "The economy is growing. Productivity is high. Trade's up. People are working — it's not as good as we'd like. And to the extent that we'll find weakness, we'll move."
I seriously have to wonder just what kind of idiots do we have working in Washington these days? Bernanke is talking about how the U.S. economy is heading into a recession, without actually admitting that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession--even though everyone knows that the U.S. economy is slowing down and heading into a recession. It is like Bernanke is claiming that the sky is falling without saying that the sky is falling. Talk about doublespeak here.
But I'm not surprised about Bernanke's comment--the Fed Chairman has a way of talking around both corners of his mouth as a way of hedging his own bets on where the U.S. economy may be heading to. And Bernanke is talking this way to reassure investors to continue investing their money into a weakening U.S. economy. The real irony that I find is how Bernanke is telling Congress one thing, and President Bush is telling the American people the other. So even though the housing mess has caused the U.S. Treasury to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, speculators have caused oil prices to rise, Americans are hit with $4 a gallon gas prices, inflation is rising, jobs are being lost, President Bush still admits that the U.S. economy is still growing strong. There is still nothing to worry about.
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Tuesday said the U.S. economy was not in a recession but was experiencing a slowdown.
"We're not in a recession, we're in a slowdown," Bush said at a news conference at the end of a two-day summit with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Bush pointed out that the U.S. economy grew in the fourth quarter and that the statistics for the first quarter were not out yet. "But there's no question we're in a slowdown and people are concerned about it, obviously," he said.
Bush reiterated his view that taxes should not be increased, especially when the economy was showing sluggishness.
"The key is for Congress not to raise taxes during this period of time and (to) send a signal that they're not going to raise taxes," he said.
Then again, it probably shouldn't be surprising that President Bush doesn't believe the U.S. economy is in a recession. I mean, President Bush didn't even realize that the price of gas was predicted to be shooting up to $4.00 a gallon. From YouTube:
WASHINGTON — President Bush has set a record he'd presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.
The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.
Bush's rating has worsened amid "collapsing optimism about the economy," says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies presidential approval. Record gas prices and a wave of home foreclosures have fueled voter angst.
Bush also holds the record for the other extreme: the highest approval rating of any president in Gallup's history. In September 2001, in the days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush's approval spiked to 90%. In another record, the percentage of Americans who say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake reached a new high, 63%, in the latest poll.
Assessments of Bush's presidency are harsh. By 69%-27%, those polled say Bush's tenure in general has been a failure, not a success.
Low approval ratings make it more difficult for presidents to maneuver, limiting their ability to get legislation passed or boost candidates in congressional elections.
"The president understands war and the slowdown in the economy weigh down public opinion, but the situation in Iraq is improving, and the economy is about to get a big boost from the stimulus package," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.
Bush has had dismal ratings through most of his second term. His approval rating hasn't reached as high as 50% since May 2005. He has been steadily below 40% since September 2006.
Views of Bush divide sharply along party lines. Among Republicans, 66% approve and 32% disapprove. Disapproval is nearly universal — 91% — among Democrats. Of independents, 23% approve, 72% disapprove of the job he's doing.
I love White House spokesman Scott Stanzel's spin on Bush's unpopularity. The president understands that the war and the economy are bad, but they will be getting better--you just have to wait a little longer. You just have to wait until January, when Bush will leave office and dump the entire mess on his successor. And if things are still bad in January, 2009--it is not Bush's fault!
I guess King George, The Deciderer is still fantasizing about history vindicating him--just like Harry Truman.
The real interesting number in this USA Today poll is the independents, with 23 percent approving of President Bush's job performance, and 72 percent disapproving of Bush. Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain will certainly try to solicit the independent voters with the message that he is a "maverick" senator who has butted heads with the GOP. However, McCain's political policies are pretty much an extension of the Bush administration's policies. And the independents are overwhelmingly disapproving of President Bush's job performance. The key point here for the Democrats will be to tie this albatross of President Bush around John McCain's neck, and force the McCain campaign to sink within the Bush administration's failures. And McCain is certainly tying this Bush albatross to himself, with his continued support for keeping the war in Iraq going for another 100 years, making the Bush tax cuts to the rich permanent, and allowing the U.S. to drown in even more debt. It is a powerful message that the Democrats can use to convince the independents to not vote for McCain, if they are convinced that a McCain presidency will really constitute a third Bush term. And if the U.S. economy and the war in Iraq continue to worsen to November, that will cause even more problems for the McCain campaign in their own desire to court the independent vote.
