George W. Bush

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Michelle Obama did her part for Democratic unity here today, referring to Hillary Clinton as an "extraordinary woman" at a round-table event with former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen.

"Because of Hillary Clinton's work, the issues of importance to women and working families are more at the forefront than ever before," Obama said, the day before Barack Obama will appear with Clinton for the first time since the primary ended.

Naturally enough, she sought to portray herself and her husband as closely in tune with female concerns.

One of the first rounds of applause during her brief speech came when she paid tribute to her mother for resourcefulness.  read more »

Earlier today the Bush administration made clear they don't intend to intervene in the negotiations between the Iraqi government and several large oil companies.

 

Chuck Schumer, along with Claire McCaskill and John Kerry, responded quickly with a letter to Condoleezza Rice asking her to prevent the deals from going forward until there is an oil-revenue sharing law.

Both Schumer and Kerry are on the Senate Finance Committee; Kerry and McCaskill are both surrogates for Barack Obama, whose campaign has been going after John McCain for McCain's new, oil company-friendly position on offshore drilling.

Here's the release along with the letter (which, weirdly, doesn't include McCaskill's name at the end of it).  read more »

GRAND NEW PARTY: HOW REPUBLICANS CAN WIN THE WORKING CLASS AND SAVE THE AMERICAN DREAM
By Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam
Doubleday, 244 pages, $23.95

To their immense credit, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, two dynamic young conservative thinkers, freely admit the comprehensive failure of George W. Bush’s so-called "compassionate conservatism." They acknowledge that the blue-collar voters who were supposed to benefit from his policies are feeling more beleaguered now than at any time since the recessionary 1970s. In Grand New Party, their intriguing outline for Republican revitalization, they don’t even bother trying to say something good about our 42nd president. (Efforts in that direction are making many of their colleagues sound as desperate as senators caught poking their feet beneath a toilet stall divider.  read more »

At an education forum in Florida, Michael Bloomberg praised John McCain for defending President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, and praised McCain and Barack Obama for supporting merit pay for teachers.

The legislation, which Ted Kennedy also worked on, has faced criticism. 

The mayor's office sent over a copy of the prepared remarks Bloomberg was set to give to the Excellence in Action National Education Summit at Disney World. The mayor said:

"Instituting accountability standards is central to the reforms embodied in the No Child Left Behind Act. And it says a lot about the independence and integrity of Senator John McCain that at a time when the allies of the status quo have made NCLB a political punching bag, he continues to express his support for those accountability standards.  read more »

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In 1990, the first Bush Administration banned off shore oil exploration and yesterday the current President Bush decided to ask Congress to end the ban. This is the same policy now being pushed by Senator John McCain in his effort to show he cares about rising gasoline prices. According to Sheryl Stolberg in The New York Times on June 18:

The Congressional moratorium was first enacted in 1982, and has been renewed every year since. It prohibits oil and gas leasing on most of the outer continental shelf, 3 miles to 200 miles offshore. Since 1990, it has been supplemented by the first President Bush’s executive order, which directed the  read more »

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Out on the campaign trail, town hall-style meetings are often held in barns, or factories or high school gyms. John McCain's "Town Hall Meeting in New York" on Thursday night took place under the vaunted marble dome and pillars of Federal Hall, where the audience mostly looked like they had wandered in directly from their Wall Street offices. Men wearing dark suits and long power ties and women, most of them blond, surrounded a wooden podium, next to a thigh-high speaker. In the quiet, show's-about-to-begin minutes before McCain arrived, Tony Carbonetti, the former chief political adviser to Rudy Giuliani and a good friend of McCain, twisted in his second row seat to chat with Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman behind him.  read more »

Here's a critical piece from the hawkish Jewish Press about Barack Obama that actually won't be all bad for him: it pans him for not being like George W. Bush and McCain-rejected Rev. John Hagee. It's evidence, if nothing else, that the narrative about unease with him in the Jewish community is being embraced most enthusiastically by people who are inclined to despise his politics anyway.

In its editorial yesterday, the paper offered a staunch defense of Reverend Hagee (who once said in a sermon that the Holocaust happened "because God said, 'My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the Land of Israel.'"), substantiating its praise of him with a quote from Catholic League president William Donahue (who once said that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular").

The piece also criticized Obama for criticizing President Bush.  read more »

Jim Baker was so tickled by his portrayal in the new HBO film Recount that he actually scheduled an advanced screening of the fictionalized Florida recount retrospective at the Houston public policy institute that bears his name.

In some ways, he should be. While the movie makes clear that the facts at the heart of the disputed election mostly favored Al Gore, it can’t suppress its respect for Baker’s shrewd and cutthroat pragmatism.  read more »

So maybe history isn’t always written by the winners.

In the fall of 2001, after George W. Bush mounted a pile of debris at ground zero and came up with one brilliant rejoinder to a skeptic’s taunt, the prevailing public attitude toward the previous year’s disputed election was: So what? The guy who was supposed to win won, and there was probably more than enough malfeasance to go around anyway.  read more »

Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination. Magnanimous Democrats might applaud Hillary Clinton for energizing the party and helping to register millions of new voters, but her contribution was not merely to her own side.

Clinton’s failures and successes provide some invaluable lessons for John McCain as well—if he’s alert enough to heed them.  read more »

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the pandering Presidential politics of Clinton, McCain and Obama. McCain pandered on the gas tax and Hillary and Barack pandered on trade.  read more »

The Return of History and the End of Dreams

 

By Robert Kagan

Alfred A. Knopf, 115 pages, $19.95

Consider the natural history of the Detroit muscle car: The Mustang began life in 1963 as a stripped-down roadster in the European tradition. As the culture and market matured, Ford responded each year with ad hoc modifications and additions, so that by 1972, the same basic car had become a 3,300-pound, 375-horsepower V-8 behemoth.  read more »

“It’s not the best time in the world to be a White House correspondent,” said Bill Plante on the sultry afternoon of Saturday, April 26. This was at Tammy Haddad’s annual pre-White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner lawn party. The blooming wisteria was strangling the woods that surround her house.

These nearly-over final four years of George W. Bush are Mr. Plante’s third second-term presidency in his years as CBS White House correspondent. “I guess he could still drop a bomb somewhere—there are people who think he means to do it,” Mr. Plante said.  read more »

Tomorrow night marks the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, D.C. Members of the press corps (including some Media Mob contributors who are already on their way—note low posting rate today!) will have a chance to clink glasses with the president and his cabinet and remind themselves that despite five years of war, an economy some are already calling a Depression, and a painful slog of an election season, it's all in good fun. L'chaim! To us!

This year's event will be emceed by CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson, whom the W.H.C.A.'s president (and ABC News correspondent), Ann Compton, is really excited about: "Craig Ferguson is a fresh take on late night TV. As a new citizen, a first-time uncommitted voter and someone who has looked at American politics from the outside, I am looking forward to his unique take on our system."

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In his ceaseless effort to maintain his record as the worst President on the environment since the creation of the EPA in 1970, President George W. Bush has somehow managed to outdo himself with his latest Rose Garden pronouncement on climate change. He has decided that we should continue to increase emissions of greenhouse gasses, but at a slower rate of growth than today and in 2025 we should finally stop the growth of these dangerous emissions.

You can tell the President’s team must have lost some of its spin doctors, because this latest effort in environmental public relations had no snappy title. Earlier in his administration we saw the “Healthy Forest” initiative that was a thinly disguised attack on the nation’s wilderness; and the “Clear Skies” program that was a clumsy and ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the nation’s air pollution controls. Now, I propose we call this latest endeavor the “Floating Cities Initiative” because that is what we are going to need to survive this pathetic excuse for a policy on an issue as significant as global climate change.  read more »

As reported, Hillary Clinton is calling for George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.

Nancy Pelosi, who has taken an active role in the fight over remaining uncommitted superdelegates, made the same public demand earlier this month.

The statement just released by the Clinton campaign:  read more »

BUSH'S LAW: THE REMAKING OF AMERICAN JUSTICE
By Eric Lichtblau
Pantheon Books, 334 pages, $26.95

Back in another world, my undergraduate days in the early 1980’s, a roommate of mine loved the tidbit (gleaned from my Washington childhood) that if you uttered certain words on a long-distance call, a transcript might end up on the desk of some spy catcher at the National Security Agency. “Hey, Pete, got those I … C … B … M’s for me today?” became a sort of punch line. “The briefcase with cash will be in the phone booth!”

I doubt college kids today are playing the same sort of game, just as the rest of us know better than to joke about explosives in front of T.S.A. inspectors. You might actually get yourself in trouble.  read more »

Postcard From the Edge: The New York Times' Baghdad Bureau blog features a heartfelt essay by Mudhafer al-Husaini, a young Iraqi employee of the paper, entitled My Generation, in which al-Husaini tells of college life immediately following the fall of Baghdad: "Four years which were supposed to be my prettiest years ever, because you don’t get such a chance twice in Iraq, became my worst."

The Sound of Silence: In The Guardian, writer Nicholas Lezard profiles the legendary Moxon Garbutt, a writer whose alleged raison d’être "was to leave no trace of himself behind, except his influence—and even that to be ambiguous and tentative." For some strange reason, all the commenters on the site think a famous writer who never wrote a word is an April Fool's prank. Lezard jumps into the fray to declare "Moxon Garbutt is as real as you or I. I can't think why everyone assumes this is an April Fool." He would've been more convincing if he said nothing at all.

Speaking of Fools...: Didja hear the one about the Tribune Company changing it's name to ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc.? We're laughin' all the way to our buyouts. (WSJ via Romenesko)

Featuring a Cast of Over 4,000: ABC News' Marcus Baram reports that Oliver Stone's W—about a humble, self-made man who remade the world in his humble image—begins shooting this month with Josh Brolin as George W. Bush. Hey, wait, is it a comedy in the spirit of Dr. Strangelove? "In one scene, Bush practices his parachute landing in the White House pool but forgets to properly release the harness and sinks to the bottom. In another scene, Rumsfeld doodles a drawing of Condoleeza Rice standing on a piano with a globe spinning on her finger."

The most puzzling aspect of John McCain’s political persona is his habitual attraction to George W. Bush’s bad ideas. Their shared enthusiasm for invading Iraq and then escalating the war is why “McSame” will soon become the new shorthand for the Arizona Republican, replacing “maverick”—but that isn’t the only reason. He doesn’t just endorse the disastrous foreign policy initiatives; he loves the failed domestic policy schemes, too.

Specifically Mr.  read more »

Today, in the New York Times, Richard Perez-Pena notes that five years into the war in Iraq, "it would be hard to tell from a quick look at television news, newspapers and the Internet" that the country remains at war.

Tonight and tomorrow night on PBS, the producers at Frontline will do their part to thrust the subject back into the national spotlight.  read more »

MONDAY

Don’t call it a comeback. Britney Spears dusts herself off and puts on some glasses (prop?) to play an amorous receptionist on How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:30 p.m.). Sadly, between her custody battles, mental breakdowns, and her ill-chosen affair with a paparazzo, the cameo amounts to the only good press the fallen pop star has received in some time. (With that kind of drama, it’s clear why she—and her people—chose for her to be on a sitcom.) Her appearance will likely boost the show’s already strong ratings—it had its second-strongest numbers ever last week for its first new episode after the strike-induced hiatus—introducing the show to a larger swath of America and perhaps finally making it a legitimate inheritor of the Friends mantle.  read more »

Barack Obama delivered yet another lengthy speech today, this one on Iraq and national security, this morning in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Here are his remarks--titled "The World Beyond Iraq"--as prepared for delivery:

Just before America’s entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress: “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war,” he said. “...But the right is more precious than peace.” Wilson’s words captured two awesome responsibilities that test any Commander-in-Chief – to never hesitate to defend America, but to never go to war unless you must. War is sometimes necessary, but it has grave consequences, and the judgment to go to war can never be undone.  read more »

 

Today is apparently the 35th anniversary of the day John McCain was released from a Vietnam P.O.W. camp, and his campaign has released this Web video in honor of the occasion.

Notably, he hints at the role of a manifest destiny in his ambitions, with the spot's last line echoing language used by the current president to describe his path to the White House.  read more »

 As Ralph Nader becomes the Harold Stassen of the 21st century and a running joke to everyone except Al Gore, we sometimes forget that a generation ago (When Stassen was our perennial candidate for President), Nader was a founder of the consumer and environmental movement. How does someone evolve from one of the most credible policy advocates in the country, to a punch line on late night television?

When you buckle your seatbelts and when your air bag deploys—saving your life—you should thank Ralph Nader. The Clean Air Act, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act are at least partially due to Nader’s skill as an advocate in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

I mention the history because Nader did not build his reputation as a consumer and environmental advocate by pushing symbolism at the expense of results. He must know that his popularity is trending down.  read more »

A couple of observations about one of the big Clinton talking points after yesterday’s Ohio win: the notion that you can't win in the fall without winning the big swing states that Hillary Clinton is winning in the primaries.

("We need a Democratic candidate who can win battleground states like Ohio!" she said last night.)  read more »

The 2008 presidential election here in the United States is very important to the French. How important? “Too important," said Douglas Herbert, business editor with the TV news station France 24, "to be left to the American electorate to decide.”

In this, France is not alone. Across Europe, journalists and editors interviewed by The Observer say, people are coming down with the 2008 fever.  read more »

In this clip, Chris Rock introduces Barack Obama—the candidate for “progressive people that are not scared,” Mr. Rock says, who “want to be on the right side of history, because you’ll be real embarrassed if he won and you wasn’t down with it.” The comedian adds that the “smart” senator from Illinois, who he has met a few times, “is a change, and it’s time for a change.” After all, a new regime is needed, in the funnyman’s words, because “anything would be better than [George] Bush. You know, Bush, my god, it’s just…You knew he didn’t care. In a way, Bush’s presidency has been a success, because he hasn’t let us down. It was everything we thought it was going to be and worse. It was like a horror movie—man, that really scared me!” Mr. Rock says to loud applause, before drawing a distinction between the way the president handled Hurricane Katrina (no time for the black people drowning) and the wildfires in L.A. (pour Katrina water on the white people who are burning).

The McCain campaign just announced that Jeb Bush, older brother of George W. and former Governor of Florida, is endorsing John McCain.

Although his family is hardly at its most popular, the elder Bush brother's endorsement makes a statement about the Republican establishment rallying around McCain. George W. has been encouraging Republicans to support McCain and called the Senator a "true conservative," he has stopped short of an endorsement.

Jeb confirmed that he wrote a check to McCain's campaign over the weekend.

Release after the jump.  read more »

MONDAY

It’s George Bush’s final State of the Union (All Networks, 9 p.m.). Incidentally, the one year when the networks are scrambling for programming and therefore probably welcome the intrusion is the one year where no one could care less. The failing economy, Iraq, and his legacy will more than likely be on the agenda. Watch and wait for the presidential candidates to trip over themselves trying to respond first.

Speaking of wastes of time, it can’t replace an actual new episode, but Gossip Girl Revealed (CW, 8 p.m.) should satisfy your weekly fix for the posh adolescents. In the show’s new time slot, it promises plenty of bonus features—commentary, deleted scenes, profiles—and a re-airing of the pilot. Sadly, this is meant as an introduction to the uninitiated and harkens the beginning of repeats. Oh, they’re too young to die!  read more »

WALTERBORO, S.C.—At a panel and Q&A session this afternoon, one attendee asked Bill Clinton about how accessible Hillary would be as President. After speaking to the topic, he digressed, and challenged the Bush administration’s rationale for warrantless wiretaps.

“After 9/11, I think most people thought we may need a stronger President to deal with the terrorist threat, but a stronger presidency does not mean an unaccountable presidency,” Clinton said.  read more »

President Bush had planned to endorse an ad campaign today against prescription drug abuse, but the event was postponed in the wake of actor Heath Ledger's death, the AP reports.  read more »

As the bromides and bunkum of primary season lurch into caucus-eve overdrive in Iowa, the rest of the world has upstaged the election-addled news cycle. A new Osama bin Laden video, a Colombian hostage crisis and—most of all—the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto have made weary onlookers newly aware that there will be a long, grave to-do list awaiting whichever candidate prevails in the cartoonish 2008 presidential race.

Bhutto’s death marks the most sobering setback for the U.S.  read more »

Hillary Clinton’s campaign just sent out a press release announcing that, for the sixth straight year, she is the most admired woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll of Americans.

The press release does not mention that the same poll found George W. Bush to be the most admired man, in front of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Barack Obama, according to this Gallup video report of the poll.

Press release after the jump.  read more »

Back in 2000, John McCain made could make what seemed like an extraordinarily powerful argument to Republican primary voters: Nominate me and we are guaranteed to win in the fall.

The numbers backed him up. Toward the end of the ’00 primary season, polls showed McCain leading Al Gore by more than 20 points. George W. Bush, McCain’s G.O.P. rival, was ahead of Gore by just four points.

But Republicans sided with Bush anyway. And now, Democrats may be poised to do something similar.

(Continued after the jump)  read more »

Even when George W. Bush tells the truth, he cannot quite bring himself to tell the whole truth. Although the White House released a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, indicating that the Iranians shut down their program more than four years ago, the president treated those conclusions as a vindication more than an embarrassment.

With the usual propagandists at Fox News Channel and elsewhere filtering the N.I.E. to cover up their mistakes, it is worth reproducing a few of the new report’s most salient quotes. “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” said the N.I.E. text, reflecting a strong consensus among the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies. “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005 [when the intelligence community prepared its last N.I.E. on this subject]. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.”  read more »

For George W. Bush, “the speech was the thing,” writes Michael Gerson. “He used major speeches to push his own policy processes for new ideas; to clarify his thinking as he edited; to announce his commitments in serious detail; and to drive the news of the day.”

Like much of the fawning insider anecdotage collected in Mr. Gerson’s new book—indeed, like the book’s sonorous title—this sounds at first like an agreeable virtue, until you start to consider just what the writer is actually saying. What, for example, does it mean to “push … policy processes” in the hope of fleshing out new ideas? Shouldn’t the ideas be in place before policy processes are pushed, so that the pushers have a basic sense of what they’re up to? Shouldn’t the time for clear thinking come before a chief executive edits, not as he careens through the text with his blue pencil?  read more »