White House Week
Jimmy, Could You Show Us the Way Out of This Mess?
Some friends and advisers to ex-President George H. W. Bush are urging former Secretary of State James Baker to be as forceful as possible in recommending a new course of action in Iraq for George W. Bush. Baker, who was especially close to the elder Bush, is now cochairing a commission studying the war in Iraq and ways to improve the situation there. Baker and his panel aren't expected to make recommendations until after the November 7 election, but Washington insiders who are close to the Bush family say they have rising hopes that Baker will come up with a plan to "save" the younger Bush's Iraq strategy. The commission staff says the group is still looking at all options, but Baker is known to personally reject the most radical strategies-partition of the country or a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Could Be Exit Stage Left for the Architect
A big topic among White House insiders as the midterm elections approach is the fate of top political aide Karl Rove if the Republicans lose control of the House or Senate. The consensus is that Rove's image will suffer, big time. "He will be taken a lot less seriously," a senior Republican strategist and informal White House adviser says. Indeed, some insiders believe that Rove will leave after the first of the year. Rove was nicknamed "the architect" by President Bush because he built the winning strategy in the last two presidential elections. But his luster is dimming in the GOP as the party's prospects for the elections look more and more bleak while Bush stubbornly holds course.
How to Win the Battle and Lose the War
Along with Democrats' expectations that they will take control of the House comes a growing fear that such a situation would help GOP 2008 presidential candidates and hurt Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's White House bid. Party officials and political analysts say that voters would most likely become irked if the House under a Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched massive investigations of the Bush administration while repealing its tax cuts. "Sen. John McCain, or really, any Republican candidate, benefits from that," says a GOP business leader. And even Democrats worry that if voters sour on Pelosi, they might take it out on Clinton, the only woman running for national office in 2008. "If Pelosi is a bomb, the voters will just see Hillary as a national version of her," warned one Democratic strategist.
Hey, Let's Try to Shoot the Messenger
One day after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra suspended a Democratic staffer for allegedly leaking the supersecret National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism, GOP officials pounced on the issue to embarrass Democrats. "We're going to pivot off the spy leak today and talk about how we hope that the Democrats didn't leak that document to the New York Times just to score political points," said a House leadership aide on Friday. "Al Qaeda has a subscription to the New York Times," he added. The report embarrassed the administration because it suggested that the war in Iraq had prompted more terrorism. Republicans hope that their tactics will raise concerns that a Democratic Congress would be too loose with critical classified information.
PHOTO OP: 4:34 p.m., October 19, Richmond, Va.
Well, if you can't get a photo of you and the president, why not you and his airplane? When President Bush flew to a Virginia event to raise money for embattled Sen. George Allen, some admirers were invited to the tarmac. The same day, former President Bill Clinton joined Allen's Democratic opponent, James Webb, for a fundraiser of their own.
With Kenneth T. Walsh, Paul Bedard and Linda Robinson
This story appears in the October 30, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
advertisement
