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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (287028)	8/15/2002 11:52:44 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The missing link preaches in front of Mt. Rushmore: Bush to Pitch Homeland Security Plan at Mount Rushmore By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 11:11 a.m. ET DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- President Bush, using Mount Rushmore as a patriotic stage set, is insisting the Democratic-controlled Senate approve a Homeland Security Department with no bureaucratic strings attached. Bush has said in speech after speech that he wants the unfettered right to assign and transfer personnel of the new department at will. But at least one senior Senate Democrat said the president is turning an urgent quest to improve the nation's internal security into a labor-management dispute. Bush chose Mount Rushmore, the presidential memorial in South Dakota, as the site for a speech laying out his stands on homeland security, the war on terror and the budget. South Dakota is the home state of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Bush's chief adversary in the capital and a potential Democratic challenger in 2004. It was the wrap-up speech of a two-day Midwest swing that has taken the president to a university campus in Milwaukee, the Iowa State Fair and fund-raisers for GOP gubernatorial candidates in Wisconsin and Iowa. He was returning to Texas on Thursday afternoon to continue his vacation at his 1,600-acre ranch near Crawford. In speeches throughout the week, Bush has portrayed Senate Democrats as unreliable on security issues, especially on his decision to unify many protective functions in a single cabinet department. Bush contends the Democrats are attempting to saddle him with a ``a big fat bureaucratic rule book'' when they demand Civil Service and union protections for the new department's work force. ``The Senate looks a little shaky,'' Bush said as he addressed a fairgrounds crowd Wednesday afternoon. ``They want to protect their turf. They want to protect the special interests.'' The president said he wants freedom to ``put the right people in the right place at the right time.'' Shortly after Bush spoke at the state fair, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., appeared to promote his own presidential aspirations and to raise questions about the White House stance on homeland security. ``I don't understand the tactic that President Bush is following,'' said Lieberman, asserting that the two sides agree on 90 percent of the issues on the table. Lieberman said he is puzzled at Bush's effort to remove federal protections for federal workers who will be transferred to the new department. He said he had told the president, ``Don't make this critical, urgent quest to create a homeland security department into basically a labor-management dispute.'' White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Bush will hold a private round-table meeting about South Dakota's severe drought shortly before his Mount Rushmore speech.