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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (3211)	7/10/2003 2:52:05 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 10965

High-stakes poker game Will Bush maintain public trust on Iraq occupation? By Howard Fineman SPECIAL TO MSNBC.COM msnbc.com WASHINGTON, July 10 — George W. Bush likes cards now and then, and the favorite game in the state he hails from is called “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The choices are limited, though the betting is not, and most of the cards are dealt face up. It puts a premium on bravado, and on a willingness to put everything on the line in an “OK Corral” style shootout. You win big — or lose big. THE PRESIDENT has played the poker game of war leadership this way — cards face up — since 9/11, pushing all his, and our, chips to the middle of the table in a showdown with the axis of evil. He hasn’t shied away from betting big time on dramatic victory in Iraq, which he decided to invade a year ago. Now the question is whether he chose the right game and the right strategy. His presidency, and our safety, depends on this deal of the cards. By and large, the American people still like his “bring ‘em on” attitude. They still seethe at the memory of the 9/11 attacks on something they’ve only recently learned to call “the homeland.” They rallied in 2001 to an untested president’s firm response — rhetorical and actual — and cheered, or quietly enjoyed, the sight of bombs falling on the Taliban and Saddam. INGRAINED AMERICAN VALUES They also like his basic notion, which is that we will use force when and where necessary, with the United Nations or without, to protect ourselves. It’s an idea as deeply ingrained in America as, say, the right to bear arms. Even if you think the Second Amendment applies only to state militias, the point is the same: Diplomacy is all well and good, but where’s my rifle? Americans also have a sense that something bigger is at stake in the war on terrorism: the idea of freedom and democracy in the world as a whole. They know that there is no more “Over There,” as the song went in World War I. Over There is everywhere, and no country is too obscure or distant. Any of them could breed the hate and the repression that threaten us. For all those reasons — emotional, intuitive, pragmatic — President Bush’s approval ratings remain high, and confidence in the course of the war in Iraq, while diminished somewhat, remains pretty strong. Europeans detest Bush’s vision; most Americans still see it as their own. But there is a cloud on the horizon of the Bush presidency, and it is not the controversy about what he did or didn’t know concerning the alleged — and we now know fictitious — effort by Iraq to acquire uranium “yellow cake” from Niger. In and of itself, the question means little to the American people, who wanted Saddam Hussein obliterated no matter what the specific excuse. They knew that, even if he wasn’t an immediate threat, he or his Baathist regime quite likely would become one eventually. Better to deal with him now. PERSONAL VS. POLITICAL The political threat to Bush is elsewhere, but very real. It has to do with how the voters see him. Much of the president’s support is personal: People tend to like the guy. They tend to trust him. If he undermines that trust, his presidency could collapse. “Trust Me” works as an explanation for political leadership — but only when the voters already do. Reacting defensively or dismissively to questions about who knew what when won’t work in the long run. The risk for the administration is that it will react badly to all the questions — and put at risk the thing that holds it together, which is Bush’s credibility with mainstream voters. LOSING THE MILITARY The president also needs to speak frankly about the long-term costs of the war in Iraq, in blood and treasure. Forget the Democrats: They’re lining up against his policy, big time, even though many of them voted for it. An open-ended war with no evidence of a stable government in Baghdad will begin to undermine the president’s support in the place it has been strongest — among the military and military families. Gung-ho once, they are no longer. It’s hard to imagine a Democrat who could successfully appeal to those voters over Bush’s head. But they could simply stay away from the polls — or not mail military absentee ballots — next year. Finally, and most important, voters need to be convinced that the president’s anywhere and everywhere theory of the world has made us safer here at home. With Osama Bin Laden at large and Saddam Hussein still a factor in Iraq, that isn’t as easy a sell as the White House might think. The conventional wisdom is that, if there is another terrorist attack on the homeland, voters will rally around the president. Maybe. Maybe not. It would depend on the facts. Big bets are on the table, but we don’t know what cards the other guys are holding. Howard Fineman is Newsweek’s chief political correspondent and an NBC News analyst.

To: calgal who wrote (3211)	7/10/2003 10:03:46 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 10965

Kerry gave a very powerful speech today and got great coverage, the type they only give the frontrunner.

To: calgal who wrote (3211)	7/11/2003 12:17:15 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

REVIEW & OUTLOOK Freeing D.C. Kids Rich Republicans join ultraliberals in defense of failing schools. Friday, July 11, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT Five long years after Bill Clinton vetoed education vouchers for the poorest pupils in the District of Columbia, the political stars are realigning. The question now is whether Republicans are going to miss this opportunity to match policy with their we-care-for-poor-kids rhetoric. A voucher bill narrowly passed a House committee yesterday, 22-21, allocating $7,500 a year to low-income children shackled to schools where kids aren't learning. President Bush, who earmarked $75 million of his 2004 budget for school choice pilot programs, has promised to sign the legislation. This represents the best chance yet to demonstrate that vouchers can improve the lives of kids trapped in our nation's worst school systems. The District already spends well over $15,000 per student (the national average is $8,500), three times more than in 1980. Yet in the latest National Assessment of Education Progress report, D.C. public school students scored lower than all 50 states. Seventy-two percent of black D.C. students read at the "below basic" level, which means they have "little or no mastery of fundamental knowledge and skills." Who can possibly defend such results? This scandal has finally shaken Washington, D.C., officials, who have abandoned their former hostility to vouchers. D.C. school board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Kevin Chavous, a D.C. council member who heads the education committee, and Mayor Anthony Williams are all now choice advocates. On the District's Web site, Mayor Williams calls it a "human tragedy" that "approximately 40% of adults in our city read only at a third grade level . . . [and] can't complete a job application or advance beyond an entry-level position." By way of explaining his change of heart on vouchers, the Mayor recently told Congress that parents tell him "there are no practical and easy alternatives for their children within the current system of public schools." He says he "cannot tell parents they must continue to wait while there are other outlets in our midst." With all of this new support, it's fascinating to see how the unions are scrambling to scuttle this offer of hope at the last minute. This week People for the American Way, an outfit in bed with the unions, released a report claiming that the voucher pilot is all about "ultra-conservative elements" who want to destroy public education. Apparently Anthony Williams and all those poor D.C. parents have now joined the vast right-wing conspiracy. It says something about the reactionary condition of modern liberalism that one of its great causes is defending failed inner-city schools. The other last-ditch strategy is to work through individual Republicans who are trying to sabotage the bill as it moves through Congress. Todd Platts, a GOP Congressman from exurban Pennsylvania, tried to block the bill from getting to the floor and voted against it in committee. And earlier this week House Appropriator Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey inserted his own poison pill into a spending bill. We wonder if either of these worthies has ever met a D.C. parent or child. Here's how the 2002 Almanac of American Politics describes Mr. Frelinghuysen's horse-country district: "Only in the late 20th Century has it come into its own as one of the wealthiest areas in the United States. And it is not just a collection of country estates, with huddled small towns for the servants to live in, but a well-rounded community with all the appurtenances of urbanity except high crime and poverty rates." Maybe Mr. Frelinghuysen can offer D.C. dropouts a job cleaning the stables. It's hard to believe that if the now-retired Dick Armey were still in the GOP House leadership, a backbench Pennsylvanian and a New Jersey Brahmin would be able to keep poor black kids in D.C. stuck in schools that they'd never allow their own children anywhere near. These days it falls to Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay to prevent Republicans from living up to the liberal stereotype that they are the indifferent rich. Polls show that black parents are the nation's strongest, most consistent supporters of educational choice. For decades they have waited for some acknowledgment of this from the black political establishment. Thanks to Mayor Williams and a few other brave local leaders, it's finally come. What an outrage it will be if a GOP White House and Congress can't get their act together to capitalize on this golden educational opportunity.

To: calgal who wrote (3211)	7/11/2003 12:17:48 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Powell: Bad Intelligence Story 'Overwrought, Overblown, Overdrawn' URL:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91590,00.html Thursday, July 10, 2003 WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that plenty of information justified war with Iraq, even if some of the intelligence used to win support for the cause turned out to be false. "I think this is very overwrought, overblown and overdrawn," Powell said about the recent admission by the White House that President Bush included erroneous information in his State of the Union address this past winter. Bush cited an intelligence report that Iraq had tried to buy raw uranium from the African nation of Niger (search). The information turned out to be based on forged documents. CIA and State Department officials have said they had told the White House their doubts about the report, but were ignored. The false intelligence was excluded from Powell's presentation to the United Nations a week later, a turnabout that Powell chalked up to newer, better vetting of the intelligence. "You get the information and you analyze it. Sometimes it holds up, and sometimes it doesn't. It's a moving train," Powell told reporters in Pretoria, South Africa (search), adding that there was "no effort or attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in this administration to mislead or to deceive the American people." Powell, discussing a wide range of issues as he traveled with the president in Africa, said that at the time of the State of the Union speech, the intelligence community had vetted the information. "The sentence in the State of the Union was not put in there without the knowledge and the approval of the intelligence community that saw the speech, but I can't tell you what level saw it," Powell said, adding that plenty of additional information justified the war, including data that had existed prior to the president's administration. Democrats criticized the White House this week as U.S. soldiers continued to die in Iraq and the White House admitted the use of the phony intelligence. A growing number of Democrats have asked Bush to seek international assistance for the Iraq occupation, and have begun to classify the attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq as part of a "guerrilla war." Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said Thursday that the Defense Department did not prepare adequately for post-combat operations, adding that he feared "we may find ourselves in the throes of guerrilla warfare for years." In a separate press conference, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., suggested that Bush seek help in Iraq from NATO. "It makes no sense at all for us to get involved and bogged down in a guerrilla war," he said. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a Democratic presidential candidate, also said the president should ask the international community to help U.S. troops. Powell avoided the third-country issue but said there was plenty of evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime pursued development of weapons of mass destruction. At the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, weapons were found and destroyed, Powell noted, adding that in 1998, then-President Clinton ordered a four-day bombing raid because of intelligence about a resuscitated weapons program. The secretary of state also pointed out that all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council in Oct. 2002 found Iraq to be in "material breach" of its commitment to get rid of unauthorized weapons. "If there is anybody who thinks that Saddam Hussein had ever lost the intent to have such weapons," Powell said, "then I think that is the most naive view imaginable." Powell said Bush would soon decide whether to send U.S. peacekeepers into Liberia (search). Liberian President Charles Taylor, accused of war crimes and offered asylum in Nigeria (search), has said he would leave the country when a peacekeeping force arrived. In the meantime, U.S. military experts continued to assess the ground situation in Monrovia, Liberia's besieged capital. Another U.S. team planned to meet with West African diplomats this weekend in Ghana (search). The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States has offered 3,000 troops for a peacekeeping force. "The president hasn't made any specific decisions on the level of support or actual participation," Powell said. "I expect that over the next several days ... the president will be in a position to make a decision." He added that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, himself a Ghanaian, will be in Washington on Monday to meet Bush. Iraq and Liberia likely will both be on the agenda. Powell said that the president's trip to Africa, originally scheduled for January, had been long on substance, short on style. "We have put before the people of Africa a solid agenda that talks about aid and trade, talks about investment, talks about the greatest threat to Africa right now and, frankly, to many parts of the world, that's HIV/AIDS, talking about expanded opportunities for investment," he said. The president was scheduled to visit Uganda (search) and Nigeria before wrapping up his African excursion. Powell said nothing about the trip was designed to win over African-Americans in the next election, but he hoped that American voters would take a look at the president's foreign policy agenda and "recognize that, admire it, appreciate it and respond accordingly."