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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KonKilo who wrote (18213)	12/8/2003 12:20:25 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793669

U.S. Gone 'Off a Cliff' In Iraq, Gingrich Says By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 8, 2003; Page A07 Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said yesterday that the Bush administration has gone "off a cliff" in postwar Iraq and that "the White House has to get a grip on this." In a blunt critique by a leading Republican, Gingrich said the administration has failed "to put the Iraqis at the center of this equation. . . . The key to defeating the bad guys is having enough good guys who are Iraqis," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." The administration did not send enough Iraqi Americans there after the war, Gingrich said. On the main online site of the U.S. occupying authority, he added, "up until last week you didn't see a single Iraqi on that Web page," and now there is only one. White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. defended the administration's policy. "I think things are going very well in a very tough situation in Iraq. . . . Newt Gingrich is not all-knowing," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation." Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, hit three Sunday talk shows and said she agreed with Gingrich. She blamed the administration for "miscalculation" and "inept planning" in Iraq, as she put it on ABC's "This Week." "I do think we need more troops" in Iraq, Clinton said. She said she believes in giving the chief executive the authority to wage war, as her husband did in Bosnia and Kosovo. "But I regret the way the president has used the authority." Clinton dismissed complaints that she should not have criticized President Bush while in Iraq and blamed a "right-wing apparatus." Clinton said she was merely responding to questions from U.S. troops. "I'm not going to lie to an American soldier," she said on CBS. On domestic politics, Clinton assailed the administration for "radical ideas" such as eliminating overtime payments for millions of workers. "I thought they wanted to undo everything Bill Clinton had done," she said on NBC. "I took that a little personally. . . . Then I realized they're taking aim at the New Deal." Clinton laughingly insisted on each program that she would not accept the Democratic presidential nomination, or even the vice presidential nod, in 2004. She declined to comment on the candidacy of former Vermont governor Howard Dean, saying she is not taking sides in the primaries. Dean, interviewed on "Fox News Sunday," defended his recent statements in New Hampshire that he needed to "teach" Bush about defense because the president "doesn't understand what it takes to defend this country, that you have to have high moral purpose." "There are not very many countries, after three years of George W. Bush's presidency, where people want to be like us anymore," Dean said. "That is what I mean by the loss of high moral purpose." He also said Bush had backed off efforts to cut combat pay for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dean was asked about his comments on National Public Radio's "The Diane Rehm Show" last week concerning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He said then: "The most interesting theory that I've heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis." Dean said yesterday that "I can't imagine the president of the United States doing that," but added that Bush needs to "give the information" to the commission investigating the attacks. Asked why he raised the theory, Dean said: "Because there are people who believe that. We don't know what happened in 9/11." Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie later called Dean "reckless and irresponsible" for "floating this incendiary theory." washingtonpost.com

To: KonKilo who wrote (18213)	1/12/2004 8:36:31 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793669

Iowa unions aren't united Jules Witcover Baltimore Sun DES MOINES, Iowa - "Solidarity" is the customary byword in the labor movement, but it's being intentionally ignored here as Iowans mobilize for the Jan. 19 Democratic presidential precinct caucuses. With the national AFL-CIO having declined to endorse a candidate and state federations thus prohibited from doing so, organized labor in Iowa is split, essentially between longtime champion Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of neighboring Missouri and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. Mr. Gephardt has the backing of 21 unions in Iowa under a new national umbrella organization called the Alliance for Economic Justice. But Dr. Dean has been endorsed nationally by two of the largest AFL-CIO unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In a state with 135,000 AFL-CIO members, according to Mark Smith of the Iowa Federation of Labor, and about 32,000 more in the state teachers union, the labor vote could be decisive, especially as far as Mr. Gephardt is concerned. Chuck Rocha, his Iowa political director, says the Alliance for Economic Justice represents about 90,000 Iowa union members. In his first presidential bid in 1988, Mr. Gephardt rode to victory in the Iowa caucuses with a late surge of support from labor and other fellow Midwesterners. Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Gordon Fischer says much of that support remains solid. Mr. Rocha says Mr. Gephardt's strong opposition to international trade agreements has broadened that support with industrial unions in the alliance. Larry Scanlon, AFSCME's national political director, says the huge public-sector union backing Dr. Dean holds bargaining rights for 30,000 Iowans. But, according to Kim Miller of SEIU, the service-sector union has a membership of only 1,300 in the state. Both, however, have strong national political operations organizing on the ground for the caucuses in a system that puts a high premium on grass-roots voter identification and turnout. Mr. Scanlon, who is coordinating the labor efforts in Iowa on behalf of Dr. Dean, says AFSCME has members in all of the state's 99 counties and campaign activity "wherever there's a crossroads and a stop sign." Of both AFSCME and SEIU, he says, "there's a political culture built into our organizations." Mr. Rocha, who also is national political director for the United Steelworkers of America, and John Lapp, Mr. Gephardt's state campaign director, argue that the unions making up the pro-Gephardt alliance represent blue-collar workers who are more highly motivated for the caucuses than the public-sector and service employees. The reason, they say, is that these workers have been hit much harder by Bush administration trade and other labor policies. Mr. Rocha notes that of the 3.3 million job losses under President Bush, 2.6 million have been suffered by the manufacturing sector. One other candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, is backed by the firefighters union, but it is believed to have only a modest political impact here. Mr. Smith notes that all of the Democratic candidates have strong labor voting records and hence the overall labor vote may well be spread among several of them on caucus night. That vote also could be somewhat diluted by what some here say could be a record turnout. Most of the campaigns claim to be better organized and motivated than in the past as a result of intense dislike of President Bush among Democratic voters. The intensity is based not only on perceived anti-labor policies, Democratic campaign strategists say, but also on the manner of Mr. Bush's Supreme Court-anointed election in 2000 and on strong disapproval of his war in Iraq and its tumultuous aftermath. That is why, Mr. Smith says, the question of electability has become a central concern of Democratic caucus-goers here. Mr. Scanlon agrees: "We need a candidate to beat George Bush." And nowhere more than in the labor constituency is this sentiment held. So the debate within it is not so much which of the Democratic candidates is most pro-labor but which of them is the best bet to send the Republican incumbent packing in November. Jules Witcover generally writes from The Sun's Washington bureau. His column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.