Sep
22
WASHINGTON - Scrambling for a swift deal on the $700 billion bailout for failing financial firms, key Democrats and Bush administration officials agreed Monday to include mortgage help for beleaguered homeowners but wrangled over other issues, including “golden parachutes” for executives who benefit from the unprecedented rescue.
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Democrats demanded that the measure limit pay packages for executives of companies helped by the biggest financial rescue since the Great Depression. The administration was balking at that, and also at a proposal by Democrats to let judges rewrite mortgages to lower bankrupt homeowners’ monthly payments.
President Bush prodded Congress during the day to pass the rescue plan quickly, declaring, “The whole world is watching.”
Rep. Barney Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, said the administration essentially had forced Congress to the negotiating table by creating an expectation in financial markets that a massive bailout was on the way.
“By the declaration that they made, by sending this proposal, I think we have to recognize the reality that we don’t have a choice now of debating whether this is a good or a bad thing,” said Frank, D-Mass, who was leading negotiations with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
“We have gotten closer,” Frank said, but “We’re not there yet.”
Congressional aides said the House could act on a bailout bill as early as Wednesday, but leaders emerged from a closed-door meeting late Monday with no firm timetable for action.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said only that leaders were working to give the markets confidence that “this legislation will pass, and it will pass soon.”
However, Wall Street wasn’t comforted by the progress of the talks. The Dow Jones industrials plummeted 372 points, oil prices soared $25 a barrel at one point and gold prices surged anew as investors searched for a safe place to park their money. And despite encouraging talk on Capitol Hill, lawmakers on both the right and left were already assailing the deal-in-progress.
The emergency legislation would give the government broad power to buy up devalued assets from troubled financial firms in a bid to unlock the flow of credit and stabilize badly shaken markets in the United States and around the globe.
In one expansion of its original proposal, the administration is asking for broad power to buy up virtually any kind of bad asset - including credit card debt or car loans - from any financial institution in the U.S. or abroad in order to stabilize markets.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman, has proposed granting that request; Frank said he was working to limit the bailout to mortgage-related investments.
Differences remained with the administration on Democrats’ proposal that the government take an ownership stake in the troubled companies it bails out so that taxpayers could benefit from future profits. Frank said Paulson had accepted the idea in principle, but several staff aides at work on the plan said there was no agreement yet on how the concept would work.
Frank said he and Paulson had agreed to create a congressional oversight board as part of the bailout and to mandate that the government come up with a plan to avoid foreclosures on any mortgages it acquires in the rescue. A government official with knowledge of the talks confirmed the administration backs those provisions.
As for tottering financial firms, there still were divisions on which would be helped and what kind of assets the government could buy as part of the bailout.
And in a fresh sign of a challenging road ahead, Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the top Banking Committee Republican, blasted the emerging plan as “neither workable nor comprehensive.”
“In my judgment, it would be foolish to waste massive sums of taxpayer funds testing an idea that has been hastily crafted and may actually cause the government to revert to an inadequate strategy of ad hoc bailouts,” Shelby said.
Lawmakers on both extremes of the political spectrum assailed the plan as a massive, poorly conceived bailout. Conservative House Republicans and liberal House Democrats both and huddled privately to express their concerns.
A partisan battle was brewing over the bankruptcy provision for homeowners’ mortgage payments, a key Democratic demand.
“We’ll see how hard they fight - it’s something we care about,” Frank said.
Lawmakers in both parties appeared to be coalescing around the idea that executive compensation limits should be part of the bailout, although Paulson is said to be concerned that such curbs would discourage companies from participating.
“Some element of that has to be in this package,” said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla.
Investors were uncertain just how successful the administration’s plan would be in unfreezing credit markets, which many businesses depend on to fund day-to-day operations, and for propping up the still-weak housing market.
Bush said, “Obviously, there will be differences over some details, and we will have to work through them. That is an understandable part of the policymaking process.” But he also said, “It would not be understandable if members of Congress sought to use this emergency legislation to pass unrelated provisions, or to insist on provisions that would undermine the effectiveness of the plan.”
Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin said, “We are confident that we can get a bill done this week.”
The fast-moving negotiations between the administration and Congress unfolded a day after the government approved a request by investment houses Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to change their status to bank holding companies.
That change will allow the two venerable institutions to set up commercial banks that will be able to take deposits, significantly bolstering the resources of both institutions. It will also grant them permanent access to emergency loans supplied by the Fed rather than the temporary loan status they have had since last March when the Fed moved to prop up investment banks following the forced sale of Bear Stearns.
Aug
22
President Bush has assured that the US administration will continue to support the government and democratic forces in Pakistan.
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In a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani he renewed us firm commitment to economic and anti-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan
White house spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Washington that the two leaders reaffirmed their mutual support for going after extremists who are a threat to Pakistan, the United States and the entire world. Talking to newsmen in Islamabad, information minister Sherry Rehman said that president bush expressed happiness on successful transition to democracy in Pakistan.
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Aug
6
Bush praises South Korea, rebukes North
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SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — U.S. President George W. Bush praised the U.S. relationship with South Korea on Wednesday and said the two nations should continue to work together to eliminate threats from North Korea.
President George W. Bush and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak attend a joint press conference in Seoul.
1 of 3 Bush spoke during a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. The stop in South Korea is part of Bush’s weeklong Asian tour.
“Our relationship is important vital and I believe it is strong,” Bush said.
Bush said he was still concerned about North Korea and said the country has a long way to go before it is taken off his “axis of evil list” as well as removing it from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
“I am concerned about North Korea’s human rights record,” Bush said “I am concerned about the uranium enrichment…”
He spoke hours after thousands of protesters packed the streets of the South Korean capital Tuesday.
While some demonstrations were peaceful, violence erupted at other protest sites. In one instance, riot police fired a water cannon to keep the crowds at bay.
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Police said they detained about 80 protesters. They estimated about 2,700 people were participating in the protests, which included a candlelight march and a sit-in. But the organizers said some 10,000 were taking part in the demonstrations.
Bush’s weeklong trip to the region is his ninth visit as president. See a map of Bush’s itinerary »
His stop in Seoul comes just a few months after violent street protests erupted over worries about the safety of U.S. beef imports.
While those tensions seem to have eased, the United States’ nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea is also a concern.
Michael Green, a former Bush adviser on Asian affairs, and now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says Seoul’s proximity to North Korea contributes to an ongoing unease.
“The North Koreans have 11,000 artillery tubes and rockets aimed at the South Korean capital, so any little thing that we do with North Korea makes the South Koreans very jittery,” Green said.
He added, “On the other hand, the U.S. has to worry a great deal about where terrorists might get nuclear weapons or nuclear material.”
Jul
26
WASHINGTON - Congress passed the most significant housing legislation in decades Saturday, offering help to struggling homeowners and seeking to stabilize a troubled housing market that has dragged down the economy.
President Bush will sign it quickly, the White House said, despite reservations over $3.9 billion in the bill that would aid neighborhoods devastated by the housing crisis buy and fix up foreclosed properties.
The bill, approved 72-13 in a rare weekend session in the Senate, would give the government power to throw a financial lifeline to the ailing mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They back or own $5 trillion in mortgages, or nearly half the nation’s total. The rescue plan is intended to prevent the two pillars of the home loan market from failing and causing broader market turmoil, while strengthening oversight of their operations.
An estimated 400,000 homeowners would escape foreclosure by getting the chance to refinance into more affordable loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. There would be higher limits on loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy and the FHA can insure. The loans would be capped at $625,000.
The Senate on Friday removed the last hurdle to passage on a 80-13 test vote that showed broad support for the election-year help. The House passed the bill Wednesday.
Bush initially said the proposal was a burdensome bailout for irresponsible borrowers and lenders. But he dropped a threat to veto it this week after Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson argued that the support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was vital to calming markets in the U.S. and abroad.
The administration also opposed the aid for neighborhoods, arguing that approach would hurt homeowners by giving lenders an incentive to foreclose rather than help people stay in their homes.
“Because of the Democratic Congress’ delays and the need for action now, President Bush will sign this bill when he receives it, despite our concerns with some provisions, including nearly $4 billion to help lenders, not the homeowners this legislation is intended to serve,” White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said.
Supporters said the bill was a long-overdue response to the mortgage meltdown and would help boost the sagging economy. Democrats bashed Republicans for delaying the measure and forcing the Saturday session.
“This is far more than sending a bill to the president’s desk for his signature. It’s sending a message to the American people that the Congress of the United States - despite an alternative reputation - can actually get things done, and can work together to achieve a good result,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
The bill includes several cherished Democratic priorities, including the creation of a permanent affordable housing fund to be financed by Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s profits and the neighborhood grants.
The Bush administration and many congressional Republicans swallowed those items grudgingly in exchange for reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a long-held goal of theirs. Paulson said the government backup for the mortgage giants was vital.
“These components are orders of magnitude more important to turning the corner on the housing correction,” he said in a statement.
Paulson’s request for the emergency power to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led to a bipartisan deal on the bill.
“It’s been nearly six years since we called for a strong, independent regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and nearly a year since the president called on Congress to quickly pass legislation to modernize the Federal Housing Administration to keep more deserving Americans in their homes, especially low-income Americans,” Fratto said. “So it’s good that the Democratic Congress has finally acted.”
Many conservative Republicans are opposed to the foreclosure rescue, which they call a bailout of reckless homeowners and unscrupulous lenders. They are equally furious about the help for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, companies they say enjoy lavish profits in good times and wield their outsized political clout to resist regulation while depending on the government to bail them out should they falter.
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., slowed the measure’s final passage because Democrats refused to allow a vote on his proposal barring the two mortgage companies from lobbying and making political contributions. He said the legislation was a mammoth bill stuffed with extraneous items, powered by the desire of lawmakers in both parties to act on a pressing issue.
“No matter what’s wrong with it, most of the members of this Senate are going to come in and vote for it, and check the box and go home and say they did something about housing,” DeMint said.
Jul
18
WASHINGTON - President Bush has been a “total failure” in everything from the economy to the war to energy policy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday. In an interview on CNN, the California Democrat was asked to respond to video of the president criticizing the Democratic-led Congress for heading into the final 26 days of the legislative session without having passed a single government spending bill.
Pelosi shot back in unusually personal terms.
“You know, God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject,” Pelosi replied. She then tsk-tsked Bush for “challenging Congress when we are trying to sweep up after his mess over and over and over again.”
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino defended Bush.
“What the president said is a fact - this is the longest a Congress has gone in 20 years without passing a single spending bill, so it’s clear that the speaker is feeling some frustration at their inability to do so.”
Pelosi’s outburst was a departure. Her usual practice in public has been to call Bush’s policies a failure - not his presidency or him, personally. Pelosi’s remarks are the latest evidence of the Democrats’ throw-caution-to-the-wind approach to Bush in the waning days of a presidency weighed down by an unpopular war and soaring gasoline prices.
Election Day, after all, is just over four months away; Bush’s successor takes his seat on Jan. 20.
Pelosi’s counterpart in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, long ago took off the rhetorical gloves. Last month, he ridiculed Republicans who sided with Bush on a Medicare bill.
“Who would be afraid of him?” Reid, D-Nev., said as many senators looked on. “He’s got a 29 percent approval rating.”
The public’s view of Congress is even worse. Its approval rating has hit a new low of just 18 percent, down from 23 percent last month, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. Bush’s approval is at 28 percent, about even with the 29 percent rating last month.
Only 16 percent of those surveyed thought the country was moving in the right direction, a new low as well, although statistically the same as last month’s 17 percent.
Last week Reid and other Democrats dropped any pretense of trying to fight the president on battles they were likely to lose - even on the most important part of their jobs, which is passing spending bills that keep the government running.
Of the 12 annual appropriations bills, Congress is likely to pass one or two and send Bush a temporary spending fix for the rest. That would have to suffice until a new president takes office, Reid told reporters.
Privately, Democrats have said that either candidate for president - Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain - would be easier to make laws with than Bush. But Reid made clear which he’d prefer.
“I would hope that before we would leave here this year that we would do a continuing resolution that would get us (through) until after Senator Obama becomes president,” he said.
Jul
15
Bush touts mortgage plans, offshore drilling
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Under the backdrop of a deteriorating economic picture, President Bush said Tuesday he is taking action to help people with falling home values and high gas prices.
Bush highlighted plans to stabilize the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) and lift the ban on offshore oil drilling as two steps his administration is taking to address some of the nation’s economic ills.
‘It’s been a difficult time for American families,” Bush said at a press conference. “We must ensure we can continue providing credit during this time of stress.”
On Sunday, the administration said it would provide capital and maybe buy stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the country’s two giant mortgage financing companies.
Stocks in the two firms plummeted last week on fears they were holding billions of dollars in bad loans. The turmoil at Fannie and Freddie raised fears the home lending market may dry up, sending home prices into a tailspin.
“I don’t think it’s a bailout,” said Bush, deflecting some criticism that the government should not rescue a private firm. “The shareholders still own the company.”
On the gas price front, Bush reiterated his call for more drilling off the East and West Coasts and in Alaska.
“The only thing standing between these vast resources and the American people is action from Congress,” he said. “The sooner Congress lifts the ban, the sooner we can get these resources from the ocean floor to the refineries to the gas pump.”
There were two bans restricting drilling off most of the U.S. coast - one from the President and one from Congress.
On Monday Bush lifted the executive ban, putting pressure on the Democratic-controlled Congress to do the same.
So far, the Democrats have resisted calls for more drilling, arguing the amount of oil it would bring to market would have little effect on prices, and the nation’s efforts would be better spent developing alternatives to oil and focusing on conservation.
Bush agreed with one main argument for restricting drilling - that it would take years for the new supplies to come online. But still, he said that’s no reason to not act.
“There’s a psychology in the market that says supplies will stay stagnant while demand rises,” he said. “It seems to make sense to say to the world that we’re going to explore for oil and gas, to send a message that supplies will increase.”
Bush rebuffed calls by some Democrats to release some oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an attempt to lower gas prices.
“The SPR is for emergencies,” he said. “That doesn’t address the fundamental issue.”
Bush’s speech comes at a time when the nation is focused on economic issues. While the economy is not technically in a recession, news on the economic front has not been good.
Home prices are down about 15% nationwide over the last year, according to a recent numbers from the Case/Shiller home price index. The economy has lost jobs for the last six months in a row. And Wall Street has moved into a bear market, with stocks trading 20% below recent highs.
“When will the economy turn around? I’m not an economist,” said Bush, responding to a reporter’s question. “But I do believe we’re growing. I’m an optimist, and there are a lot of positive things about our economy.”
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Jun
21
WASHINGTON - If the nation doesn’t trust the Bush White House, it’s the president’s and Dick Cheney’s own fault, Bush’s former spokesman told Congress Friday.
From life-and-death matters on down — the rationale for war, the leaking of classified information, Cheney’s accidental shooting of a friend — the government’s top two leaders undermined their credibility by “packaging” their version of the truth, former press secretary Scott McClellan said.
He described the loss of trust as self-inflicted, telling the House Judiciary Committee that Bush and his administration failed to open up about White House mistakes.
The focus of the panel’s hearing was the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, and McClellan said that was a good example of the administration damaging itself by backtracking on a pledge be upfront.
“This White House promised or assured the American people that at some point when this was behind us they would talk publicly about it. And they have refused to,” McClellan said. “And that’s why I think more than any other reason we are here today and the suspicion still remains.”
The White House dismissed Friday’s hearing as unenlightening and McClellan, the president’s former top spokesman, as uninformed. Republicans on the committee accused him of writing about sensitive matters to make money, a reference to his recent book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.”
“I think Scott has probably told everyone everything he doesn’t know, so I don’t know if anyone should expect him to say anything new today,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.
Fratto, who is Bush’s deputy press secretary, came to the White House after McClellan left, apparently in good standing, in April 2006.
McClellan, considered an ultimate Bush loyalist until the book came out, worked for Bush when the future president was Texas governor, jumped to his presidential campaign and then followed him to Washington when he won.
On Friday, McClellan returned repeatedly to his theme that Bush, Cheney and others in the administration had done great damage to themselves — and by extension to aides like McClellan — by being less than truthful on a range of official matters.
“This is a very secretive White House,” McClellan said. “There’s some things that they would prefer not to be talked about.”
McClellan took aim at Bush’s personal honesty when discussing the president’s handling of allegations that he had long ago used cocaine.
In the book, McClellan recounts hearing Bush on the telephone telling a supporter that “I honestly don’t remember whether I tried it or not.”
McClellan called that kind of response to sensitive questions by Bush and other politicians “essentially evasion” that for Bush later “transferred over to other issues” of policy.
“It tells something about his character,” he maintained.
Committee Republicans said McClellan was the one with the credibility problem.
“Some would say that you included that sensational information about the alleged drug use and his denial not to promote bipartisanship and civility but rather to promote book sales,” said Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla.
McClellan made clear in the book and in person that he felt especially burned by the Plame matter.
He said that former White House chief of staff Andy Card told him that the president and vice president wanted him to publicly say that Cheney’s top aide, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was not involved in the leak.
“I was reluctant to do it,” McClellan said Friday. “I got on the phone with Scooter Libby and asked him point-blank, ‘Were you involved in this in any way?’ And he assured me in unequivocal terms that he was not.”
In fact, both Libby and former presidential adviser Karl Rove had discussed Plame’s identity with reporters.
State Department official Richard Armitage first revealed Plame’s CIA identity to columnist Robert Novak, who used Rove as a confirming source for a 2003 article. Around that time Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson was criticizing Bush’s march to war in Iraq.
Plame maintains the White House quietly revealed her position to reporters as retribution for criticism from her husband. McClellan told the panel he agreed.
Libby resigned from office the day he was indicted on charges of covering up the leak. He was later convicted, but last July Bush commuted his 2 1/2-year sentence, sparing him from serving any prison time. “It was special treatment,” McClellan said of the commutation.
Rove left the White House last August. He has never been charged in the case.
McClellan told the House panel he doesn’t know if a crime was committed and does not believe that Bush knew about or directed the leak. When asked about Cheney, he replied: “I do not know. There’s a lot of suspicion there.”
Fratto disputed the notion that the Plame issue concluded with Libby’s conviction, freeing the White House to talk about it openly. He pointed out that she and Wilson are suing several administration officials.
“The White House has the consistent position that we would refrain from comment while there was ongoing litigation,” Fratto said. “Scott must have forgotten the policy he repeatedly stated from the podium.”
McClellan cited several other examples, some stemming from the Plame incident, of what he said was a lack of candor pervading the Bush administration.
The White House had said in 2003 and 2004 that anyone who leaked classified information in the case would be dismissed.
By July 2005, Bush qualified his position, saying he would fire anyone for leaking classified information if that person had “committed a crime.”
When Cheney accidentally shot a friend during a hunting trip in 2006, McClellan initially quoted the owner of the ranch as saying that the injured man had been at fault for not letting Cheney know he was nearby. Cheney himself later said it was not his friend’s fault.
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Jun
17
Bush and Brown’s warning to Iran
Filed Under BBC News, Most Pepular, News, Top Stories | Leave a Comment
Gordon Brown and President George Bush have warned Iran to accept their “offers of partnership” or face tough sanctions and international isolation.
The UK prime minister said he wanted to maintain a dialogue with Tehran, but if Iran ignores UN resolutions then sanctions would be intensified.
Europe would freeze overseas assets of Iran’s biggest bank and impose new oil and gas sanctions, he said.
But the EU foreign policy chief said no new sanctions had so far been agreed.
Javier Solana was speaking after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions
Mr Brown and Mr Bush were speaking at a press conference after talks in London.
The trip is part of Mr Bush’s European tour - although he dismissed reports that it would be his last before leaving office as “speculation”.
In their talks on Monday the two leaders discussed issues including Iraq and Afghanistan, Burma and Zimbabwe and oil and food prices.
Iran has been accused of not co-operating with the UN over its nuclear programme, amid fears it is enriching uranium to use in weapons.
The prime minister said the Iranians did not have to choose a “path of confrontation” and Britain would do “everything possible” to maintain dialogue with Tehran.
They face serious isolation and the people who are suffering are the Iranian people
President Bush
UK to boost Afghan troops
Sketch: The Bush and Brown show
But he said if it ignored UN resolutions, they would intensify sanctions and face “further isolation”.
President Bush said Tehran’s demand for nuclear power for civilian purposes was “justifiable” - but could be met by Russia’s offer to supply them with fuel.
In a message to Tehran, he said: “You bet you have a sovereign right, absolutely, but you don’t have the trust of those of us who have watched you carefully when it comes to enriching uranium.”
Mr Brown said Britain would urge Europe to impose “further sanctions” on Iran and Europe would take action to freeze the overseas assets of the country’s biggest bank and impose new sanctions on oil and gas.
Troop numbers
President Bush thanked Mr Brown for his “strong statement” and added: “The Iranians must understand that when we come together and speak with one voice we are serious.”
Let me thank President Bush for being a true friend of Britain
Gordon Brown
Bush and Brown in Belfast
In Pictures: Bush visit
He said pressure was necessary to “solve this problem diplomatically” - but added: “Iranians must understand, however, that all options are on the table.”
Mr Brown, who became prime minister a year ago, and President Bush, who leaves office in six months’ time, also discussed Afghanistan, with Mr Brown announcing there would be an increase in British troop numbers.
Mr Brown described the US president as a “true friend of Britain” while President Bush praised Mr Brown for being “tough on terror” and said it was in “all our interests” to help people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
HAVE YOUR SAY Unless he comes on bended knees begging for forgiveness, I don’t think it will achieve very much - just wasting more of the US taxpayers’ money.
Jon, Switzerland
Send us your commentsAnd he dismissed reports of a split between the UK and US on troop numbers in Iraq as “typical”.
“He’s left more troops in Iraq than initially anticipated and like me, we will be making our decisions based on conditions on the ground … without an artificial timetable.”
President Bush said history would judge whether the military tactics could have been different in Iraq, but he stood by the decision to remove Saddam Hussein as the right one for “our security”, for peace and for 25 million Iraqis.
He said it was important to support democracy “at the heart of the Middle East”: “It’s a democracy that’s not going to look like America, it’s not going to look like Great Britain, but it’s a democracy that will give government responsive to the people.”
He said it had “absolutely” been worth it and democracy in Iraq would make it easier to deal with “the Iranian issue” and would send a message to reformers and dissidents.
He dismissed the idea that “perhaps freedom is not universal - maybe it’s only western people who can self govern” as “the ultimate form of political elitism”.
After the press conference in Downing Street, Mr Bush and Mr Brown travelled to Stormont, Belfast, for talks with Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy, Martin McGuinness.
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Jun
17
Bush backer pens pro-Obama book
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The conservative Evangelical biographer of George W. Bush and Tom DeLay has moved on to a new subject: Barack Obama. And his new book, due out this summer, may lend credibility to Senator Obama’s bid to win Evangelical Christian voters away from the Republican Party.
The forthcoming volume from Stephen Mansfield, whose sympathetic “The Faith of George W. Bush” spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 2004, is titled “The Faith of Barack Obama.” Its tone ranges from gently critical to gushing, and the author defends Obama-and even his controversial former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright-from conservative critics, and portrays him as a compelling figure for Christian voters.
“Young Evangelicals are saying, ‘Look, I’m pro-life but I’m looking at a guy who’s first of all black-and they love that; two, who’s a Christian; and three who believes faith should bear on public policy,” Mansfield, who described himself as a conservative Republican, said in a telephone interview. “They disagree with him on abortion, but they agree with him on poverty, on the war.”
His book, provided exclusively to Politico by the publisher, focuses more on Obama’s religious journey than his electoral prospects.
“For Obama, faith is not simply political garb, something a focus group told him he ought to try. Instead, religion to him is transforming, lifelong, and real,” Mansfield writes, going on to compare Obama favorably to Christian Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, who he says erected a “wall of separation” between their religion and their governance.
By contrast, “Obama’s faith infuses his public policy, so that his faith is not just limited to the personal realms of his life, it also informs his leadership,” Mansfield writes.
The book is published by Thomas Nelson, the world’s largest Christian publisher. It’s due out August 5. “The Faith of Barack Obama” is expected to retail in Christian outlets and the Wal-Mart chain of stores, as well as secular bookstores. A motivational speaker and former pastor, Mansfield is the author of several books on faith as well as the co-author of former House Republican powerhouse Tom DeLay’s 2007 book “No Retreat, No Surrender,” a defense of his tarnished legacy sprinkled with fierce attacks on his opponents and on liberal causes.
Mansfield writes that Obama “is unapologetically Christian and unapologetically liberal.” But he writes that in substance and in style, Obama holds an appeal to Evangelicals that Senator John McCain may lack.
He contrasted Obama’s relative “fluency” with the language of religion-his campaign has outlined a pitch to the “Joshua Generation,” a common term in Christian circles for younger Evangelicals-with the approach of his Republican rival.
“The McCain campaign is pretty clumsy when it comes to religion,” he said, noting McCain’s courtship, then renunciation, of two prominent Evangelical pastors, John Hagee and Rod Parsley.
In his Fathers Day speech at a Chicago church Sunday, Obama again spoke explicitly of his personal Christianity: “We do what we can to build our house upon the sturdiest rock, and for me that means building that house on the foundation of Jesus Christ.”
Mansfield’s book validates Obama’s attempt-which began in earnest in his 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention-to provide a compelling public face to the nascent “Religious Left.” In that speech, he proclaimed that “we worship an awesome God in the blue states,” and Mansfield tracks his continuing attempts to contest the Republican hold on white Evangelical voters.
One notable moment came in 2006 when Obama appeared at Reverend Rick Warren’s megachurch beside GOP Senator Sam Brownback.
“Welcome to my house,” Brownback told Obama on stage.
“This is my house too,” Obama responded. “This is God’s house.”
Obama, Mansfield writes, “made it clear to all that he [will] not be moved from his rightful place in the Christian fold.”
Obama’s Christianity, however, has been under attack on two fronts this campaign season. The first is from a false, but widely held, belief that he is a Muslim. Mansfield dismisses that charge, then dwells at length on Obama’s controversial church, Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.
Mansfield said in the interview that he entered Trinity having heard “that Obama’s church was a cult, something un-Christian, that Reverend Wright was a nut,” but emerged with the view that it is “a pretty solid Christian church.”
His warm description of the church reflects that view.
Though Mansfield writes of some jarringly radical features of the black liberation theology from which Trinity is descended, he concludes that what it offers is the “‘born-again, new birth, blood-washed, Spirit-empowered Chrstianity’ that Evangelicals know.”
“Few sermons this good will be preached anywhere in America on this Sunday morning,” he says of the sermon he heard from Trinity’s current pastor, Rev. Otis Moss.
Mansfield’s book is addressed to Evangelical readers, and it raises some questions about Obama’s own faith, including his willingness to see contradictions in the bible, his belief that religions other than Protestant Christianity provide other “paths” to a “higher power,” and his doubts about the afterlife.
There are also passages in Mansfield’s book that may give Obama’s secular supporters pause. In particular, a theme from his book on Bush-the suggestion that the president’s rise was itself an act of God-reappears in his coverage of Obama. He approvingly quotes Obama’s old rival Rep. Bobby Rush saying that Obama’s Senate win was “divinely ordained.”
“Increasingly, words such as called, chosen, and anointed are being used of Obama,” he writes.
Despite Mansfield’s praise of the candidate, however, and his view that Obama may win over large numbers of younger Evangelical voters, the author also demonstrates the limits to the Democrats’ appeal.
Mansfield said he will vote against Obama in November for a single reason: “Because I’m pro-life.”
May
29
Former spokesman bashes Bush in new book
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WASHINGTON - In a shocking turnabout, the press secretary most known for defending President Bush on Iraq, Katrina and a host of other controversial issues produced a memoir damning of his old boss on nearly every level - from too much secrecy to a less-than-honest selling of the war to a lack of personal candor and an unwillingness to admit mistakes.
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In the first major insider account of the Bush White House, one-time spokesman Scott McClellan calls the operation “insular, secretive and combative” and says it veered irretrievably off course as a result.
The White House responded angrily Wednesday to McClellan’s confessional memoir, calling it self-serving sour grapes.
“Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House,” said current White House press secretary Dana Perino, a former deputy to McClellan. “We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew.”
McClellan was the White House press secretary from May 2003 to April 2006, the second of four so far in Bush’s presidency.
He reveals that he was pushed to leave earlier than he had planned, and he displays some bitterness about that as well as about being sometimes kept out of the loop on key decision-making sessions.
He excludes himself from major involvement in some of what he calls the administration’s biggest blunders, for instance the decision to go to war and the initial campaign to sell that decision to the American people. But he doesn’t spare himself entirely, saying, “I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be.
He includes criticism for the reporters whose questions he fielded. The news media, he says, were “complicit enablers” for focusing more on “covering the march to war instead of the necessity of war.”
And McClellan issues this disclaimer about Bush: “I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people.”
But most everything else he writes comes awfully close to making just this assertion, all the more stunning coming from someone who had been one of the longest-serving of the band of loyalists to come to Washington with Bush from Texas.
The heart of the book concerns Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq, a determination McClellan says the president had made by early 2002 - at least a full year before the invasion - if not even earlier.
“He signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was less than candid and honest,” McClellan writes in “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.”
The book, which had been scheduled for release on Monday, was being sold by bookstores on Wednesday after the publisher moved up its release amid intense media coverage of its contents. The book quickly vaulted to No. 1 on amazon.com’s best-seller list.
McClellan says Bush’s main reason for war always was “an ambitious and idealistic post-9/11 vision of transforming the Middle East through the spread of freedom.” But Bush and his advisers made “a marketing choice” to downplay this rationale in favor of one focused on increasingly trumped-up portrayals of the threat posed by the weapons of mass destruction.
During the “political propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American people,” Bush and his team tried to make the “WMD threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear just a little more certain, a little less questionable than they were.” Something else was downplayed as well, McClellan says: any discussion of “the possible unpleasant consequences of war - casualties, economic effects, geopolitical risks, diplomatic repercussions.”
In Bush’s second term, as news from Iraq grew worse, McClellan says the president was “insulated from the reality of events on the ground and consequently began falling into the trap of believing his own spin.”
All of this was a “serious strategic blunder” that sent Bush’s presidency “terribly off course.”
“The Iraq war was not necessary,” McClellan concludes.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton referred to the book and its author while campaigning Wednesday in Rapid City, S.D., saying, “In this book this young man essentially apologizes for having been part of misleading America for three years.”
Reporters in Los Angeles with John McCain, the Republicans’ candidate for president, asked if he believed that Bush used propaganda or deception regarding the war in Iraq. “I have no information on that fact. I am glad for one that Saddam Hussein is no longer there,” McCain said. He declined to comment on other assertions in the book, saying he had not read it.
McClellan draws a portrait of Bush as possessing “personal charm, wit and enormous political skill.” He says Bush’s administration early on possessed “seeds of greatness.”
But McClellan ticks off a long list of Bush’s weaknesses: someone with a penchant for self-deception if it “suits his needs at the moment,” “an instinctive leader more than an intellectual leader” who has a lack of interest in delving deeply into policy options, a man with a lack of self-confidence that makes him unable to acknowledge when he’s been wrong.
McClellan also writes extensively about what he says is the Bush White House’s excessive focus on “the permanent campaign.”
“The Bush team imitated some of the worst qualities of the Clinton White House and even took them to new depths,” he writes.
McClellan is most scathing on the topic of the administration’s embrace of secrecy.
“The Bush administration lacked real accountability in large part because Bush himself did not embrace openness or government in the sunshine,” he writes.
Three top Bush advisers come in for particularly harsh criticism.
McClellan calls Vice President Dick Cheney “the magic man” who “always seemed to get his way” and sometimes “simply could not contain his deep-seated certitude, even arrogance, to the detriment of the president.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser earlier in Bush’s presidency, “was more interested in figuring out where the president stood and just carrying out his wishes while expending only cursory effort on helping him understand all the considerations and potential consequences” of war. Rice “was somehow able to keep her hands clean, even when the problems related to matters under her direct purview,” McClellan says, but he predicts that “history will likely judge her harshly.”
And former Bush political guru Karl Rove “always struck me as the kind of person who would be willing, in the heat of battle, to push the envelope to the limit of what is permissible ethically or legally.”
The White House was severely damaged by blunders beyond the war, McClellan says.
When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, for instance, the administration went on autopilot “rather than seizing the initiative and getting in front of what was happening on the ground.”
And Bush’s drive to remake the Social Security program after his 2004 re-election failed in large part because the White House focused almost exclusively on “selling our sketchily designed plan” instead of doing behind-the-scenes work with lawmakers.
McClellan explains his dramatic shift from defender to critic as a difficult act of personal contrition, a way, to learn from his mistakes, be true to his Christian faith and become a better person. He says he started the book to explain his role in the CIA leak case, in which some of his own words turned out to be what he called “badly misguided,” though sincere at the time.
McClellan says Bush loyalists will no doubt continue to think the administration’s decisions have been correct and its unpopularity undeserved. “I’ve become genuinely convinced otherwise,” he says.
Indeed, former Bush aides joined current White House aides in expressing disbelief and disappointment at McClellan’s account.
“Not once did Scott approach me - privately or publicly - to discuss any misgivings he had about the war in Iraq or the manner in which the White House made the case for war,” McClellan’s predecessor as press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said.
Said Fran Townsend, former head of the White House-based counterterrorism office and now a CNN commentator: “This now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional.”
Perino described Bush as “surprised” by the book but said the president wouldn’t have anything to say about it. “He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers,” she said
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