President Bush

Wiretapping cave-in demeans Democrats In his column "Cowardly Democrats give in to president on NSA wiretapping" (Opinion * Commentary, Aug. 13), Bill Press notes that Congress "with the help of 16 Senate Democrats passed emergency legislation to authorize [President] Bush's past illegal, warrantless wiretaps" and thus "rewarded Mr. Bush's lawless behavior and gave him a free pass to continue doing legally what he had been doing illegally." As Mr. Press adds, "doing so was a huge, cowardly, shameful cop-out."

Amid all the bluster and claims of high principle, President Bush's refusal to allow aides to publicly testify before Congress on the U.S. attorney firings suggests either that he doesn't recognize the weakness of his position or that he has something awful to hide. Mr. Bush easily could have followed long precedent and sent the aides to Capitol Hill without ceding any erosion of executive privilege. He could have declined to invoke the privilege or put only limited curbs on the aides' appearance in a bargain that is the usual way out of such confrontations.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said yesterday that if U.N. efforts to bring peace to Darfur do not soon bear fruit, the United States would expand and tighten economic sanctions intended to end what he described as the genocide taking place there. In his most extensive remarks on the issue, Bush threatened new restrictions on Sudan and those doing business there. He also raised the possibility of seeking international steps to block Sudan's government from flying military aircraft in the region.

GEORGE Bush poses with a Cabinet including former Secretary of State George Schultz and other Republican luminaries. Actually, it's not President Bush. It's a son of ex-President Bush. Nor is it a Cabinet. It's an "exploratory committee."The avowed purpose of said panel is to see whether George W. Bush, governor of Texas, should run for the job once held by his father. The unavowed purpose is to make clear that he has Dad's name, Republican friends and list of contributors. Children of nobodies should think twice before running against one whose ascendancy is assured.

Christopher Beauregard Emery, the White House usher fired by Hillary Rodham Clinton last year for having two phone conversations with former first lady Barbara Bush, was hired yesterday by the Howard County Council.Mr. Emery, 37, will begin work as County Council administrator March 8 at an entry-level salary of $57,700 a year. The job can pay as much as $80,959.He will become the fifth person to hold the administrator's job in 10 years. All of his predecessors were fired. Sheila Tolliver, the most recent administrator, served 20 months before she was fired from her $70,308 job Dec. 14 for political reasons.

WASHINGTON -- The word that President Clinton will embark on a political fund-raising swing next week is the clearest indication that, unlike President Bush before him, he is not going to permit the burdens of governing to get in the way of his quest for a second term.Bush's campaign strategists acknowledged after his 1992 loss to Clinton that a good part of the incumbent's problem in seeking re-election was his insistence on remaining "presidential."He not only eschewed early campaigning, but even held off building the campaign staff and organization essential for success.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Miami real estate developer Jeb Bush hTC says he plans to run for governor in 1994 and has already organized a campaign team.The son of former President Bush, a likely favorite early in the race among Florida Republicans, said he plans a formal announcement closer to the primaries. "I have every intention to run, but I want to do it at my own pace," Mr. Bush said.Mr. Bush, 39, isn't alone in his designs on the Republican nomination. State Secretary of State Jim Smith says he will run, state Senate President Ander Crenshaw is considering, and Treasurer Tom Gallagher is seen as a possible contender.

WASHINGTON -- As the presidential campaign heads for the second three-man debate in Richmond, Va., tomorrow, President Bush still has the task of selling voters on the notion that a second Bush term will provide the answers to economic recovery that the first term did not.According to post-debate polls, Bush failed in the first debate to make the case that he does not intend to be the status quo president in a second term that Democratic nominee Bill Clinton...

WARREN, Mich. -- Democrat Bill Clinton sharpened a new edge yesterday in his attack on President Bush, taunting the incumbent as a "do-nothing" president and an opponent afraid to debate in this key Midwestern state tomorrow.And he unabashedly launched the campaign's first negative television advertisement, even though it is Mr. Clinton who has the double-digit lead in the polls only six weeks from the election.Although a bipartisan commission canceled the first proposed presidential debate after Mr. Bush declined to attend, Mr. Clinton launched a three-day swing through Michigan and Illinois that will end tomorrow in East Lansing, the town disappointed by cancellation of the debate.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has come up with something entirely different in political campaigning. Rather than making news, he is making olds.In Michigan the other day he announced the "Job Training 2000 Act" to provide training for young people,the identical program he had announed back in January. A couple of days earlier he announced he would take steps to put the brakes on political spending by unions, which he also had announced last month. In each case, there were a few added details to give the whole thing a little gloss.

Experts say the U.S. military's recent recruitment success is due to the recession - young men and women, lacking job opportunities during a period of relatively high unemployment, have volunteered for duty in record numbers despite the nation being at war. Hard to argue with the experts; "the economy," up or down, is a factor in everything, starting with the career choices young Americans get to make. Throw in pay raises and signing bonuses, and you can see why the Army and Marine Corps were able to reach recruitment goals and then some - nearly 170,000 fresh faces signed on the dotted line during the last federal budget year.

WASHINGTON - President Bush, delivering a televised farewell to the nation last night, attempted to summon a collective sense of "gratitude" for years of safety following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that shaped his presidency. In a measure of the impact the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon had on his administration, Bush touted one signal success during his time in office: No further attacks occurred. The president acknowledged that his anti-terror policies had prompted "legitimate debate."

WASHINGTON - Senior Bush administration officials, consulting with the Obama transition team, have prepared a plan to ask lawmakers for the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue package despite intense opposition in Congress, sources familiar with the discussions said. The initiative could create an unusual political scenario. If Congress were to vote down the measure, either President George W. Bush or President-elect Barack Obama would have to use his veto power to get the money.

In a seemingly unprecedented move, President Bush yesterday revoked a pardon he had issued just 24 hours earlier for a politically connected real estate developer who defrauded hundreds of low-income home buyers - acknowledging that White House aides had not fully described the scope of the crimes that had been committed and the context of the clemency application. The unexpected Christmas Eve reversal came after it was discovered that the pardon of Isaac Toussie had not met Justice Department guidelines, and that Toussie's father had donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee, prompting some of Toussie's victims to complain that he had been bailed out thanks to his White House ties.

White House frivolity shouldn't be priority I can't believe that Susan Reimer considers that the most important things about the presidency and the White House are the number of state dinners, decorating the Oval Office, new fashion, best-dressed lists and how cute the Obamas will be as the first family ("From dour Bushes to fun-loving Obamas," Nov. 10). Maybe, just maybe, the Bushes have had to deal with a lot more than having state dinners and playing Camelot, which is a good reason not to drink or party but to go to bed early.

WASHINGTON - President Bush is to visit the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade this morning amid continuing controversy about secret government eavesdropping on Americans. The White House said Bush will meet with the NSA director, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, and the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, to discuss intelligence issues. Bush will also meet with employees of the NSA to thank them for their service, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. The spy agency conducts global electronic eavesdropping of phones and e-mail by collecting and sifting signals carried by fiber-optic cable and satellite transmission.

With three months remaining in office, President Bush has given us another reminder of why he will not be missed. Remember "signing statements"? That's when a president signs a bill into law, then turns around and says he has no intention of abiding by parts of that law. It's an abusive practice - and President Bush is its biggest fan. Despite criticisms such as the American Bar Association's protest that such statements undercut the constitutional separation...

John McCain, trailing in the polls, portrayed Barack Obama last night as a tax-and-spend liberal who lacks the courage to challenge leaders of his own party and would need on-the-job training as president. In their second televised debate, the candidates stuck closely to substance in a low-key encounter that opened with questions from ordinary voters about the economic crisis gripping the country. Hours before the event began, U.S. financial markets dropped sharply for a fifth straight day. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 5 percent and has now plunged by one-third since last October.

WASHINGTON - At a moment when he would otherwise be focused almost entirely on influencing the nation's decision about who succeeds him, President Bush is suddenly focused instead on doing the job himself. With his speech last night, he was sending two messages: One, to Congress and the nation, about the need to act with unprecedented alacrity on the economic bailout proposal drawn up in his name - though his hand has been barely seen in its development. And a second, to the same audience, that the coming election notwithstanding, the country has but one president at a time, and right now it is George W. Bush.

WASHINGTON - President Bush called on Congress yesterday to clear the way for offshore oil drilling, saying that it could match current production for 10 years and that new methods allow drilling that protects habitats against spills. With Democrats in Congress opposed to drilling, Bush said that their opposition is "outdated and counterproductive" and that it "helped drive gas prices to their current level." Saying that $4-a-gallon gasoline prices should be "enough incentive" for Democrats to act, Bush asked, "How high do gas prices have to rise before the Democratic Congress will do something about it?"