Petition Attempt Meets Security Snags

by Mark Silva

"I've had a great tour,'' Vice President Dick Cheney says in his interview with CNN's Larry King which the cable network is showing tonight.

"Ain't over til it's over,'' King suggests.

"Ain't over til it's over,'' Cheney agrees.

The Swamp brought you a report earlier this evening on the show, taped earlier today. And here's a full text of the King-Cheney session, enabling you to read along tonight if you like:

by Frank James

House Democrats have been patting themselves on the back today for passing lobbying reform legislation while Republicans have been chiding Democrats for not going far enough, blasting one Democrat in particular, Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, friend to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for being one of only eight House members to vote nay.

Under the new rules, lobbyists will have to disclose their efforts four times a year to an electronic database that will be searchable by the public using the Internet. Certain groups that didn't have to disclose lobbying efforts before, like some associations, would be required to do so under the bill.

A congressional spouse who becomes a lobbyist after the election of the lawmaker married to that spouse would be barred from lobbying the lawmaker or anyone in the lawmaker's office. Of course, if a spouse was a lobbyist before the lawmaker's election, he or she could presumably lobby away.

by Mark Silva

Vice President Dick Cheney, insisting that he isn’t worried about how unpopular he or President Bush have become, says in an interview airing on cable television tonight: “I don't worry about the polls. You can't worry about the polls.’’

Cheney, who will appear on Larry King Live, already has granted the interview that the CNN talk show host will air tonight. The two met in the ceremonial office of the vice president in the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House – where Cheney reiterated something he had said yesterday about this executive office business: His feet straddle two branches of power in the governmental realm of Washington – the vice presidency itself, he said, is "sort of a weird duck.’’

Cheney talked about the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay – “We don’t do torture,’’ he told King – in the interview that CNN will show at 9 pm EDT. Cheney talked about the war in Iraq and mistakes made there – “Oh sure. There are always things in war that happen that nobody anticipated, surprises, things that don't go exactly as planned.’’ He talked about much more, including his resolution to retire after four decades in public life.

“We walk out of here on January 20th of '09,’’ the vice president said of himself and the president. “And I think we'll be able to hold our heads high knowing we did the best we could for the country. That's what counts more than anything else.’’

Read an account of the interview here in the Swamp:

The vice president has circled the world for the president -- Cheney seen here with Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier this year in Kabul. Karzai plans a reciprocal visit to President Bush at Camp David this weekend. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Bush this week that Afghanistan is the leading front in the war on terror. Bush says Iraq is the central front. Cheney acknowledges mistakes made at war. Photo by Mark Silva.

by Tom Brune

Fred Thompson today reported that he raised $3.4 million last month for his presidential exploratory committee, causing some supporters to start hand wringing because the amount fell short of the $5 million he was expected to raise.

But still, Thompson did considerably better than Rudy Giuliani during his exploratory days.

In two fundraisers in June, Thompson collected nearly three times as much as the $1.3 million Giuliani raised the first six weeks of his exploratory committee (most of it at one pre-Christmas fundraiser).

Thompson also had many more donors -- 9,167 in all 50 states -- than Giuliani, who had just 739 contributors. Nearly all of them were friends and business associates in New York and Texas.

AP Photo/Dennis Cook

by Frank James

Adm. Michael Mullen, President Bush's choice to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

It's widely known that Mullen, unlike his predecessor, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, wasn't an ardent fan of a military surge beforehand.

But he's waiting before he passes final judgment. Sounding like President Bush, his boss, Mullen pointed to a September progress report expected from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, indicating that was a key moment.

Here's a bit of Mullen's testimony likely to be frequently quoted in news reports about his testimony.

Let me now turn to Iraq, for you have a right to know where I stand. I believe the surge is giving our operational commanders the forces they needed to execute more effective tactics and improve security. That is happening. Security is better; not great, but better. I believe security is critical to providing the government of Iraq the breathing space it needs to work toward political national reconciliation and economic growth, which are themselves critical to a stable Iraq. Barring that, no amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference

I look forward, as I know you do, to hearing from Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus in September. I believe prudence dictates that we plan for an eventual drawdown and the transition of responsibilities to Iraqi security forces, and we need to do that wisely. I understand the frustration over the war. I share it. But I am convinced that because security in Iraq is tied to security in the region, and because security in the region bears directly on our own national security, we must consider our next moves very carefully.

As you know, the Joint Chiefs are completing our own assessment plan to again visit the theater myself in the near future to better understand conditions on the ground. We are a military at war, Mr.Chairman, and war is ugly and messy and painful. Our troops are
fighting with honor. They are sacrificing bravely and greatly, sometimes with their own lives.

by Frank James

If you're a Republican, how do you change the rules in a large state like California with its 55 electoral votes, a state that has voted Democratic in the last four presidential elections, so that it would give the Republican presidential nominee more help in reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House?

Well, you could propose what one Republican lawyer, Thomas Hiltachk, has. His idea is that instead of giving the candidate who won the most votes in the state all 55 electoral votes, the winner-take-all approach used in all but two states, you would instead give that candidate two electoral votes for the two senators in the state's delegation in Washington. (A state's electoral votes, of course, equal the size of its delegation.)

The rest of the electoral votes would be awarded on the basis of which nominee won a particular congressional district. Since at least 20 of California's congressional districts are Republican-leaning, that would make it easier to put the Republican nominee over the top nationally.

The proposal called the Presidential Election Reform Act would need to show enough public support to win a spot on the ballot which would give voters a chance to have their say.

by Glenn Thrush

Bill Clinton's sojourn to New Hampshire earlier this month doesn't seem to have given his wife much help, according to a smallish-sample poll taken by the American Research Group.

The July poll shows Barack Obama in a dead heat with Hillary Clinton -- doubling his support over the last two months, a major danger sign if true. The poll only surveyed 400 Democrats (with 200 independents) with 5 percent error margin, so it's to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it's clear Obama's trending upward and Clinton's losing some steam in the first primary state.

A CNN/WMUR poll take about two weeks ago shows Clinton with an 8-point lead over the Illinois senator -- but that's down from a 15-point lead in June. Expect stepped-up activity by Team Clinton in the Granite State sooner than soon.

by Mark Silva

Several House Democrats who also are former state prosecutors today called for an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee leading to possible impeachment proceedings against Att’y Gen. Alberto Gonzales.

“The president, unfortunately, continues to defend the indefensible,’’ said Rep. Jay Inslee, a Washington state Democrat and former state prosecutor, speaking for a group of 15 House members who have experience as prosecutors or judges.

“There is a national embarrassment right now in the U.S. attorney general’s office,’’ Inslee said. “It needs to be remedied. And if the president will not do his job, we need to do ours.’’

“The American people deserve an attorney general who will shoot straight with them,’’ Inslee said, complaining that Gonzales has given Congress conflicting testimony in its probe of attorney firings. “He has given them evasions, half-truths and deceits.’’

by David Lightman

"The American dream that any boy or girl can grow up to he president in the United States has become a nightmare,'' says Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee who has run for president and now is joining others in seeking an overhaul of primary elections.

The presidential primary system is a mess that needs a lot of fixing, a group of senators said today, proposing a series of regional contests starting in 2012 that would determine each party's White House nominee. The history of attempts to reform the system is not promising.

"The current presidential primary election system has come to a point where it starts too early but ends too soon," said Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

by Mark Silva

President Bush will have the congressional leadership of both parties in for breakfast tomorrow morning at the White House, and one of the items the president wants to put on their plates is the confirmation of former Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa as White House budget director.

Nussle's confirmation is on hold, at the request of an anonymous member of the Senate, and senators will be going home for the summer soon.

Nussle was an early supporter of Bush during the president's first campaign, backing Bush during the Iowa caucuses of 2000. But Nussle failed in his own bid for election as Iowa governor and left Congress last year, after 16 years of service.

by Mark Silva

Voters may be looking for a new course for the war in Iraq, but they are not voicing overwhelming optimism -- or much difference, really -- in the ability of the leading presidential candidates to deliver that course.

Just over half of those surveyed in the latest Gallup Poll say that have “a great deal or fair amount’’ of confidence in any of the leading contenders “to recommend the right thing’’ for Iraq.

Two of the Republican candidates for president – former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain – scored 55 percent in this survey of 1,011 American adults.

And three of the Democratic candidates scored close or nearly as well: Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois at 54 percent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York at 51 and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at 50. Two other Republicans scored less well: former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee at 39 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 37.

“This suggests that, despite public dissatisfaction with the war, it is not necessarily a winning issue for Democratic candidates,’’ Gallup analysts Jeffrey Jones and Joseph Carroll say of the results of the July 23-26 survey.

Yet Republicans Giuliani and McCain both stood out in Gallup’s survey on a question of Americans placing a great deal or fair amount of conficdence in them making the right choices in handling terrorism. And not only did Republicans express strong confidence in Giuliani and McCain on this front – a majority of Democrats surveyed also voiced confidence in them.

“This finding suggests that national security issues – so important in the winning presidential campaign of George W. Bush in 2004 – could still be a positive factor for the Republican nominee this year,’’ the Gallup analysts report.

Giuliani, who attracts strong public confidence on a few fronts, at a town hall-styled appearance in New Hampshire:

by John McCormick

Sen. Barack Obama is launching a new television ad Wednesday in Iowa that stresses his rhetoric for decreasing the influence of lobbyists and political action committees, a theme he hit hard while campaigning in Cedar Rapids Monday.

The 30-second ad, called "Take it Back,” uses video from his February presidential announcement speech in Springfield and a five-paragraph Chicago Tribune news story from January 2006 that carried the headline, "Obama is Democrats’ Point Man on Ethics."

In late June, Obama started running his first TV ads in the first-in-the-nation-caucus state, including one that featured a prominent DuPage County Republican backing Obama.

Obama's campaign also recently started running radio ads in South Carolina to try to target African-American voters there. But it still has not started advertising in the early primary state of New Hampshire, where Obama continues to trail Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

"They think they own this government," Obama says in the Springfield video. "But we're here today to take it back."

Still, Obama has been criticized by some for being less than pure on relationships with lobbyists.

A Tribune story last week showed his continued reliance on bundlers who include some of the nation's richest and most powerful people. As the Los Angeles Times pointed out in April, Obama also takes money from lawyers who work for Washington firms that do lobbying.

The new ad can be viewed at this link.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton did not respond to an e-mail seeking the size of the buy or whether the ad is running statewide in Iowa.

by Frank James

The Washington Post has a story today based on an interview with Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House Majority Whip, in which the lawmaker very candidly said that if Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander of coalition forces in Iraq, provides a largely upbeat report in September on the progress being made in Iraq, that would spell trouble for House Democrats.

The problem would be that it would split Democrats in the House, with the nearly 50 conservative Democrats known as the Blue Dogs, probably resisting calls for Congress to impose a timetable.

Assuming Republicans stayed unified, likely a safe assumption, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would be unlikely to get a bill with a timetable through the House.

Clyburn doesn't say this but it Democrats find themselves in this position, which now looks increasingly likely, that would further disappoint anti-Iraq War Democratic and independent voters who gave Democrats the majority largely to significantly change the direction of the war.

Here's a key passage from the article:

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

Of course, another problem for House Democrats is that Clyburn's comments will be interpreted by some as wishing for bad news in Iraq for the sake of Democratic party unity. That's not going to go over well with a lot of voters either.

by Mark Silva

With Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveling in the Middle East today to convince Egypt and Saudi Arabia of the need to press for greater security in the region, they are bearing significant gifts: A proposed multibillion-dollar arms deal.

The U.S. is offering Saudi Arabia and others at least $20 billion in arms sales over the next decade, while renewing a decade-long pledge for $13 billion for Egypt – and upping U.S. military aid to Israel from $23 billion over 10 years to $30 billion over the next decade.

“We have a long history of security cooperation with the Saudis,’’ said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. “What we’re doing is trying to increase the ability of nations in the region to feel more secure.''

by Mark Silva

President Bush checked in on Chief Justice John Roberts this morning, after the chief justice of the Supreme Court suffered a seizure at his summer retreat in Maine.

“The chief justice assured him he is doing fine,’’ Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said of the president’s phone conversation with Roberts this morning. “ The president was reassured. He sounded in great spirits.’’

The White House had been aware that Roberts had suffered a similar seizure, with no known origin, 14 years ago, when Bush nominated Roberts for the top seat on the Supreme Court.

“If you recall, looking at the medical records, this was a seizure of no known reasons 14 years ago,’’ Snow said, and “obviously knowing about this, there was an evaluation done of it.''

Roberts was resting today at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport after falling on an island dock getting out of a boat near his home on Hupper Island, Maine. He had suffered a seizure similar to one that he had experienced in 1993. Doctors in Maine said they had found no evidence of a tumor, stroke of any other explanation for it.

(photo credit: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

by David Lightman

Democrats want to change the nature of the debate on the most divisive domestic issue in America.

"For years the discussion has been around the legality of abortion," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. She and Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat who opposes abortion, are "determined to get beyond that discourse and say, `How do you reduce the need for anybody to have an abortion?'"

The two teamed up this month to persuade the House to approve a $647 million measure called "Reducing the Need for Abortions Initiative." The measure represents a shift, one motivated as much by politics as philosophy.

Members of both parties have thought for some time that the fight over abortion has made it harder to enact broad family planning and pregnancy prevention programs.

And Democrats have been losing the abortion fight, at least at the margins, for some time.

by Frank James

A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important or interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized overnight with tests finding no cause for concern after he experienced a seizure at his Maine summer home, causing him to fall and receive minor scrapes at a dock near his house.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown strove to keep a unified front over Iraq and the fight against terrorism during the British leader's first visit as his nation's premier to the White House.

Federal agents raided the Alaska home of Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the Senate in history, as part of a corruption investigation involving a friend of the senator's and other Alaskan lawmaker who was convicted on bribery charges.

Good morning.

by Mark Silva

With the White House asserting executive privilege in its refusal to let aides testify in the congressional investigation of the firings of federal prosecutors, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office has suggested that he is not actually a member of the executive branch in explaining his refusal to disclose the amount of his office’s classification or declassification of material.

President Bush updated an executive order in 2003 ordering executive branch agencies to make that annual accounting of their volume of classification and declassification of records to the National Archives – and several of Bush’s own offices, including the Office of Management and Budget do so. But Cheney’s office has refused to make that annual accounting since 2003 – a practice first reported by the Tribune last year.

“Well, the job of the vice president is an interesting one, because you've got a foot in both the executive and the