THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY OCTOBER 23, 2007
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2007
NEWS
11A
POLITICS
Not a bad week for Bush
President Bush is pushing his veto powers in Congress. Last week, the Democratic-controlled Senate and House pulled back on a genocide measure in Armenia, withdrew a bill relating to surveillance and upheld his veto on spending for a children's health insurance program. The subject of the health program had been hotly debated.
President wins battle in Congress with veto of children's health program
BY CHARLES BABINGTON ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — By any measure, President Bush had a good week on Capitol Hill.
At his urging, the Democratic
At his arguing controlled Congress pulled back on an Armenian genocide measure, withdrew a surveillance oversight bill and, in a high-stakes showdown, sustained his veto on spending for a
"It's the veto, and the veto alone, that is the last line of defense for a president whose administration's life is waning away."
children's health insurance program.
His fellow Republicans may pay a high price in next November's elections, some people think. But that is about the only comfort Democrats could find from those recent turnabouts, which showed the resiliency of a lame-duck president with dismal approval ratings.
Facing more veto threats over spending, they have yet to send him an appropriations bill for the new budget year, which began Oct. 1. Nor have they resolved House-Senate differences on an important energy bill.
ROSS BAKER
Rutgers University
Democrats, to their shock, have learned that the 2006 elections did not yield a mandate to start winding down the Iraq war. This month they threw their strongest domestic punch, daring Bush to veto a $35 billion increase to the popular children's health program.
He took the dare, and on Thursday the House upheld his veto with 13 votes to spare.
Bush may be bruised and wobbly. But the president remained on his feet after another round in which Democrats hoped for a knockout.
Whether his tenacity proves politically wise in the next election or not, it seems to embolden GOP lawmakers and leave Democrats looking tentative.
Senate Democrats did not seem inclined to oppose Bush's nominee for attorney general even though Michael Mukasey would not say at his confirmation hearings that an
interrogation technique that simulated drowning and was known as waterboarding amounted to torture.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., gamely attributed the week's setbacks to "the legislative process." Republicans, meanwhile, revealed in the fact that the Democrats' two-week attack on lawmakers who backed Bush on children's health did not switch a single.GOP House member's vote
on the override question.
Minutes after the vote, the House Republican Conference issued a taunting statement suggesting Pelosi and her allies needed Alka-Seltzer.
Democratic leaders say they will have the last laugh. They predict voters next year will punish Republicans for sticking with Bush on Iraq, health care and other issues. But even that article of faith
House floor and new record-low approval ratings," it said.
"House Democrats are hung over, beaigneder from a very bad week of legislative embarrassments, fatally flawed policy prescriptions, dodged bullets, lost votes on the
seemed less certain last week.
Underfunded Republican Jim Ogonowski came in 6 percentage points of winning a special House election in a Massachusetts district where
"After the primaries are behind us, a lot of Republican members are thinking seriously about November, and I think the dynamic will change."
Perhaps the week's best news for Democrats is that they began to see the limits to Bush's powers. The president prevailed on the children's insurance program only by resorting to the veto, his bluntest tool.
he was expected to do worse.
"But the results are not really borne by the president. They are borne by the members of his party."
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN Illinois Democrat
Feeling that Bush is nearing the limits of his veto powers, Democratic lawmakers are discussing which bills might push him over the edge. The likeliest candidate is a long-delayed $20 bil-
"it's the veto, and the veto alone, that is the last line of defense for a president whose administration's life is waning away," said Ross K.
this case, Baker said, Bush "won't be around to take his share."
An embattled president facing a closely divided Congress almost always can win a veto fight, Baker said, because the two-thirds majority needed
ROSS BAKER Rutgers University
for an override is a high bar.
Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist.
"But the results are not really borne by the president," he said. "They are borne by the members of his party" at the next election. In
lion water projects bill.
country.
Lawmakers in both parties like it — and Bush has pledged to veto it — because it has many expensive pet projects for communities throughout the
As for children's health, Democratic leaders believe they can make modest changes that will preserve the bill's essence while giving a handful of House Republicans enough political cover to drop their opposition. Once that happens, they say, Bush is likely to claim victory and sign it into law.
Progress in other areas, they acknowledge, may not come until more House and Senate Republicans conclude that loyalty to Bush is endangered their careers. The approaching presidential primaries may focus their thoughts, says the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, Richard Durbin of Illinois.
"After the primaries are behind us, a lot of Republican members are thinking seriously about November, and I think the dynamics will change," Durbin told reporters.
For the time being, however, the president can savor one of his best weeks in a long while.
Cabinet members begin blogging Officials promote policies online
BY EILEEN SULLIVAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
POLITICS
WASHINGTON — It was late on Aug. 22 when Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt wrapped up 1,250 words on his experiences in Mozambique. There was more he wanted to write about online, but he had to be up early.
"I think I'll post and go to bed," he wrote on his Web log.
Leavitt and Michael Chertoff at Homeland Security are the first two members of President Bush's Cabinet
"The very same technology that can make things more democratic can also be used for manipulation and propaganda."
DELLI CARPINI Dean of communication school
Chertoff began blogging in September so he could "open a dialogue with the American people about our nation's security" Chertoff comes up with an idea for a blog entry, then someone in the department writes it, and Chertoff heavily edits it, said Jeff Ostermaver.
who are blogging. They are among the more than 61 million Internet blogs, according to blogpulse.com a site that tracks blogs.
The State Department has begun a blog, too, although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is not a contributor so far.
20. he wrote 2,444 words about his trip to an orphanage in South Africa.
Two of Chertoff's 11 entries challenge New York Times editorsials. Most recently, he said the newspaper's editorial staff "hyperventilates" about the department's effort to arrest gangs and get illegal aliens off the street.
Chertoff and Leavitt discuss issues facing their departments and occasionally sound off on criticism of their policies.
And on Sept.14, Chertoff said an
editorial about the department's disaster response plan was "a perfect storm" of misrepresentation and misunderstanding.
Leavitt has written about the children's health care program and
"I've decided to wade in a little deeper into blogdom by writing one for the next month or so."
Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
In one entry, he compared personal health care with buying the right golf clubs; in the analogy, the clubs are the medication and the golf game is the medical ailment.
Leavitt says he writes every blog entry himself, often late at night in hotel rooms when he is traveling. He is concerned that his entries are too long; on Aug.
Leavitt started his blog in August, having enjoyed reading a pandemic flu blog that his department began this year.
"I've decided to wade in a little deeper into blogdom by writing one for the next month or so." Leavitt wrote in his first entry. "I'm going to see how I feel after that time period. I may continue; I may not."
The public can comment on Chertert's and Leavitt's blogs, but
defend Bush's veto of a spensing increase that the Democratic-controlled Congress passed. Last week, the House failed to override the veto. "The drama around vetoes and overrides are just the way Washington conducts a conversation and debate," he wrote.
MIKE LEAVITT
Secretary
Health and Human Services
But when public officials are blogging, "you're seldom going to get a different point of view or an inside story," he said.
Public officials usually are promoting policies and not offering honest reflections of what is going on, Delli Carpini said. The key to a successful blog is to make sure the information in the blog is honest, accurate and serving a public purpose. "The very same technology that can make things more democratic can also be used for manipulation and propaganda," he said.
A Sept.
15 comment to one of Chertoff's blogs about a New York
Your mind isn't the only thing that needs exercise.
a department spokesman who oversees the blog.
both departments established ground rules that include a ban on personal attacks and vulgar language.
One of the benefits of blogs is the opportunity for people to interact with government officials, said Michael X.Delli
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Times editorial said, "Mr. Secretary, the DHS is doing a fine job, whether the New York Times thinks so, or not. There is just no pleasing some."
Another comment said, "This is a serious question. How do you have time to blog? Don't you have a 24-hour-a-day job with very important things to do?"
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Leavitt said his blogging experience has so far been positive. The blog has picked up almost 100 links, he pointed out. "I have no idea if that's any good," he wrote. "Maybe some of you more experienced bloggers can give me some perspective."
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