Bush to mother: Don't sell on eBay

Posted by Mark Silva at 1:15 pm CDT

President Bush, who long has refused to commit the United States to specific limits on air pollution blamed for contributing to global warming, took a new turn today in proposing that the U.S. and other leading nations by the end of next year set “a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases.’’

This is what the president will carry to a summit for leaders of the Group of Eight major industrial nations in Germany next week, along with an appeal to match the U.S. in a dramatic increase in financial aid for the fight against AIDS in Africa and freer international trade.

But, for its lack of specifics, the president’s plan for addressing climate change falls far short of what leaders of Germany and other nations hoped to deliver at the G-8 summit set in a serene Baltic Sea resort near Heiligendamm -- including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, an ardent advocate for averting global warming.

At the same time, European wariness with the continuing U.S. military stance in Iraq and Russian concerns about a U.S. buildup of missile defenses in Eastern Europe will contribute to an environment in which the American president nearing the end of his terms will have difficulty mustering support for any of his initiatives, U.S. and European analysts say.

“The Bush administration is in a very bad situation,’’ said Philippe Moreau Defarges, senior fellow at the Institute for International Relations in Paris. “It seems that Mr. Bush is really in a quagmire in Iraq and nobody is really ready to listen to him… It’s too late for Mr. Bush. I think a lot of leaders are waiting for the next president.’’

Posted by William Neikirk at 1:15 p.m. CDT

The story from the White House at first appeared to be dramatic. President Bush announced that he has changed his position on climate change. He called on industrial nations to set a "goal" of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2008 (or the virtual end of his presidency).

On closer examination, it's hard to see the real change in his policy. He's already announced plans (unlikely to be enacted in his presidency) to use renewable fuels and conservation measures that he says will reduce greenhouse gases way out there in the future.

Posted by David Lightman of the Hartford Courant at 1:05 pm CDT

Chris Dodd goes for the heart in his new ad, debuting today.

The ad, the third of his presidential campaign, opens with children singing "We've got the whole world in our hands" as they play with miniature globes.

An announcer then warns "All the Earth's creatures are threatened by global warming."

But, the voice assures the viewer, "One candidate for president is doing something to stop it--Chris Dodd. He's the only one with an energy plan that has a courageous corporate carbon tax to transform American industry."

Download warming_cd_tv_07_12.mpg

Posted by Aamer Madhani at 12:30 p.m. CDT

With this last month marking one of the deadliest periods for U.S. troops since the start of the war, the second-ranking U.S. military commander in Iraq said today that some progress has been made on the ground in Iraq since the start of the troop buildup.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of multi-national troops in Iraq, said that sectarian violence is down, attacks in the volatile Anbar province have been cut in half and more than 17,000 enemy fighters have been captured this year.

“We've made small progress here. We have not made the progress that I think is necessary yet, but I hope over the summer that we will continue to make progress," Odierno told Pentagon reporters in a teleconference from Iraq.

At least 116 U.S. have been killed in May, making it the deadliest month of the war since November 2004 when 137 soldiers were killed in action as the military was in the midst of the war’s most pitched fighting for the embattled city of Fallujah. Two others U.S. soldiers who were captured in an attack earlier this month remain missing.

Posted by Frank James at 11:10 am CDT

In its issue that goes on sale tomorrow, Time magazine has an interview with the stars of the new film "Oceans 13," Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Ellen Barkin in which Clooney and Damon express say the Democratic senator from Illinois has their vote.

Writer Josh Tyrangiel interviewed the movie stars in Cannes. The discussion was mostly about the film the stars wanted to hype, but roamed into the realm of presidential politics with a heavily sarcastic question.

TYRANGIEL: Shall we talk politics for a moment? I'm sure like most actors you're all watching the Republican field, just waiting for a candidate to get behind.

CLOONEY: I'm just hoping Gingrich gets in. Come on, Newt! Actually there's a really good field out there. I like Barack Obama a lot. I've spent some time with him.

PITT: You just cost him votes.

CLOONEY: I've actually had that conversation with him, just saying "Look, I'll give you whatever support you need—including staying completely away from you." Actors have done a lot of damage to candidates lately. My father ran for Congress in 2004, and it was "Hollywood vs. the Heartland!" My father was Hollywood.

PITT: I'm just hungry for some honesty and leadership. And I'm following them all—on all sides.

DAMON: I'm an Obama guy too. I think a lot of the problems in the world would be mitigated if he were the face of our country. I haven't ever met him or talked to him, but he's the first person in a long time who I've been inspired by.

CLOONEY: When other politicians stop and listen, that's how you know what charisma is. You can't teach that. He walks into a room and you go, "That's a leader."

Posted by Frank James at 10:49 am CDT

Environmentalists have argued that reducing meat consumption would be one way of creating a more environmentally friendly world since it takes so much land to grow the grain which feeds livestock, with all the attendant fuel costs.

There are good ways to reduce meat consumption and bad ways to reduce meat consumption, of course. The Washington Times reported today about one of the bad ways: the violence in Iraq.

BAGHDAD -- Once-flourishing middle-class families in Baghdad are now eating meat only sparingly, if at all, as violence across the city prevents people from working and farmers from delivering food to the capital's markets.

Some women are eating less in order to give their food to their children, residents say, while others try to make meals for a family of five from a portion of meat that would barely make a single hamburger.

Posted by Frank James at 10:03 am CDT

Here's yet another reason why the immigration-reform legislation being debated in the Senate (when it's not in recess as it is now) has a high probability of winding up where last year's effort did--on history's scrap heap.

It's a House procedure called the "blue-slip" which House conservatives are very likely to use to throttle the legislation. As The Hill publication reports:

House conservatives are ready to stop the Senate immigration bill in its tracks with a potent procedural weapon should the contentious measure win passage in the upper chamber.

The trump card conservatives may hold is a constitutional rule that revenue-related bills must originate in the House. The Senate immigration measure requires that illegal immigrants pay back taxes before becoming citizens, opening the door to a House protest, dubbed a “blue slip” for the color of its paper.

House Republicans used the same back-taxes mandate for a blue-slip threat that derailed last year’s immigration conference. The new Senate bill still must survive two more weeks of voter scrutiny and contentious amendments, but several conservatives already are lying in wait for the Senate to “make the same mistake twice,” as one House GOP aide put it.

Posted by Frank James at 7:20 am CDT

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

Immigration-asylum seekers are likely to get different results depending on the gender and whether the judges worked previously for immigration-rights organizations, a job history more female than male judges are likely to have.

The United Nations Security Council voted for the first UN-backed tribunal ever in the Middle East. It would try suspects in the bombing assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. Syrian agents are thought to have conducted the murder.

Presidential candidates are flocking to Florida and other states that have moved their primaries to earlier dates, greatly compressing the actual nominee-selection process but causing the primary and general-election campaigns to last significantly longer and be much more hectic and intense.

Posted by Mark Silva at 6:50 am CDT

If Americans had a direct say in the Oval Office, most would tell President Bush to focus on an exit strategy that removes U.S. forces from Iraq. Just one in four would suggest staying the course.

These are among the findings of a Gallup Poll that asked, ''If you could talk with President Bush for 15 minutes about the situation in Iraq, what would you, personally, advise him to do?''

"Bottom line,'' reports Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport: "The majority of Americans, as measured in a number of Gallup Poll surveys this year, believe the initial decision for the United States to become involved in Iraq was a mistake. Research also shows a majority of Americans favor a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Americans -- if given the chance to talk with President Bush about Iraq -- would be most likely to tell him to figure out a way to get U.S. troops withdrawn from that country.''

Posted by Mark Silva at 6:15 am CDT

President Bush, who this week ordered economic sanctions against the government of Sudan for aiding and abetting "genocide'' in Darfur, and who this week proposed a doubling of U.S. aid to Africa for the fight against AIDS, will spell out a broader agenda for the development of struggling nations today in an address at the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

This is Bush's way of heading into a summit for the leaders of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations next week in Germany. Yet, even while the G-8 have focused in recent years on Africa – last year committing to a doubling of aid to the continent, at the urging of British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- and even though Bush has funneled money into a battle against HIV and AIDS since 2003, some see a sort of "legacy''-molding intention in the president's term-closing, stepped-up attention to the far continent. First Lady Laura Bush will travel to Africa in June, and the president could be planning a trip of his own next year.

"Africa always comes up in Washington at the end of the day,'' says Simon Serfaty, who holds the Zbigniew Brzezinkski Chair in Global Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "With Henry Kissinger in 1975, with Bill Clinton in 1999, now with George W. Bush in 2007 – do you notice a pattern here? I mean, as you come closer to farewell time, then you say, 'Oh, by the way, maybe I should do more than I’ve been doing this far with regard to that part of the world.'''

The president brought Baron Mosima Loyiso Tantoh to the Rose Garden of the White House on Wednesday, for an announcement that he is seeking a doubling of U.S. aid for the fight against AIDS in Africa. The boy's mother, Kunene Tantoh, represents Mothers to Mothers, an organization aiding HIV-positive mothers in South Africa. She joined them as well. White House photo by Eric Draper.

Posted by Christi Parsons at 6:10 am CDT

They aren't going to Florida for the sunshine.

The move by Florida and other large states such as Illinois, California and New York, to play primary leapfrog and gain greater impact on the 2008 nominating process is changing the nature of campaigning and adding a strange twist: With a compressed calendar, the campaign will assuredly be longer on the front end and cost millions of dollars more, starting several months earlier. It will test the stamina of the candidates and of voters who will be exposed to ever-greater contact with almost every aspect of the campaign.

And there's another layer. If the crowded calendar delivers a presumptive nominee in each party early, the general election campaign, too, will be at least as intense as the primaries.

State officials are gleeful about the increase in traffic that the change has inspired, especially after years of watching Iowa and New Hampshire stand as presidential kingmakers.

"It's incredible," said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. "You name the candidates, they're here. And they're here often. It's a constant flood of national candidates." See the Tribune story:

Posted by Antonio Olivo at 6:05 am CDT

The suggestions of Rep. Tom Tancredo, a fifth-term Denver congressman seeking the GOP's presidential nomination, that Muslim holy sites be military targets and his focus on Mexican criminals when discussing border policy have earned him scorn -- turning leaders of his own party away from him.

Yet, while Tancredo's campaign bid is widely regarded as a long shot, the reaction he has received so far in Iowa shows the impact of his campaigning can't be entirely dismissed, political analysts say.

He hasn't left much of a footprint in Congress, and yet, driven by an anti-illegal immigrant wind, he now audaciously has become a single-issue candidate for president, his fists bared as he derides a bipartisan immigration reform plan being debated in the Senate, calls his opponents "soft'' and derides President Bush's plan as "lacking courage.''

Iowa, home to the nation's first presidential caucuses of the primary season in January, has one of the fastest growing foreign-born populations, as mainly Latin American immigrants arrive for jobs in meatpacking plants, on farms and in construction. Worries in the state about assimilation, shrinking wages and over-burdened schools and hospitals reflect deeper national concerns over heavy immigration that aren't likely to be resolved by the reforms being considered in Congress, both sides of the debate agree.

The longer the problem of illegal immigration lingers, the easier it will be for Tancredo to serve as a spoiler in the Republican race as his hard-line stance attracts voters feeling overwhelmed by their changing social landscape, says University of Iowa political science professor Peverill Squire. See the Tribune's story:

Good morning. These are some events of interest for Thursday, May 31, 2007, as provided by the Associated Press.

ALL DAY

May 29 - 31. POVERTY-ECONOMIC SECURITY — The Community Action Partnership holds the National Symposium on Poverty and Economic Security.

Location: North Bethesda Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Rd., North Bethesda.

May 30 - 31. SPELLING BEE — The National Spelling Bee.

Highlights:

10 a.m. Semifinal rounds.

8 p.m. Finals.

Location: Grand Hyatt Hotel, 1000 H St. NW

Posted by Mark Silva at 4:20 pm CDT

What was Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, getting at today when he likened the role that the U.S. military might play down the road in Iraq with the role it still plays in South Korea – with tens of thousands of U.S. troops still deployed there five decades after war?

He wasn't predicting that sort of military commitment to Iraq five decades from now, he said. But he was suggesting that the U.S. will continue to play a "support'' role in Iraq after the nation is secured. He also acknowledged that he has no real "crystal ball'' on any of this.

The sum of the conversation was enough to raise eyebrows about intentions for the U.S. military in Iraq.

For clarity, here is the conversation that took place at today's press briefing, building upon a question that veteran White House correspondent and columnist Helen Thomas had asked in an earlier and more informal morning press "gaggle'' with the press secretary:

Posted by Frank James at 2:10 pm CDT

Fred Thompson, the "Law and Order" star and former senator from Tennessee, appears to be getting much closer to entering the presidential race, according to what intelligence pros refer to as "open sources," i.e. media reports like politico.com and the Washington Post. We know people who say as much as well.

The idea apparently is that he would announce over the July 4th holiday which could work to his advantage since it's traditionally a slow news day and that would likely put him at the top of the headlines.

One of the knocks on Thompson is that he didn't accomplish much during two Senate terms. The Democratic National Committee today wanted to drive home that criticism with the following press release. Download FDTLegAccomp.pdf

Much of Thompson's appeal is due to the inability of other Republican candidates already in the race who excite conservative Republicans the way Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) electrifies folks opposed to the Iraq War or the Bush Administration's prosecution of the war on terror.

Thompson supporters hope he's the man for whom conservative Republicans have been waiting. He certainly is no Al Gore, "Inconvenient Truth" telling, tree-hugging, global-warming believer judging from a commentary he did titled "Plutonic Warming" on the Paul Harvey radio show.

Posted by Frank James at 1:33 pm CDT

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is visiting Iraq during the Memorial Day recess and he likes what he sees.

"Overall, I would say what I see here today is progress, significant progress from the last time I was here in December. And if you can see progress in war that means you’re headed in the right direction."

When a reporter asked him about May which saw the highest number of U.S. military deaths this year, Lieberman responded:

"That’s of course, that's the heartbreaking part of it. That the casualties that the American military have been taking have been high this month. Part of that, as I’ve been told today, is because our military is out here not just in camps but we’re out in in the city and other cities but particularly in the capital city, and we’re having a positive effect..."

Lieberman wore sunglasses which appeared not to be rose-colored.

Posted by Frank James at 11:43 am CDT

There'll no doubt be some violent debates over a new peace index just released today.

In a new global ranking of the world's most peaceful countries, the U.S. ranked at 96, just beating out Iran which came in at 97. Israel came in at 119, one notch above Sudan and two notches above Iraq which, understandably, came in last on the list as world's least peaceful nation. Download global_peace_index.pdf

Norway, New Zealand and Denmark led the index in that order. Canada was the leading Western Hemisphere nation on the list, coming in the eighth on the list.

According to a press statement, the new index was "initiated by Steve Killelea, global entrepreneur and Australian philanthropist, and developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Prominent endorsers of the project include HH Dalai Lama, President James Carter, Sir Richard Branson, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu."

Anyway, how could it be that the U.S. came in at 96?

Posted by Frank James at 10:27 am CDT

Posted by Frank James at 10:00 am CDT

Forget all the explanations from oil industry officials and analysts who say high and rising gasoline prices are tied to growing demand in other parts of the world and a shortage of U.S. refinery capacity. Most Americans either don't know about or aren't buying such explanations.

Instead they believe it's mostly because the oil industry is just plain greedy and is gounging consumers according to a Gallup Poll.

The poll also asked Americans for their views about why gas prices are so high. The most common single reason, mentioned by one in three respondents, is that oil companies are greedy and are gouging consumers. Nearly as many respondents offer practical explanations including problems with refineries (16%), increased demand (10%), more driving during the summer months (3%), and oil shortages (3%). Thirteen percent blame high gas prices on problems in the Middle East, including the Iraq War. The government also receives its share of blame; 9% say government involvement has led to the high gas prices, while 5% cite a lack of government regulation of oil companies.

Given this, small wonder the House just passed anti-gouging legislation. It may be little more than paper-tiger legislation, ineffective at bringing prices down since the price rises have little to do with gouging according to experts. But it resonates with a good many American consumers.

The poll also said most Americans expect to pay $4 per gallon for gas this summer. Most respondents, evidently, didn't think the oil companies were so greedy as to boost prices to the $5 dollar a gallon, however.