President, Congress Ready to Begin the Next Round

Congress will return to Washington this week, bringing with it President Bush's favorite punching bag. Since summer, the Associated Press reports, Bush has focused 17 events on his budget-related disputes with lawmakers, most recently Saturday's radio address, in which he pressed them to complete "unfinished business" before leaving on their Christmas recess.

Bush and congressional Democrats once talked of working together to get big things done, but that sentiment vanished amid trench warfare over the stalemated children's health-care bill, spending bills still on hold and the Hill's unsuccessful efforts to force a new course in Iraq.

Bush is clearly acting as if he has the upper hand in the year-end struggle, showing no sign of compromise on his key demands. They include a "clean" war funding bill (without timetables or restrictions on the troops), a wiretapping bill that exempts telecommunications companies from lawsuits, and no more than $933 billion in domestic spending ($11 billion less than what Democrats now want).

Most observers believe Bush will eventually get what he wants on the war funding and wiretapping bills -- the only question is when. One administration official recalled a favorite aphorism of former House majority leader Richard Armey (R-Tex.) -- "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional" -- in predicting that Democrats will have to fund the war on the president's terms, the sooner the better.

The two main dangers for the White House are the possibility that Democrats can muster the votes to override a presidential veto (they may be closest on children's health) and simple presidential overreach. After allowing big spending bills to go through in his first six years, Bush may appear churlish to stand on principle over relatively modest differences in funding for domestic programs.

"It's symbolism and politics more than substance," said Jim Dyer, a former Republican House Appropriations Committee aide who now lobbies at Clark & Weinstock.

Hot Ticket for Hanukkah

One of the duties of Jeremy Katz, an aide to Deputy Chief of Staff Joel Kaplan, is to serve as White House liaison to the Jewish community. This time of year, that means Katz has the responsibility, and the headache, of helping organize the White House Hanukkah party.

The event, although a fairly new phenomenon, has become something of a Washington institution among movers and shakers in the American Jewish community. Bush is the first president, according to Katz and others, to include a Hanukkah party among about two dozen holiday parties at the White House, as well as the first to light a menorah in the Executive Mansion.

About 600 people are expected to crowd into the White House next Monday night for an event that will include the lighting of a menorah, Jewish music and kosher food. The White House has kosherized its kitchen for the event, according to Katz and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Washington director of American Friends of Lubavitch, who says he has hired rabbis to help make sure religious requirements are being satisfied.

"There are no compromises," Shemtov said. "Everything is prepared and transported under the absolute highest standard of kashrut [kosher regulations]. That way, everybody can eat at this event."

Shemtov and other Jews speak fondly of the party, which the rabbi calls "one of the hottest tickets" in town. In years past, prominent Jewish athletes such as baseball players Shawn Green of the New York Mets and Brad Ausmus of the Houston Astros, Supreme Court justices and even some figures of the opposite political persuasion from the president -- Harvard's Alan Dershowitz, to name one -- have shown up. Some describe a desperate last-minute scramble for tickets.

"It is certainly a challenge" putting together the guest list, Katz said. "I have had to turn down relatives who have made creative pleas to get in."