For Bush, Some Good News Amid the Bad

By Dan Eggen
Monday, October 6, 2008

CRAWFORD, Tex., Oct. 5 -- President Bush flew to the family ranch over the weekend after weeks of bad news back in Washington, from the nation's ongoing financial crisis to polls showing his popularity hitting new lows.

Yet, to the White House, the tide of negative headlines has obscured a series of significant legislative victories for a president wrongly written off as a lame duck.

After a rough start and a setback in the House, for example, the White House managed to get its historic $700 billion financial rescue plan passed by Congress last week over strong opposition from many conservative House Republicans. The White House also won other legislative victories in recent weeks that, in quieter times, might have attracted wider notice.

Take oil drilling. Bush over the summer lifted an executive ban on offshore oil drilling along much of the coastal United States and urged Congress to do the same with its own prohibition.

Democrats initially scoffed at the idea, saying it would threaten the environment while having little immediate effect on oil supplies. But the White House and Republicans seized on the topic as a potentially winning issue in November, exemplified by chants of "Drill, baby, drill!" at the Republican National Convention.

The pressure led jittery Democrats to shift course late last month, allowing an annual drilling ban to expire as part of a spending package passed in the House and Senate.

Congress also gave final approval last week to a landmark nuclear agreement between India and the United States, a deal that has been in the works for years and has been fiercely opposed by nuclear proliferation experts.

The deal, which is due to be signed by Bush in Washington on Wednesday, opens up nuclear trade with India for the first time since New Delhi conducted a nuclear test three decades ago. The measure ended up passing easily in Congress and is certain to have lasting ramifications.

To White House officials, such victories underscore a year in which Bush has repeatedly pushed through major legislation on Capitol Hill regardless of troubles in the polls or the overwhelming focus on the presidential race. Examples include the bipartisan stimulus package passed early in the year, an Iraq war spending measure without troop-withdrawal timelines and a $40 billion expansion of the president's landmark global AIDS program. Many experts consider the AIDS initiative one of Bush's most significant foreign policy and humanitarian achievements.

White House spokesman Scott M. Stanzel said Bush has "confronted major challenges with bold leadership and significant proposals" during his final year in office.

"These are front-page achievements often overlooked by the mainstream Beltway media," he added.

And to hear Bush tell it, he has no intention of slowing down in his final months. "You know, we got a couple more hard months to go, and obviously we've got to deal with this financial situation," Bush told reporters on Saturday after a visit to one of his boyhood homes in Texas. ".There's a lot of work to be done," he added.

Drawing Power

Bush's trip back to his home town of Midland, Tex., on Saturday -- his first since taking office -- was part of a series of fundraisers this weekend demonstrating that the president is still a big draw among Republicans.

A stop in St. Louis on Friday raised about $1.5 million for the Missouri gubernatorial campaign of Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R), who is having a rough time in his bid for the statehouse against Democrat Jay Nixon (and who defied Bush by voting twice against the bailout plan).

Saturday's fundraiser in Midland was thrown on behalf of the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. It was held at the home of another GOP member of Congress, Mike Conaway.

Finally, on Monday, Bush is scheduled to stop in San Antonio on his way back to Washington for another RNC-NRCC fundraiser. Bush is expected to raise about $1 million between the two Texas events, bringing his weekend total to about $2.5 million.

What's in a Name?

Republicans and Democrats alike complained last week that one of the reasons the Bush administration's financial rescue proposal ran into trouble was that it was wrongly being sold as a "bailout" of Wall Street.

"Let's not call it a bailout," said GOP presidential nominee John McCain. "Let's call it a rescue."

The implication from McCain, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calf.) and others seemed to be that the administration had erred in this respect. But Bush and his aides were careful throughout the debate to never use the word "bailout," even as the press and many supporters did.

Instead, administration officials referred to the plan allowing the government to buy distressed mortgage assets as a "rescue package" or, using the title of the legislation, as "an emergency economic stabilization" plan.

But Seriously . . .

As Bush stayed in Washington last week to pull together votes on the Wall Street bill, it fell to Vice President Cheney to take the president's place at the White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy in Reno, Nev. Bush sent along a video message, telling the audience: "In my place, I have sent my favorite hunter."

Cheney, of course, has yet to live down the incident in February 2006 in which he accidentally shot his good friend Harry Whittington in the face with a spray of shotgun pellets during a quail hunt at a Texas ranch.

Taking the podium in Reno, Cheney acknowledged he has "taken a lot of grief" for the accident -- especially from the president.

"I will never forget walking into the Oval Office after that happened," Cheney told the crowd. "And fortunately, my friend recovered and is in good health. But I walked into the Oval Office that day and the president looked at me, and he said, 'Dick, here I am 30 percent in the polls, and you shot the only trial lawyer in Texas who supports me.' "

Cheney went on to praise the administration's conservation policies, telling the audience that "we've upheld the duties of stewardship, and we've left a good example for others to follow in the years to come."

Quote of the Week

"I think we all know the moment things began to turn around in Iraq: It was when the USO decided to deploy Jessica Simpson."

-- President Bush, speaking Wednesday at the United Service Organization World Gala in Washington.