Post Politics Hour

washingtonpost.com's Daily Politics Discussion

Don't want to miss out on the latest in politics? Start each day with The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.

Washington Post White House reporter Peter Baker was online Thursday, May 24, at 11:00 a.m. ET to discuss the latest in political news.

Political analysis from Post reporters and interviews with top newsmakers. Listen live on Washington Post Radio or subscribe to a podcast of the show.

The transcript follows.

Archive: Post Politics Hour discussion transcripts

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Peter Baker: Good morning, everyone. President Bush is holding a news conference in the Rose Garden as we speak, Vice President Cheney is cradling his new grandchild, Congress is preparing to pass a war-funding bill without timetables for withdrawal and much of Washington still is processing yesterday's testimony by a former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. And oh yes, a few people are running for president. So let's get started.

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San Francisco: Did you make this most recent trip to Crawford, Peter? How happy did the NATO fellow look to be spending the night there?

Peter Baker: That was my partner, Michael Fletcher. My guess is Crawford was a bit of a contrast to Brussels.

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Arlington, Va.: Hi Mr. Baker. What's the connection between Pat Robertson's Regent University and the Bush administration, if any? Apparently (according to Wikipedia) Regent University's Web site at one time bragged they had 150 graduates in the Bush administration. That seems like an awful lot.

Peter Baker: There's been a lot of focus lately on the heavy presence of Regent University graduates in the administration, particularly in the Justice Department. Most prominent among them, of course, was Monica Goodling, who was Attorney General Gonzales's counselor and testified yesterday that she "crossed the line" by using political criteria in hiring. She was asked at yesterday's hearing whether an unusual number of Regent graduates had been hired at Justice; she answered that there were more from Harvard and Yale.

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Rolla, Mo.: Am I the only one getting tired of hearing how "young" Sen. Obama is in this race? We have had several presidents younger at inauguration than he is now (Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, Clinton, etc.). Yes, he is relatively politically inexperienced, but this would not be an issue if he were in his late 50s.

Peter Baker: My guess is Sen. Obama will be the "young" candidate for the duration, much as Sen. McCain will the "old" candidate. But young isn't necessarily bad; Bill Clinton used youth as a political asset and it seems to me Sen. Obama is doing the same. That's helped him galvanize young voters through Facebook and other things like that. So my guess is Sen. Obama doesn't mind being called young, but will have to confront the issue of inexperience.

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Charlottesville, Va.: Peter, thanks for taking our questions. I am wondering why both parties don't move to a system of simultaneous primaries that are held much closer to the November election date. What prevents the party leadership from doing this? As, for instance, self-interest prevents parties from enacting various campaign finance reforms or redistricting reform. Why should a party expose their candidates to infighting over a long period of time, and make the Iowa caucuses so important? Not to mention expose us to the candidates until we are sick of them? (And I am a politics junkie.)

Peter Baker: Well, my guess is that having primaries closer to the general election is unattractive to the parties because they want to end the internal fighting as early as possible and concentrate their fire on the other party's nominee.

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Concord, N.H.: Has Giuliani taken a position on the immigration bill? We know where McCain is (he sponsored it) and where Romney is (he was for it before he was against it) but Giuliani appears to be sitting this one out.

Peter Baker: Mayor Giuliani initially was somewhat ambiguous about the bill but has grown increasingly critical as the days have gone by. He said in Vermont yesterday that the bill is a hodgepodge that "goes in 10 different directions without any central focus." Here's a link.

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Chicago: I always like your chats. I've been following the DOJ issues all along but I confess I still don't understand why Monica Goodling resigned. What's the back story? It's not characteristic of this administration to ever back down or admit they're ineffective, or to hold folks accountable (and I do believe she was way out of bounds -- but perfectly within the standards of the current Justice Department and White House). Thanks.

Peter Baker: It's a good question, but I'm afraid not one that I have a good answer to either. She initially took leave, presumably wondering whether this would blow over, and only when it became clear that it wouldn't did she actually resign. But I don't have any particular insights into her thinking.

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Baltimore: A quick question: How can you be White House Liaison and not ever speak to anyone in the White House? Is it an oxymoron title?

Peter Baker: Well, it's possible to be a White House reporter and not have anyone in the White House speak to you, so maybe it's not all that surprising.

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St. Louis: Thanks for doing these chats! I received a call about supporting the Death Tax repeal. Do you think that this issue is coming back to the attention of Congress again?

Peter Baker: It's certainly going to be on the table in the next couple years because the way the Congress passed President Bush's tax plan a few years ago left the estate tax portion to expire in 2011 and return to the way it was before he took office. But obviously Congress doesn't tend to deal with issues until it needs to, so it's certainly plausible that they won't address it definitively until closer to the sunset date.

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New York: I'm curious as to why a Justice committee member chose to attack Regent University at yesterday's Monica Goodling hearing. I understand the criticism, but it wasn't a hearing about religious influence in the Justice Department and seemed only to throw red meat to the opposition. Isn't there usually some sort of coordination or vetting regarding the questions, for strategic purposes, at least? Thanks.

Peter Baker: Sometimes committee members coordinate their questions within their party caucus and sometimes they don't, so I can't say whether that was a calculated move on the part of the Democrats or just that member's question.

(Note: Our colleague, Michael Abramowitz, was just on television asking President Bush about the Justice Department scandals. The president is responding that he still has confidence in Attorney General Gonzales and chiding the Democrats for what he called political theater.)

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Washington: Can you clarify Moveon.org's stand on the Iraq funding bill? Do they think that Congress should just keep sending bills that will be vetoed, or that it actually should cut funding for the troops? I'm just perplexed because both stances seem to be not very realistic.

Peter Baker: Well, obviously I can't speak for MoveOn.org, but I think a lot of antiwar activists basically believe funding should be cut off flatly to end the war and this bill compromises the mandate they believe they got from the voters last November. Polls show many Americans want troops to withdraw but not necessarily immediately, and that they want the troops funded even if they want the war over, so Democratic lawmakers are caught between these pressures as they decide what to do about the latest measure.

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Des Moines, Iowa: Since the Democrats keep comparing the Iraq War to Vietnam, who is going to be the antiwar McCarthy (who pushed Johnson out of running in 1968) and who will be Sen. Bobby Kennedy/VP Humphrey "voice of experience"? Or will the Democrats rally around a McGovern type from the Senate? Do you think the anti-war left will derail the Democrats as was done in 1968 and 1972 rather than offer national security to defend our nation? Who is the new FDR leader in for Democrats?

Peter Baker: All good and interesting questions. Historical comparisons are always fraught with danger, of course, because they're inexact. The dynamic between Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama has some of the quality you're speaking of -- he's talked about how he was against the war from the beginning and she's defended her vote supporting the war as the best decision she could make at the time but different from how she would have voted if she knew then what she knows now. Sen. Clinton started out as the more hawkish candidate in the Democratic race but seems to be moving further to the antiwar left as the campaign develops, voting just this past week for a measure to cut off all war funding next spring.

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"Fighting them there so they don't follow us here": He just said it again and I'm still waiting for a reporter to ask him this question: How is occupying Iraq specifically keeping Osama bin Laden from attacking us here, given that he isn't in Iraq? Could you run out there right now and slip this question to one of your colleagues, please?

Peter Baker: Thanks, I'm actually in our office while my colleague Michael Abramowitz is there, so not able to slip any questions in. I think the president's point, right or wrong, is that bin Laden and his network are focusing their efforts in Iraq and therefore not spending much time trying to orchestrate attacks on U.S. soil. There are lots of skeptics of that logic, of course.

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Oxford, Miss.: In response to Arlington's question about Regent Law School, Fresh Air recently had a show on that very subject, interviewing not only the Dean of the Law School but also Charlie Savage from the Boston Globe who has written extensively on the Bush administration and Regent. I don't know if you mind promoting another news outlet but the interviews were really quite good and can be accessed here.

Peter Baker: Thanks for posting. I'm an admirer of Charlie Savage, who just won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the administration.

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Reading, Pa.: Re: Cheney's grandson and the non traditional family he is born into. Do you think this will soften the Veep's heart, or just his image?

washingtonpost.com: Baby Cheney, Weighed on Political Scale, Too (Post, May 24)

Peter Baker: Well, it's interesting that they released the photograph yesterday showing the vice president and Lynne Cheney with their new grandson. But he's mostly made clear he has no interest in discussing his family publicly, particularly the circumstances surrounding Mary Cheney's pregnancy and her living arrangements.

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Arlington, Va.: I don't understand the rationale (or sanity) of the anti-war organizations mobilizing attacks against Democratic Members who may support the supplemental appropriations. Don't they understand the Democrats simply do not have the numbers to override a Presidential veto? Their response that the funding should simply be ended is just not plausible. I am a Democrat and I am against the war, but I understand the ramifications, especially politically, of not funding the troops. Do they understand that their strategy would result in a two-year reign of Democrats? Democrats, if they took this approach, surely would be voted out of office resulting in another Republican Congress. Sometimes I wonder about the sanity of these anti-war groups, especially the blog-spawned entities. They are driven more by emotion rather than logic. Sorry, just a comment, not a question. It is just very frustrating as a Democrat to see these organizations make such rash decisions/actions without using reason.

Peter Baker: Thanks for the comment. It's a fascinating dynamic within the Democratic Party right now, one that's tearing at the unity they've been hoping to maintain since taking over Congress with very thin majorities. The challenge for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is to find a way to navigate that division and it's not at all clear whether they'll be able to.

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Rockville, Md.: What can we expect from the left? Do they have enough votes? How do they help Edwards?

washingtonpost.com: Antiwar Groups Press Democrats to Vote Against Iraq Bill (Post, May 24)

Peter Baker: The question is whether enough Republicans go along to offset the Democratic defections. And I imagine, without knowing, that the Democratic leaders feel some pressure to keep down their "no" votes to avoid perpetuating the sense of division within the party. I would imagine the bill will pass at this point, or they wouldn't go to the floor with it. But stay tuned, I've been wrong before.

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Arlington, Va.: It sounds like the immigration bill is in real trouble. Who will bear the blame for this -- Democrats, because they control Congress, or the President, because he hasn't pulled out all of the stops to gain support for the bill?

Peter Baker: If it fails, it could be President Bush's last lost chance to achieve a significant domestic initiative before his administration ends, so it would be a big blow for him in terms of legacy building. Whether Republicans would be able to also use the issue against Democrats in the 2008 elections is an interesting question and probably depends on the district and the candidates. But it will be one more example of how the new Democratic Congress hasn't gotten a lot more done in terms of major legislation than the previous Republican one.

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Re: Fighting them there:"I think the president's point, right or wrong, is that bin Laden and his network are focusing their efforts in Iraq and therefore not spending much time trying to orchestrate attacks on U.S. soil." I would argue that there is no real proof to back up that claim and am surprised to see you state it. What proof do we have that most of al-Qaeda's resources are going to Iraq? Aren't most of the forces in Iraq that we call al-Qaeda really Iraqis who have franchised the name?

Peter Baker: In writing that, I was explaining what the president's point is, not my point of view. And as I said, there are plenty of skeptics of his viewpoint. How much of al-Qaeda's resources are focused on Iraq isn't something I could tell you off the cuff, but I think there's agreement that they're there and that foreign fighters as well as Iraqis are part of the problem. Are they the primary part of it? Would they be operating here if they weren't there? Good questions that are better answered by smarter people than me. Our Baghdad bureau chief, Sudarsan Raghavan, had a fascinating story this morning about a fresh spike in unidentified bodies in Iraqi morgues, suggesting that sectarian killings are on the rise again after several months of decline.

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washingtonpost.com: Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq (Post, May 24)

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Princeton, N.J.: I just finished a book that took place in Europe in 1937-1939. One of the things the Russians said after claiming that Poland was persecuting Russians, was "we have to fight them there, so we don't fight them here."

Peter Baker: Hmm, interesting. What was the book?

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Washington: Re: Reading, Pa. -- Cheney has said several time he opposes an amendment to ban gay marriage. It is really the media who has given him this image, not reality or his actions.

Peter Baker: Yes, you're absolutely right that Vice President Cheney has opposed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. "Freedom means freedom for everybody," he has said. But I don't think this issue is at the core of the vice president's public image, nor do I think the media has "given him" an image.

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Re: Cutting off funding: It may be unrealistic to cut off funding, but the hard-left line has shifted the discussion to how and when we bring the troops home, not whether we bring them home.

Peter Baker: No question that pressure from the furthest point on a political spectrum can alter the terms of a political debate. The same has happened on the right through the years. In this case, I think it's fair to say that the pressure by the antiwar left has forced Democratic leaders to go further than they might have without it. Look at Sen. Reid; he's gone from saying just after the November election that Congress wouldn't touch war funding to supporting a phased withdrawal plan to supporting a flat cutoff of funds.

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Is it all just a matter of words?: Just a comment, I guess. I'm a little weary of people saying that the Democrats want to cut off funding for "the troops." It's a meme that seems to have taken hold in the media, to the glee of Republicans I'll bet, and makes it sound as if the Democrats want to strand our troops, sans bullets and MREs, in the deserts of Iraq. Meanwhile, Republicans who support the war and, let's face it, the continued bloodshed to which our troops are subjected every hour of every day, get to be all smug and self righteous. When can we look forward to the majority of the media reining in the "strand our troops" nonsense?

Peter Baker: Well, the media doesn't "rein in" public debate. We try to explain it dispassionately and fairly. I don't think you'll find news stories in The Post saying Democrats want to cut funding "for the troops," though we quote people who assert that and we quote others who respond to such charges. We've tried to be precise about what the various proposals would do and what impact there has been, or not, in the absence of having a war funding bill so far. As for how people should judge those bills, I have enormous confidence in our readers to make up their own minds.

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Peter Baker: Alas, time has creeped up on us again. Thanks for participating today. As always, it's been fun and fascinating. Tune in again tomorrow at 11 a.m. and have a great day.

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