Two of a Kind?
Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain got President Bush's backing last week, but they have often clashed over the past eight years. By Peter Baker
It took the Democrats all of about a minute and a half to turn President Bush's endorsement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) last week into an attack ad. The Democratic National Committee posted a 49-second online video that shows Bush playfully tap-dancing for reporters as he waited for McCain to arrive at the White House, then flashes some pointed captions:
"Why Is This Man So Happy?"
"Because he found someone to promise a Third Bush Term."
The ad then splices together similar-sounding comments from Bush and McCain on Iraq, Social Security and tax cuts, concluding with a clip of Bush mangling the aphorism "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
Expect a lot of the "third Bush term" theme over the next eight months, as Democrats make his 2000 campaign rival into his fraternal twin. The McCain camp recognizes the problem of being associated too closely with a president whose approval ratings are in the low 30s. But at the moment, the presumptive Republican nominee needs to rally a skeptical conservative base behind him, and Bush can help.
In the weeks since McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination, a fiery debate has ensued on the Internet and elsewhere about whether he and Bush really offer the same prescription for the country. For now, Bush and McCain find themselves on the same side of that debate as their fiercest liberal opponents, albeit from different perspectives. Just as activists on the left find it advantageous to link Bush and McCain, so for the moment do they.
White House press secretary Dana Perino denied last week that Bush and McCain had been longtime rivals. "Absolutely not," she said on Fox News.
"And while I think that might be a good story line for some people to say, to try, it's simply not true. And I would say that hasn't been true ever, but certainly after they were competitors, then, in 2000 and 2004, Senator McCain went on to work his tail off to help this president."
The record, of course, is more complex. The two fought bitterly for the Republican nomination in 2000, essentially ending in a nasty showdown in South Carolina that poisoned their relations for quite a while. After Bush took office, McCain forced through a campaign-finance overhaul over the president's reservations. Bush signed the bill but did not invite McCain to the White House for a signing ceremony.
Over the succeeding years, it often seemed as if they fought each other as much as they fought Democrats. McCain opposed Bush's signature tax cuts, cut a deal with Democrats on judicial nominations, criticized the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, slammed the management of the Iraq war and condemned the use of certain interrogation techniques against terrorism detainees.
Yet, at the same time, McCain has also been a strong Bush ally, most especially in the battle to liberalize immigration laws and to create a path to citizenship for people living illegally in the United States. He has reversed himself on the tax cuts, saying they should be made permanent; he has become the biggest supporter of Bush's troop buildup in Iraq; and he sided with the president against a bill -- vetoed this weekend -- that would have banned waterboarding by the CIA. Congressional Quarterly reports that McCain supported Bush 90 percent of the time in five of the first six years of his presidency.
The open question is which side of this equation McCain chooses to emphasize come fall, when he is reaching out to moderates and independents. And whether Bush will still be dancing.
"Why Is This Man So Happy?"
"Because he found someone to promise a Third Bush Term."
The ad then splices together similar-sounding comments from Bush and McCain on Iraq, Social Security and tax cuts, concluding with a clip of Bush mangling the aphorism "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
Expect a lot of the "third Bush term" theme over the next eight months, as Democrats make his 2000 campaign rival into his fraternal twin. The McCain camp recognizes the problem of being associated too closely with a president whose approval ratings are in the low 30s. But at the moment, the presumptive Republican nominee needs to rally a skeptical conservative base behind him, and Bush can help.
In the weeks since McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination, a fiery debate has ensued on the Internet and elsewhere about whether he and Bush really offer the same prescription for the country. For now, Bush and McCain find themselves on the same side of that debate as their fiercest liberal opponents, albeit from different perspectives. Just as activists on the left find it advantageous to link Bush and McCain, so for the moment do they.
White House press secretary Dana Perino denied last week that Bush and McCain had been longtime rivals. "Absolutely not," she said on Fox News.
"And while I think that might be a good story line for some people to say, to try, it's simply not true. And I would say that hasn't been true ever, but certainly after they were competitors, then, in 2000 and 2004, Senator McCain went on to work his tail off to help this president."
The record, of course, is more complex. The two fought bitterly for the Republican nomination in 2000, essentially ending in a nasty showdown in South Carolina that poisoned their relations for quite a while. After Bush took office, McCain forced through a campaign-finance overhaul over the president's reservations. Bush signed the bill but did not invite McCain to the White House for a signing ceremony.
Over the succeeding years, it often seemed as if they fought each other as much as they fought Democrats. McCain opposed Bush's signature tax cuts, cut a deal with Democrats on judicial nominations, criticized the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, slammed the management of the Iraq war and condemned the use of certain interrogation techniques against terrorism detainees.
Yet, at the same time, McCain has also been a strong Bush ally, most especially in the battle to liberalize immigration laws and to create a path to citizenship for people living illegally in the United States. He has reversed himself on the tax cuts, saying they should be made permanent; he has become the biggest supporter of Bush's troop buildup in Iraq; and he sided with the president against a bill -- vetoed this weekend -- that would have banned waterboarding by the CIA. Congressional Quarterly reports that McCain supported Bush 90 percent of the time in five of the first six years of his presidency.
The open question is which side of this equation McCain chooses to emphasize come fall, when he is reaching out to moderates and independents. And whether Bush will still be dancing.
The Front-Door Campaign
The White House, meanwhile, says there is controlling legal authority allowing Bush to host what certainly seemed like a campaign event on federal property. Remember how Bill Clinton and Al Gore got in trouble in the 1990s when it came to campaign activities in the White House? Clinton hosted coffees for donors and allowed some to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom. Gore made fundraising calls from his office and declared there was "no controlling legal authority" prohibiting it. The question became: When is the executive mansion a federal office and when is it the president's home? Bush's team said it consulted with lawyers before inviting McCain to the White House for last week's endorsement. "The president was pleased today to invite Senator John McCain to his home, and invited him in through the front door," Dana Perino said Tuesday. Bush and McCain then had lunch before appearing together in the Rose Garden. "I can tell you that, in checking with the counsel's office, all of these events and activities were thoroughly evaluated and approved," Perino said.
Spies Like Us
The White House continues to reshape the intelligence board that is supposed to give the president independent, nonpartisan advice about the effectiveness of the nation's spy agencies. Bush last week appointed to the panel his former homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend. The appointment came days after Bush signed a little-noticed executive order reconstituting the 16-member panel. First formed under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, it was renamed the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President John F. Kennedy. Bush renamed it the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and switched around the duties of the Intelligence Oversight Board, a committee of the broader panel. The White House said the new order was intended to clarify lines of authority by splitting the oversight board's duties with the director of national intelligence, a position created by Congress in 2004 after intelligence failures in Iraq. Critics say that the new order is intended to gut independent oversight and that Townsend's appointment indicated the president wanted another loyalist on the panel. Moving On Up
More personnel shuffling at the White House: Tobi Merritt Edwards moves up to associate counsel. Felipe Eduardo Sixto is promoted to special assistant for intergovernmental affairs. And Nancy Theis has been elevated from director of the comment line to director of presidential correspondence.
Quote of the Week
"He said he was having a hot dog, so I had a hot dog." -- McCain, on his lunch with President Bush
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