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April 29, 2006

Hot Story: Bush's 1,000 Days

Beltway Boys

MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: I'm Mort Kondracke.

FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: And I'm Fred Barnes. And we're "The Beltway Boys."

And hot story number one, and the only hot story, is 1,000 days. That`s the number of days left in the Bush presidency. And the president has an agenda that he really wants to get some action on.

The problem is, he's politically weak and he's trying, I think now, for the third time, an effort to really assert himself and his control over the agenda and really over Washington and over Congress.

It is something that is very tough to do. But there are seven areas in which he's really operating.

And here is the list of these second term priorities.

Number one, get gas prices under control.

Look, it's a huge problem for the president. Because as gas prices go up, his popularity goes down, with all the other things that come along with it that are bad.

The truth is, it's not what he said in his speech on gas prices this past week. What the president talked about, gouging and manipulation by the oil companies and so on, and they were going to investigate that. I mean, that's not the problem.

And, of all people, President Bush, an oil industry guy from the past, knows that that's not the problem. There is a simple problem. Demand exceeds supply. It's true all around the world. And that's causing prices to rise.

Now, there are a couple of ways to deal with it. You can`t, in the short run, increase supply. That takes planning and a long time, and drilling and exploration and all that. So there are a couple of ways you can deal with what's left.

Now, you can have price controls, where the government can do things to reduce the price and so on. And what'll that produce? Gas lines. It will not reduce demand, if you hold down the price.

Or there's the traditional free market way. You can allow prices to rise. And that will chill demand until it meets supply. And then you can deal with the whole situation that way. That's the best way to do it.

You know, Democrats have offered no help. Republicans are even worse. Republicans in Congress -- Republican senators want to send out $100, a check, to every American to offset their oil price increases. I mean, that's ridiculous.

That won't curve demand. Nor will getting rid of the gas tax -- it's 18 cents on a gallon -- between now and September. They will have the opposite affect. I mean, Congress is way off, even more so off, on this issue, than the president.

KONDRACKE: Yes. Well, here's what the president has to say about this on Friday. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The temptation in Washington is to tax everything. And they spend the money, they being the people in Washington. The answer is for there to be strong investment to make this country secure from an energy perspective. Listen, these oil prices are a wake-up call. We're dependent upon oil. And we need to get off oil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARNES: All right.

KONDRACKE: What he should have said, he should have said that in 2001, not this year. There are things that we need to do. You know, checking out price gouging is OK, but you're probably not going to find it.

Import more ethanol from Brazil. You could do that. You could cancel oil subsidies. That`s not a bad idea. Defer some environmental standards on gas for refineries.

What you should not do...

BARNES: That's the serious stuff.

KONDRACKE: Yes. In the long run, you've got to increase supply, which means drill more in the short run, develop alternative fuels in the long run. And you've got to decrease demand, as you said. How to do that? Raise gasoline taxes on a regular basis. And that will reduce demand by a lot.

BARNES: Yes, reduce demand.

Well, back in 2001, the president did say the stuff you say he didn't say.

Anyway, number two, get an immigration deal.

KONDRACKE: Well, maybe Bush can get a decent immigration deal out of the Senate, which I certainly hope will be the case.

The problem is in the House, where the Republicans all think that they're junior minutemen, you know, trying to keep people from crossing the border.

The Democrats, except for Teddy Kennedy, are practically no help, whatever, to Bush at all. They've got two agendas. One is to stop Bush from getting any credit for getting a good immigration bill.

And two, try to convince Hispanics that all Republicans are anti- immigrant and anti-Hispanic, which Bush is clearly not. But the Republicans are playing into the Democrats' hands on this issue, big time.

BARNES: I'm not so sure. Look, I think there's going to be a deal. I think there's going to be a bill. And it's going to have two things that I think most American's agree on.

And one is we need really seriously stepped up border enforcement. And we need to have a way for the 11 million or 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., living here, to earn citizenship. And I guess you'll throw in a guest worker program somewhere. And, who knows, it may happen in time for the president to sign it by July 1.

All right. Issue number three, help stabilize the new Iraqi government.

KONDRACKE: Well, this is the ball game for President Bush. I mean, his presidency rests on a successful outcome of Iraq. If Iraq goes south on a permanent basis; his presidency will be a failure.

The good news is that we've got a new Iraqi prime minister, Jawad Maliki. The test now is for Maliki to form a full government and especially an interior ministry that will close down these militias and stop the terrible sectarian strike.

BARNES: Yes. You did a very good job of pronouncing Maliki's name. I'm proud of you.

KONDRACKE: They can do a good job too.

BARNES: You did good on that one.

The truth is, the Ayatollah Sistani, who is the most important Shiite leader in the country, is behind this effort to get rid of these militias, and straighten out the interior ministry.

But even with the permanent government -- You know, some people had the idea, gee, we get a permanent government, the whole insurgency dies. No, no. You need a much bigger Iraqi army, and better one. And you need the U.S. military -- we've got 130,000 troops there -- to be involved. Having them there as spectators really doesn't help much at all. It helps some, but not much.

Number four, deal with the nuclear stand off in Iran.

Here's Bush on this subject

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Now that we've got the goal in mind, we're working on the tactics. And today's IEA report should remind us all that the Iranian government's intransigence is not acceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARNES: I said "Iraq." I meant Iran.

KONDRACKE: Right. Of course.

Look, did you understand what the president was getting at there? It was a little opaque. You know, he when he said goals, tactics.

What the goal is -- the truth is, I think, the world agrees on two things. One, that Iran is not really seeking peaceful nuclear energy to charge up the light bulbs. What they want is nuclear weapons. And that's where the question is tactics.

I think the president and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, have been very, very serious about the diplomacy track. And they've pushed that very hard. It's now in the U.N. The problem there is they'll never get any sanctions that really matter.

And despite all these truculent things that we hear from the Iranians, not only do they want to annihilate Israel, but they want to share the nuclear technology with countries like Sudan. You know, the country where they're killing all those people in Darfur.

So Bernard Lewis, the Middle East scholar, who we both respect, was in Washington this week and said, look, the problem is not that Iran is going to send a rocket over to the United States with a nuclear weapon in it. The problem is the terrorists -- and there's so many different terrorist groups that the Iranians sponsor -- that a terrorist could do it. And it wouldn't the fingerprints of the Iranians on it.

KONDRACKE: Yes. You know, all of Bush's critics, with the Europeans in the lead, have been screaming blood murder that he's a unilateralist.

BARNES: Well, on this issue he is a multi-lateralist. But it depends on the Europeans doing their part. I mean, they are the ones who can impose the economic sanctions that might get the Iranians' attention.

If they don't do that, the United States has no choice but to go unilateral or military.

KONDRACKE: And it will be their fault as much as anybody elses.

We've got three more of these.

KONDRACKE: I know. Let's go. Let's do it.

BARNES: Pump up the White House PR battle.

KONDRACKE: Well, this is Tony Snow's job now. He's the press secretary. And I think Tony Snow's appointment signals something good, that the White House is going to get out of the defensive crouch that it's been in and start affirmatively trying to sell the country and the media on what the administration's trying to do.

BARNES: Yes. I think his enthusiasm will be infectious on the White House staff, and not the press. You know, they're all gloomy.

Number six, focus on midterm elections.

KONDRACKE: Well, I said that Iraq is the ball game. Well, this is the other ball game.

If the Republicans lose control of either house of Congress, the next 1,000 days, or most of the next 1,000 days, are going to be occupied answering subpoenas from Democrats in Congress.

And, you know, key to winning the election is Karl Rove, who got called by the special prosecutor before a grand jury. I mean, if something happens to Karl Rove, this administration is in real trouble.

BARNES: Yes, he's the greatest strategist of his generation, for sure.

And number seven, find an economic star.

You know, Mort, as we talked many times, the economy is roaring, not warring. We now know it went at nearly 5 percent in the first quarter. And, yet, the public thinks the economy is down in the dumps. They're wrong about that.

The president needs an economic star out there to really talk up the economy that'll impress Wall Street and the American people. My candidate? My candidate is Jack Welsh.

KONDRACKE: Jack Welsh. Jack who?

BARNES: Jack Welsh, the former head of G.E.

KONDRACKE: Well, listen, I suggest that you call him and get him to come to work for Bush.

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