*GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS: Good news for the economy is now bad news for Democrats. As their effort to tar President Bush with a scandal over his use of a British intelligence report that said Iraq sought uranium in Africa begins to flag (see cover story), their next best hope for defeating the President in 2004 is for the economy to flounder. But the economic disaster the Party of Doom and Gloom has been predicting since before the 2002 election has not materialized. Last week, the Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at a 2.4% pace in the second quarter, up from 1.4% in the first quarter. "Most forecasters are predicting much sharper gains, with growth reaching and perhaps topping a 4% annual rate in the second half of this year," reported the Washington Post.
*1984 ONCE MORE: No economic up-tick, however, seems likely to change the economic prescriptions of the Democratic presidential candidates, who are reaching increasingly for a theme their party last used in 1984, when candidate Walter Mondale vowed to raise taxes.
"Democratic presidential candidates are following the politically risky strategy of embracing tax increases as key parts of their economic agendas, hoping to make mounting federal deficits and President Bush’s economic stewardship major issues in the 2004 campaign," reports Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post. "Although they couch it as ‘rolling back’ Bush’s tax policies, virtually all the major Democratic candidates say they would raise taxes on some or all of those who pay income taxes." "Walter Mondale’s tax promises," Weisman notes, "proved disastrous in his 1984 campaign against President Ronald Reagan."
*CLINTON DEFENDS BUSH: Former President Bill Clinton phoned CNN’s "Larry King Live" on July 22 to defend President Bush against claims that he misled the country into war. Clinton, who bombed Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of his impeachment, told King, "It is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted-for stocks of biological and chemical weapons [in Iraq]. We might have destroyed them in ’98. We tried to, but we sure as heck didn’t know it because we never got to go back in there. I would say the most important thing is we should focus on what’s the best way to build Iraq as a democracy. . . . We should be pulling for America on this. We should be pulling for the people of Iraq."
*GO JOE: Sen. Joe Lieberman (D.-Conn.), who is running for President, distanced himself from Democratic rivals who are bashing Bush on the Iraq War. "Some have pointed to the controversies over those 16 words in the State of the Union, the unfound weapons of mass destruction, and continuing unrest in Iraq as evidence that President Bush misled us into an unjustified war," said Lieberman at a July 28 press conference. "But nothing we have learned since the end of the conflict should make us doubt whether we were right to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein and protect America and the rest of the world from his aggression."
*DISQUIETING ZEAL: "By their words," said Lieberman at the same press conference, "some in my party threaten to send a message that they don’t know a just war when they see it, and-more broadly-are not prepared to use our military strength to protect our security and the cause of freedom. We have watched some opponents of the war seize upon this emerging scandal with a disquieting zeal, as though it offers proof that they were right all along."
*INTERESTED OBSERVER: President Bush was asked at a July 30 press conference what he thought of California’s special election on whether to recall Gov. Gray Davis (see stories, pages 5 and 7). "I’ve got a lot of things on my mind, and I view it like an interested political observer would view it," said Bush. "You know, it’s kind of a-we’re not used to recalls in Texas, for example, thankfully, I think that-I think the most important opinion is not mine, but it’s the people of California. Their opinion is what matters on a recall. It’s their decision to decide whether or not there will be a recall, which they decided. Now they get to decide who the governor is going to be. And that’s really my only comment I’ve got."
*VETO FOR BIG TV? The House passed the Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary Appropriations bill, 400-to-21, but it could face a veto by President Bush, his first ever. That’s because it includes a provision to block the Federal Communications Commission from implementing a new rule that would raise the cap on the number of television stations a single communications company can own.
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told John Gizzi of HUMAN EVENTS that "senior advisers would recommend some action" if the new FCC ownership rules were blocked. Asked by Gizzi if that meant a veto, McClellan replied: "Yes, that’s correct." But, he added, "It’s still early in the appropriations process. It’s something we can work with Congress on as it moves through the conference committee and, hopefully, have the [de-funding of new FCC guidelines] removed."
*NEXT AT NAVY? With the defense community and official Washington still reeling from the suicide last week of Navy Secretary-designate Colin McMillan, discussion of who will fill that slot is already beginning. One name gaining support on the Hill-notably from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R.-Okla.)-is former Rep. Tillie Fowler (R.-Fla.). Fowler, a conservative, served for many years on the House Armed Services Committee.
*MORELLA TO PARIS: President Bush is awarding a fat political plum to former Rep. Connie Morella (R.-Md.), the Republican who supported him least in the U.S. House of Representatives before she was defeated last year for reelection. Morella (lifetime ACU rating: 21%) was tapped last week as ambassador to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The 72-year-old Morella was one of a handful of House Republicans to oppose the ban on partial-birth abortion and the Clinton impeachment. She will get a tax-funded apartment in Paris. Bets are it will be on the Left Bank.
