Desperate White House Wife, Episode 1: The Ranch Hand

The New York Times
May 2, 2005
WHITE HOUSE LETTER
Desperate White House Wife, Episode 1: The Ranch Hand
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON

When Laura Bush wisecracked at the White House Correspondents' Association's annual dinner on Saturday night that she was a "desperate housewife" married to a president who was always sound asleep by 9 p.m., the popular first lady accomplished two things. She brought down a very tough house, and she humanized her husband, whose sagging poll numbers are no match for her own.

Judging from the laughter in the Washington Hilton ballroom at Mrs. Bush's words - "George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chain saw, which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well" - Mrs. Bush has a future in political stand-up comedy.

Whether her cheeky one-liners will shore up her husband as he struggles with Social Security, gas prices and combative Democrats is another question entirely.

But her zingers showed how much the White House relies on her to soften her husband's rough edges at critical moments, much as she did with her extensive travels and fund-raising in the 2004 campaign.

"The deprecation of her husband was eye-popping," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, a chief of staff in Ronald Reagan's White House, who had a front-row seat at the dinner. "Every husband and wife who hears the story that she told about him last night, that he's asleep at 9 p.m., can relate to that. And if you can get people to relate to you as president, it's a step forward. Last night George Bush became more likable because of his wife."

Mrs. Bush made fun of not only her husband (and Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld) but also her mother-in-law, the former first lady Barbara Bush, whom she likened to Don Corleone in "The Godfather." In front of 2,500 guests, she described time spent at her in-laws' summer home in Maine like this: "First prize, 3 days' vacation with the Bush family. Second prize, 10 days."

White House officials cast Mrs. Bush's performance as an attempt at fun, not a political calculation, although they said the idea came from one of the more shrewd political animals at the White House, President Bush. "Honest, the president just said: 'Why don't you try to do it this time? Let's mix it up a little bit,' " Susan Whitson, the first lady's press secretary, said after the dinner. "This was the first opportunity that she's had to show the press corps and the rest of the world that side of her."

The first lady's lines were written by Landon Parvin, a longtime Washington speechwriter who does jokes for Mr. Bush and who wrote both comedy and serious speeches for Ronald Reagan. More to the point, Mr. Parvin wrote the lyrics to "Secondhand Clothes," the song-and-dance routine that Nancy Reagan performed to the tune of "Secondhand Rose" at the 1982 Gridiron dinner in Washington.

That performance, which lampooned the first lady's taste in designers, was a hit after a string of public relations disasters, from Mrs. Reagan's supervision of the purchase of a $200,000 set of White House china to the trunkloads of dresses she took for a week of partying at the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana. Press coverage of Mrs. Reagan was subsequently more positive, and "Secondhand Clothes" is still cited as a reason.

In Mrs. Bush's case, playing off "Desperate Housewives" was a natural, even though Ms. Whitson said that Mrs. Bush had never actually seen the racy ABC hit show. Ms. Whitson said the first lady had heard about the characters and plot from the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, who are fans, and was planning to watch the entire first season on a DVD she has at home.

Ms. Whitson said Mr. Parvin sat down with the first lady some weeks ago to work out ideas. He then wrote a script and helped Mrs. Bush with her timing and delivery over several days of rehearsals, including one run-through shortly before the dinner. The first lady went on right after dessert, as Mr. Bush was at the lectern launching into the traditional presidential stand-up routine, in this case rehashing some of his worst jokes from the 2004 campaign.

Mrs. Bush suddenly got up and "interrupted" her husband, saying, "Not that old joke; not again." Then she added, as the audience laughed: "I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. I've got a few things I want to say for a change."

Ms. Whitson said that while Mr. Bush was in on the setup, he did not know what his wife would say. He reacted mostly by cackling with a beet-red face, including when his wife said, "George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later."

Mr. Parvin, who said in an interview before the dinner that writing a speech about the Iran-contra scandal was a lot easier than humor, termed self-deprecating jokes essential for presidents. As a joke writer, he said that his most important task was to meld personality and topicality.

"First of all, you get the person's character in your head," he said. "But a lot depends on what's going on at the time. It's just a feeling that's in the air. So you take that feeling and distill it down to lines that reflect the perception of that person's character."

Or as Mrs. Bush noted on Saturday night about her husband and the ranch in Texas: "George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don't have real strong ranching programs. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."

Mr. Cheney did not escape the first lady, either. "It's always very interesting to see how the ranch air invigorates people when they come down from Washington," she said. "Recently, when Vice President Cheney was down, he got up early one morning, he put on his hiking boots and he went on a brisk 20- to 30-foot walk."

Mr. Parvin said there was an advantage to writing for presidents and, by extension, their wives - because it's easier to get a laugh. "I noticed it first with Reagan," Mr. Parvin said. "Reagan would come into the East Room, and he would have a little throwaway line, and it would get a laugh, and it wouldn't have gotten a laugh with most people. What it did was break the tension. It's the unexpected, I guess. People don't expect presidents to be funny."

Guests at the White House press dinner said the unexpected was a big part of Mrs. Bush's success. "It came as a complete surprise, and she knocked everybody's socks off," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who attended the dinner as a guest of The New York Post.

As for the political benefit to the president, Mr. Schumer said: "It's not going to make everybody say, 'We're for Social Security privatization now.' But around the edges, it helps."

Mr. Parvin, 56, who writes mostly for Republicans but also for Democrats he likes, like Bill Clinton's friend Vernon Jordan, agreed that presidential humor was "not important" in the scheme of things.

On the other hand, it can't hurt. "Everybody wants to do well," Mr. Parvin said. "Someone said humor is like standing up naked in front of an audience, then turning around and saying, 'What do you think?' "

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President Bush's Unqualified Nominees

President Bush's Unqualified Nominees

The Republican leadership have committed to change the rules of the Senate to approve these unqualified nominees – but the vast majority of Americans oppose this unprecedented and dangerous scheme.


Find out more about each of these nominees by clicking on their picture at the link below and let everyone know why they are not qualified.

http://www.tedkennedy.com/unqualified

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The Nuclear Option

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Is that the new Pope?

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In GOP We Trust

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Chalabi

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Co-Co-Co-Co-Coulter

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Old Kiss Up Kick Down

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Third Rail

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Security Issues Force a Review at Ground Zero

The New York Times
May 1, 2005
Security Issues Force a Review at Ground Zero
By PATRICK D. HEALY and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Security concerns outlined last month by the New York Police Department have set off a serious reassessment of plans for the World Trade Center site. People involved in the rebuilding effort say that the revisions that need to be made to the site's most prominent feature, the Freedom Tower, could delay the start of construction from several months to a year.


As a result, the lead developer at the site, Larry Silverstein, has proposed seeking public financing - possibly hundreds of millions of dollars - to pay for addressing the Police Department's security concerns. Such a development would be a significant shift for a project that has relied largely on private insurance money.

In addition, the Police Department's most recent security analysis has moved those involved in the rebuilding effort to examine yet again what might be done to safeguard the site and the people visiting it, if plans go forward to reopen the area's street grid.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the agency set up to direct the rebuilding, had each hired security consultants to assess the safety of the plans for the site. But it is clear that the Police Department's assessment was more disturbing.

Indeed, interviews in the past week show that David Childs, the lead designer of the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, has already begun rethinking fundamental elements of what is planned to be the successor to the twin towers: its precise location on the 16-acre site - long planned for the northwest corner - and its distance from heavily traveled West Street.

The redesigned tower is expected to look different from the current model familiar to the public, but it is too early to characterize the extent of the changes, according to a person who has been briefed on the development team's concerns.

It is clear, however, that three and a half years after the 9/11 attack, and 16 months after the tower's design was unveiled, police officials, unintentionally or not, have set off a storm of blame and accusations.

George E. Pataki, who views the Freedom Tower as his greatest legacy as governor, is said by state officials to be angry with the police, and some of those officials have accused the department of having been late in laying out the scope of its concerns. They say the effect could unduly worry New Yorkers and possible tenants of the buildings. Mr. Pataki did not reply to an interview request.

At the same time, some state and development officials are angry at the Bloomberg administration, saying it should have delivered the police concerns earlier, but may have been distracted by its proposal for a stadium for the Jets on the Far West Side of Manhattan.

Daniel L. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, dismissed that assertion as silly and said that the city and the police had devoted enormous time to assessing the site's security with the latest intelligence and counterterrorism data.

"This is a remarkably complex security question, and every time you turn one dial, you end up turning many other dials on the security issue," Mr. Doctoroff said.

Mr. Pataki said last November that major work on the foundation for the Freedom Tower would begin in February this year, with steel and concrete to arrive last month.

Neither has happened; the tower was to be completed by 2009.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly would not be interviewed about the department's security assessment, a multipage document that was given to Mr. Silverstein and the development agency on April 8. Other officials involved in the security discussions said that the department had raised concerns since at least last summer, but that the other camps involved in planning had not provided detailed information on which to make an assessment.

Paul J. Browne, the department's deputy commissioner for public information, said, "We understand that the Police Department's security concerns will be addressed in any redesign."

According to state officials who have reviewed the department's concerns, the police, most simply, do not see the tower as a normal commercial building; from the police's point of view, the officials say, the tower would replace the trade center, felled by terrorists, with a patriotic symbol that could be a new target. Heightening the concern is the fact that hundreds of uninspected 18-wheel trucks would rumble by the tower daily.

That the police concerns are only now front and center, though, has exasperated senior development officials, many of whom fear that the mere public discussion of security worries could damage what they regard as a hard-won optimism about the site's future.

"I don't want to say the police have been irresponsible, but where were they until this month?" said John C. Whitehead, a Pataki ally and chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. "I wish they had called attention to the seriousness of the problems earlier, rather than at this late stage."

All of the principals involved at ground zero, from the politicians to the builders, remain keenly determined to make the Freedom Tower as secure as possible. But the degree of concern about the site's vulnerability clearly varies, and almost everyone involved in the rebuilding effort wonders if there ever could be a perfect formula for balancing security needs with civic ambitions at a site that has been attacked twice.

The police, for their part, want the tower built to conform with security criteria based on standards used by the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, which would require the tower to be as much as 100 feet away from the street.

The site plan now calls for a minimum distance of 25 feet. The desire for greater distance is based on an analysis of the impact of a large blast.

Over the last year, according to state officials involved in the project, security specialists at the Police Department suggested some provocative but relatively impractical ideas: ideally moving the Freedom Tower some 200 feet away from the street, for example, or moving the tower to another part of the site altogether.

A government official involved in the security deliberations, echoing others, suggested that "basically nothing can satisfy" the police. But the official also acknowledged that the Freedom Tower inescapably required a security plan unlike that for almost any other building in the United States, given the site's hallowed ground and history.

"Here's the dilemma," the official said. "If you put too much security into the building, it's going to look like Fort Knox and no one will rent it. If you don't put enough, it could end up with catastrophic results."

The arguments over the months have included thinking imaginatively about security. Last summer, government officials at ground zero spoke with former security specialists from MI-5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, who advised that future attacks by terrorists would most likely come not in the form of a truck bomb, but rather with biological or chemical weapons.

"These guys were laughing at us, at the idea that Jersey barriers and bollards would protect the tower when terrorists have become more sophisticated," said one official involved in the redevelopment project.

Some have already begun to reimagine: Daniel Libeskind, the master planner for the site, has drawn up new sketches on his own to show that the tower could be moved between 40 and 140 feet from West Street/Route 9A in order to solve police concerns.

Mr. Libeskind played down the significance of the redesign, which will be done by Mr. Childs.

Not surprisingly, some people involved in the rebuilding are urging calm, suggesting that security was inevitably going to cause delays for a grand civic project with so many elements, including a memorial for Sept. 11 victims, a performing arts center, and new office towers.

"It's all been very quiet, as it should be, because these are very delicate matters and you don't want to advertise them to the world," Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, an influential private research group, said of the behind-the-scenes security discussions. "But it's all coming to a head around the design of the Freedom Tower."

Depending on who is talking, security concerns have loomed over the site since late 2001, and were discussed in fits and starts for years, competing for attention with other issues, like the memorial competition.

But in the last several months, as the start of construction neared, the security talks intensified.

"The police would say, 'Based on our knowledge and our intelligence, we think you can do more to make the building safer,' " said one official involved in the security discussions. "We would say, 'Tell us what.' The cops would say, 'We're not engineers.' We would say, 'O.K., tell us what we need to tell our engineers to protect against.' And it became this long, drawn-out back and forth."

The talks came to a head at a one point several weeks ago when the parties met with officials of the Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs to discuss its proposed 40-story headquarters, just to the northwest of the Freedom Tower.

Stunning many in the room, Goldman representatives showed a film of a vehicle, packed with more than 10,000 pounds of explosive material, blowing up and leaving a huge crater. While some participants viewed the film as an insensitive move by Goldman, it also prompted discussion about the amount of explosives that the buildings would be protected against. At that moment, the talks moved toward clearer standards for "hardening" buildings to blasts.

One government official said that as the police concerns became more apparent, the breadth of their issues took many people aback.

In addition to the distance from the street, the official said, "there is the strength of the glass, the strength and the thickness of the concrete walls."

"The way the building is constructed will determine how many casualties there will be if a bomb of X size is blown off at Y location," the official said.

Just how radical the revisions to the tower will be is far from clear. Some officials said the altered design, in the end, might not look different to the eye.

But it is also possible that changes could be so significant that a new environmental impact statement might be needed, according to one person who has been briefed on some redesign elements.

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U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally to Be a Jailer

The New York Times
May 1, 2005
U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally to Be a Jailer
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.

Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.

The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."

Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism.

The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.

Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.

The so-called rendition program, under which the Central Intelligence Agency transfers terrorism suspects to foreign countries to be held and interrogated, has linked the United States to other countries with poor human rights records. But the turnabout in relations with Uzbekistan is particularly sharp. Before Sept. 11, 2001, there was little high-level contact between Washington and Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, beyond the United States' criticism.

Uzbekistan's role as a surrogate jailer for the United States was confirmed by a half-dozen current and former intelligence officials working in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. The C.I.A. declined to comment on the prisoner transfer program, but an intelligence official estimated that the number of terrorism suspects sent by the United States to Tashkent was in the dozens.

There is other evidence of the United States' reliance on Uzbekistan in the program. On Sept. 21, 2003, two American-registered airplanes - a Gulfstream jet and a Boeing 737 - landed at the international airport in Tashkent, according to flight logs obtained by The New York Times.

Although the precise purpose of those flights is not known, over a span of about three years, from late 2001 until early this year, the C.I.A. used those two planes to ferry terror suspects in American custody to countries around the world for questioning, according to interviews with former and current intelligence officials and flight logs showing the movements of the planes. On the day the planes landed in Tashkent, the Gulfstream had taken off from Baghdad, while the 737 had departed from the Czech Republic, the logs show.

The logs show at least seven flights were made to Uzbekistan by those planes from early 2002 to late 2003, but the records are incomplete.

Details of the C.I.A.'s prisoner transfer program have emerged in recent months from a handful of former detainees who have been released, primarily from prisons in Egypt and Afghanistan, and in some cases have alleged they were beaten and tortured while being held.

The program was created in the mid-1980's as a way for the C.I.A. to transfer crime suspects arrested abroad to their home countries. After Sept. 11, the C.I.A. used it to send prisoners suspected of being senior leaders of Al Qaeda to a half-dozen countries for detention. American intelligence officials estimate that the United States has transferred 100 to 150 suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

A senior C.I.A. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he would not discuss whether the United States had sent prisoners to Uzbekistan or anywhere else. But he said: "The United States does not engage in or condone torture. It does not send people anywhere to be tortured. And it does not knowingly receive information derived from torture."

Ilkhom Zakirov, a spokesman for the Uzbekistan Foreign Ministry in Tashkent, also declined to comment on whether Uzbekistan accepted terror suspects from the United States. He declined to address the accusations from human rights groups. But human rights activists say that because Uzbekistan's record is well known, it raises questions about why the C.I.A. would send suspects there.

"If you talk to anyone there, Uzbeks know that torture is used - it's common even in run-of-the-mill criminal cases," said Allison Gill, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who is working inside Uzbekistan. "Anyone in the United States or Europe who does not know the extent of the torture problem in Uzbekistan is being willfully ignorant."

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said he learned during his posting to Tashkent that the C.I.A. used Uzbekistan as a place to hold foreign terrorism suspects. During 2003 and early 2004, Mr. Murray said in an interview, "C.I.A. flights flew to Tashkent often, usually twice a week."

In July 2004, Mr. Murray wrote a confidential memo to the British Foreign Office accusing the C.I.A. of violating the United Nations' Prohibition Against Torture. He urged his colleagues to stop using intelligence gleaned in Uzbekistan from terrorism suspects because it had been elicited through torture and other coercive means. Mr. Murray said he knew about the practice through his own investigation and interviews with scores of people who claimed to have been brutally treated inside Uzbekistan's jails.

"We should cease all cooperation with the Uzbek security services - they are beyond the pale," Mr. Murray wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The Times.

Mr. Murray, who has previously spoken publicly about prisoner transfers to Uzbekistan, said his superiors in London were furious with his questions, and he was told that the intelligence gleaned in Uzbekistan could still be used by British officials, even if it was elicited by torture, as long as the mistreatment was not at the hands of British interrogators. "I was astonished," Mr. Murray said in an interview. "It was as if the goal posts had moved. Their perspective had changed since Sept. 11."

A Foreign Office spokesman declined to address Mr. Murray's allegations. Last year, Mr. Murray resigned from the Foreign Office, which had investigated accusations that he mismanaged the embassy in Tashkent. An inquiry into those allegations was closed without any disciplinary action being taken against him.

The strategic partnership between Washington and Tashkent, based initially on the Americans' use of Uzbekistan's military base, was formalized at a March 2002 Oval Office meeting between President Bush and President Karimov. Muhammad Salih, the leader of Uzbekistan's pro-democracy Erk Democratic Party, who is living in exile in Germany, said the relationship had strengthened Mr. Karimov's hand.

"It's been a great opportunity for Karimov," Mr. Salih said. "But President Bush has to also think about human rights and democracy. If he wants to have a collaboration on antiterror matters, he should not close his eyes on other things that Uzbekistan is doing, like torture."

At a news conference last month, President Bush was asked what Uzbekistan could do in interrogating a suspect that the United States could not.

"We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country," Mr. Bush said.

The State Department and human rights groups have continued to report on human rights abuses against Uzbeks in prison.

The State Department's latest human rights report on Uzbekistan, issued in February, said: "Torture was common in prisons, pretrial facilities, and local police and security service precincts." In addition, the State Department report noted that in 2003 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture "concluded that torture or similar ill-treatment was systematic."

Amnesty International and other groups have documented specific cases. In the summer of 2002, Amnesty International reported, Fatima Mukhadirova, a 62-year-old Tashkent shopkeeper, was sentenced to six years of hard labor after denouncing the government for the death of her son, Muzafar Avozov, in a Tashkent prison.

An independent examination of photographs of the body, conducted by the University of Glasgow, showed that Mr. Avozov died after being immersed in boiling water, human rights groups reported. The examination said his head had been beaten and his fingernails removed.

Human rights activists pressed for Ms. Mukhadirova's release. She was freed shortly before a planned visit by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in February 2004.

Human rights activists say that the United States has a difficult balancing act to maintain in its dealings with Uzbekistan.

"The relationship between the U.S. and Uzbekistan is problematic," Ms. Gill of Human Rights Watch said. "It can be useful that the U.S. is powerful enough to push for certain concessions. That being said, the U.S. should not be saying that Karimov is a partner, is an ally, is a friend. The U.S. should send the message that Uzbekistan won't be considered to be a good ally of the United States unless it respects human rights at home."

The delicate diplomatic balance played out in the early spring of 2004, after a series of suicide bombings in Tashkent killed 47 people, many of them Uzbek police officers. The government cracked down against people on religious grounds, setting off international condemnation.

Three months later, despite the urgings of the Uzbek foreign minister, Sodik Safoyev, the State Department said it would cut $18 million in military and economic aid to Uzbekistan because of its failure to improve its human rights record.

But the next month, on Aug. 12, 2004, Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs, visited Tashkent. He met with President Karimov and other officials, and he announced that the Pentagon would provide an additional $21 million to help Uzbekistan in its campaign to remove its stockpile of biological weapons.

General Myers said the United States had "benefited greatly from our partnership and strategic relationship with Uzbekistan."

While he noted that there were genuine concerns about Uzbekistan's human rights record, General Myers said: "In my view, we shouldn't let any single issue drive a relationship with any single country. It doesn't seem to be good policy to me."

Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from Frankfurt for this article, and Stephen Grey from London.

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Abramoff Breaks Silence About Investigations

washingtonpost.com
Abramoff Breaks Silence About Investigations

By David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 1, 2005; A07

Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who is under federal investigation for his lobbying activities on behalf of Indian tribes and is a central figure in separate probes into alleged ethical improprieties by his close friend House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), has begun publicly defending himself after months of silence.

In an interview with Time magazine, portions of which have been posted on the magazine's Web site in advance of tomorrow's publication date, Abramoff said the tribes that hired him for help with casino licensing applications and paid him tens of millions of dollars got their money's worth.


"The return on investment for these tribes, and all my clients, is far better than anything they or we could have imagined," Abramoff said. ". . . They realize that spending millions to save billions is just good business."

Abramoff called his Indian clients "sophisticated business people" in the interview, which is in stark contrast to terms he used in private e-mails, first disclosed in The Washington Post in its ongoing examination of Abramoff, in which he called them "stupid" and "moronic." In other e-mails, released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, he referred to them as "idiots," "troglodytes" and "monkeys."

"I regret that in the heat of the locker room atmosphere of the lobbying world, I sometimes, rarely -- but sometimes -- I resorted to language more common to a drill sergeant or a football coach," Abramoff told Time. "Many of my e-mails have been maliciously taken out of context, another effort by those assaulting my career. As a result, I've been portrayed as a cynical barbarian preying on the very clients I was charged to defend."

Abramoff is being investigated in connection with allegations of kickbacks and influence peddling by the Interior and Justice departments and by two Senate committees.

In another article, published in today's New York Times Magazine, Abramoff called himself "an aggressive advocate for people who engaged me," and said, "I did this within a philosophical framework, and a moral and legal framework. And I have been turned into a cartoon of the greatest villain in the history of lobbying."

The Times article goes on to characterize Abramoff's life as "in shambles." A Washington delicatessen he opened in 2002 has closed. A private religious school he founded in 2001 in Columbia also has closed, and some of its teachers are suing him for unpaid wages. He also is being sued by a Louisiana tribe he represented, which seeks the return of $32 million it paid Abramoff and a business partner, public relations consultant Michael Scanlon.

DeLay was the one topic Abramoff would not talk about in any detail. Asked by the Times about his relationship with the man who once referred to Abramoff as "one of my closest and dearest friends," Abramoff answered by talking in general terms about the life of a Washington lobbyist. "There are probably two dozen events and fund-raisers every night," he said. "Lobbyists go on trips with members of Congress, socialize with members of Congress -- all with the purpose of increasing one's access to the decision makers.

"That is not unusual," he continued. "They've been made to seem unusual with me. Perhaps because they haven't pulled e-mails to see the various fund-raisers and golfing outings that [other lobbyists] have been engaged in."

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Cuomo warns of "tyranny of the majority"

USA TODAY

Cuomo warns of "tyranny of the majority"

NEW YORK (AP) — If Republicans rewrite Senate rules to more easily end filibusters, the country will experience "exactly the kind of 'tyranny of the majority' that James Madison had in mind," former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said Saturday.

Cuomo, in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address, said Senate Republicans "are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they cannot get from the proper political bodies."

"How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate," Cuomo said.

"The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate," he said. "That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, to protect all of Americans from what he called the 'tyranny of the majority.'"


"It sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do," Cuomo said.

Democrats have blocked 10 of President Bush's appellate court choices through filibuster threats. Under current Senate rules, 60 votes are needed in the 100-member body to end a filibuster. Republicans are threatening to use their majority to change the rules and require only a simple majority vote to end a filibuster.

"The Republican senators should instead start working with the Democrats to address all the serious problems of this country in the proper forums — in the Congress and in the presidency — leaving the judges to be judges instead of a third political branch controlled by the whim of the politicians in power," Cuomo said.

Cuomo, who was leading in Democratic polls in late 1991 when he pulled the plug on a possible presidential bid, lost the New York governorship in 1994 as he sought a fourth term against current Republican Gov. George Pataki. He later turned down a chance to be considered by President Clinton for a Supreme Court seat.

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U.S. Sees Drop in Terrorist Threats

washingtonpost.com
U.S. Sees Drop in Terrorist Threats
Al Qaeda Focusing Attacks in Iraq and Europe, Officials Say

By Dana Priest and Spencer Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 1, 2005; A01

Reports of credible terrorist threats against the United States are at their lowest level since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to U.S. intelligence officials and federal and state law enforcement authorities.

The intelligence community's daily threat assessment, developed after the terrorist attacks to keep policymakers informed, currently lists, on average, 25 to 50 percent fewer threats against domestic targets than it typically did over the past two years, said one senior counterterrorism official.


A broad cross section of counterterrorism officials believes al Qaeda and like-minded groups, in part frustrated by increased U.S. security measures, are focusing instead on Americans deployed in Iraq, where the groups operate with relative impunity, and on Europe.

Though some are expressing caution and even skepticism, interviews last week with 25 current or recently retired officials also cited progress in counterterrorism operations abroad and a more experienced homeland security apparatus for a general feeling that it is more difficult for terrorists to operate undetected. The officials represent federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies, state and local homeland security departments and the private sector.

"We are breathing easier," said U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer, whose officers guard one of al Qaeda's expressed targets, and who is regularly briefed by the FBI and CIA. "The imminence of a threat seems to have diminished. We're just not as worried as we were a year ago, but we certainly are as vigilant."

"I agree," said John O. Brennan, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told of Gainer's assessment. "Progress has been made."

Brennan also said the initial post-Sept. 11 belief that there were large numbers of sleeper cells in the United States turned out to be "a lot of hyperbole." Some people believed "there was a terrorist under every rock."

But some intelligence analysts caution that the drop-off in terrorist-related planning, communication and movement could be a tactical pause by al Qaeda and related terrorist groups. No one suggests the threat has gone away.

Brennan and others fear most what they are not hearing or seeing, especially the possibility that al Qaeda has acquired chemical or biological weapons and adapted in ways that have evaded detection. Analysts also say a flood of new terrorists motivated by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq may try to travel here and reverse the relative calm of today's environment, as they are doing in Europe.

But for now, most officials acknowledged a change in perception, for the better. Most of these officials declined to speak on the record, for fear, as one put it, "that something will go boom" and the public will blame them for being complacent.

On Jan. 6, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge signaled the change in threat level during his last roundtable discussion with reporters, weeks before he stepped down. Asked to explain the decline in suspected terrorist activity in the prior months, he responded:

"Your characterization of it as being a significantly different threat environment, based on what we historically have heard, is absolutely correct," Ridge said. "So there certainly is a diminution, reduction in the amount of intelligence, and the decibel level is lower."

Evidence of a lower decibel level is pervasive.

Behind closed doors, the weekly, classified "hot spot" briefings for congressional intelligence committees are consumed less by domestic terrorist threats than they have been, said people who have attended the meetings. "It's not as forefront in people's minds," one such official said. "There's not the same concern as there was a year ago about an imminent threat."

Some federal law enforcement officials say they know of no major counterterrorism cases soon to be made public.

The House Homeland Security Committee voted last week to reopen Reagan National Airport to private aircraft and to eliminate the color-coded warning system that is one of the icons of the post-Sept. 11 era. The number of secure briefings for lawmakers has dropped too, said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee who has been critical of excessive security in Washington. "That in itself is an indication there is less to report."

Life in Washington seems closer to normal, especially after the tightened security before last November's election. The validity of top officials' publicly stated belief that terrorists wanted to attack during the pre-election period is now hotly debated within the counterterrorism community. But the rotating checkpoints around the Capitol have become less disruptive, and a booming real estate market is a concrete symbol that people are not afraid to move to a potential ground zero.

Business sectors also note a change in broader public behavior. Hotel occupancy, room rates and revenue in Washington so far this year are the highest since 2001, the D.C. Convention and Tourism Corp. reported.

Counterterrorism officials said the atmosphere, particularly in the Washington area, also has calmed because they are less jittery and less inclined to warn the public about every vague, unsubstantiated threat. In the past, they feared being accused of missing something.

With 3 1/2 years of experience, their ability to cull serious from baseless threats has matured, officials said.

"People are more hesitant to pull the trigger, and now think, 'Let's wait a day or two' to investigate," said John Rollins, former chief of staff for DHS's intelligence unit and now an analyst at the Congressional Research Service.

The intelligence community now can better identify the "unreliable and bogus threats," said NCTC's Brennan. "We don't have to go into crisis mode. In the past, we had a lot of brush fires developing. Now, we can deal with it with a better filter."

There is also the broad recognition that "the sky can't be falling every day," said one senior Washington law enforcement official.

U.S. officials, including Brennan, also express growing confidence in improved domestic security. They believe improvements in border security, counter-surveillance tactics and information sharing among law enforcement agencies would make it difficult for the Sept. 11, 2001, attack plotters to evade detection today.

Counterterrorism squads have also begun learning how to recruit informants and follow leads that do not necessarily lead to arrests, an official in the field said. "They thought they would be rounding up terrorists every week," said one senior counterterrorism official who helped train such a squad outside Washington. "But they weren't. There was some frustration," but the same officers are now learning intelligence tradecraft, he said.

Police are also honing counterterrorism efforts, working with businesses nationwide to screen for suspicious activity involving the acquisition of certain kinds of materials, vehicles, training and licenses that have figured into terrorist plots.

Public vigilance remains high, at least in major cities, officials said. This winter, for example, FBI agents were called to investigate when workers at a Northern Virginia hospital grew suspicious of two men who asked about nighttime staffing levels, ostensibly because they were considering whether their new doughnut shop should stay open 24 hours.

It turned out the men had, in fact, obtained a new doughnut franchise, two security officials said.

"Could what happened with the 9/11 operators in the pre-event stage happen today and nobody pick up on it? No, I don't think so," said Cathy Lanier, head of special operations for the D.C. Police Department. "If they went through the same surveillance practices, forged documents, they would be picked up somehow. Along the line, there would be red flags, and I would say there is probably a good chance the red flags would have come through the public and not law enforcement or other sources."

Even if the threat has eased, officials throughout the government acknowledge major shortcomings in homeland security. Borders remain porous, chemical plants are poorly protected, the quality of baggage inspection is uneven, and countless other vulnerabilities have not been addressed.

Some officials also express a nagging worry that analysts simply have less information to sift through, or less time to concentrate on it given the bureaucratic transitions in the intelligence community.

"There's been a kind of constant non-action, or non-tension whatever you want to call it," one state homeland security adviser said. "There's not a whole lot of new stuff."

Several officials in urban areas that are considered prime targets, said they worried most about what law enforcement is not detecting. "I'm not so comforted" by the drop in intelligence warnings coming out of Washington, said one senior U.S. intelligence official based elsewhere. "I'm concerned about what is going on under our radar scope. And I'm worried about the radar scope."

Michael A. Mason, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, said that as far as he is concerned, there has been no drop in the threat level.

"The desire to harm Americans is certainly still out there whether that is wrapped around a specific threat or not," Mason said.

D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who co-chairs the homeland security committee for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, cautions that "complacency can settle in the further we get from 9/11. We tend to think everything is normal. I don't feel that way."

Ramsey said he believes the Homeland Security color code will never go below its current level of yellow, which denotes an "elevated" threat level.

"We will never be at green again," Ramsey said. "Normal was redefined on 9/11. Normal is yellow."

Staff writers Sari Horwitz, Dan Eggen, John Mintz and Allan Lengel and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Attacks kill 50 across Iraq

USA TODAY

Attacks kill 50 across Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — Less than two weeks ago, the U.S. military praised an Iraqi raid to clear insurgents from an area southeast of the capital as evidence of the country's progress in assuring its own security. On Friday, the insurgents struck back.

In one of a series of highly coordinated attacks across Iraq, militants detonated a roadside bomb in the town of Madain, 12 miles southeast of Baghdad, then sent two suicide car bombers from two different directions into police as they arrived to investigate. At least two more car bombs detonated, one near the city hospital and another targeting a police patrol.

Altogether, insurgents set off at least 17 bombs in Iraq on Friday, killing at least 50 people including three U.S. soldiers in strikes aimed at shaking Iraq's newly formed government. An audio tape by one of America's most-wanted insurgents, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, warned President Bush there was more bloodshed to come.


The attacks, which also wounded 114 Iraqis and seven Americans, came as political leaders were trying to curb the insurgency by including all of Iraq's main religious and ethnic groups into an uncertain new Shiite-dominated government that takes office Tuesday. Most of the bombing targets were Iraqi security forces and police, whom insurgents accuse of collaborating with the Americans.

An association of Sunni Muslim clerics believed to have links with the insurgency, saw little prospect for peace as long as U.S. forces remain in Iraq.

"We don't believe that the government will solve the problems of an occupied Iraq. We don't trust the government," Harith al-Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, told Turkey's Anatolia news agency. "We don't see hope because the occupation is continuing."

U.S. officials had hoped the new Cabinet approved Thursday would help dent support for the militants within the Sunni Arab minority that dominated under ousted leader Saddam Hussein and is now believed to be driving the insurgency. However, the lineup excludes Sunnis from meaningful positions and leaves the key defense ministry in temporary hands.

"You, Bush, we will not rest until we avenge our dignity," al-Zarqawi said in the audiotape that was posted on the Internet. "We will not rest while your army is here as long as there is a pulse in our veins." He threatened more attacks against U.S. forces and warned against collaborating with Americans.

In Washington, an intelligence official said the tape appeared to be genuine.

In separate statements, posted on a Web site known for its militant content, al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq group claimed responsibility for two of the days most deadly assaults — four suicide car bombings in a Baghdad neighborhood and four other bombings in Madain, south of the capital. The claims could not be verified.

The deadliest of Friday's attacks were multiple bombings in the small Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah, where at least 20 Iraqis were killed and 65 wounded, and in Madain, were 13 died and 30 were injured.

Despite the day's bloody toll, the U.S. military maintained that attacks are diminishing overall in Iraq.

"We see these attacks as another desperate attempt by the terrorists to discredit the newly formed Iraqi government" and "drive a wedge between the Iraqi people and their right to choose their own destiny," the military said in a statement.

Gen. Wafiq al-Samarie, Iraq's presidential adviser for security affairs, urged Iraqis to stand up to insurgents.

"Today too many car bomb attacks took place, but this is not the end," he said in an interview with al-Jazeera television. "Our people should stand up against these criminals. ... Security is everybody's responsibility."

At least 13 car bombs exploded in and around the capital Friday, killing at least 23 Iraqi security force members and wounding 31, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said they included six suicide attacks.

In the worst attack, four suicide car bombings took place within minutes in Azamiyah, said police chief Brig. Gen. Khalid al-Hassan. The first hit an Iraqi army patrol, the second a police patrol, and the third and fourth exploded at separate barricades near the headquarters of the police special forces unit.

The Azamiyah blasts killed 15 soldiers and five civilians, Col. Hussein Mutlak said. The injured included 30 troops and 35 civilians, he said.

Policemen crouched in fear after the explosions, which set fire to the special forces headquarters. One residential building was severely damaged, its white fa

Ecade blackened and its first-floor shops completely destroyed.

An Iraqi soldier who had rushed to the scene vented his anger against the insurgents, saying: "These people aren't soldiers."

A nearby hospital was filled with seriously wounded Iraqis lying in beds with blood-soaked sheets.

As Louay Mohammed Saleh writhed in pain, covered with bandages, his uncle said the police officer was in a patrol rushing to one of the bomb sites when another bomb exploded near his car.

"I'm dying," Saleh screamed.

In another highly coordinated attack, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in Madain, then sent two suicide car bombers from two different directions into police special forces as they arrived to investigate, said police Lt. Jassim al-Maliky. At least two more car bombs detonated in the area, one near the city hospital and another targeting a police patrol, police said.

In Baqouba, 35 miles north of Baghdad, a suicide attacker blew up an ambulance packed with explosives near a police special forces patrol, killing four Iraqis, including two policemen, said police Brig. Gen. Adel Molan. Twenty Iraqis were injured, including four police, he said.

Also in Baqouba, an Iraqi man armed with grenade walked out of the city's al-Aqsa mosque and threatened to throw it at Iraqi and U.S. forces surrounding the building, the U.S. military said. They opened fire and killed the man, the military said.

Ali Fadhil, of the city's U.S.-Iraqi joint operations center, identified the man as a Sunni cleric believed to be a senior member of al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorist group.

"Imam Abdul Razaq Rashid Hamid ... came out from the mosque with two hand grenades as our forces were surrounding the mosque," Fadhil said. "He threw one of the grenades at the forces while blowing himself up with the second one."

The two accounts could not immediately be reconciled.

West of Basra, about 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi border guard patrol killed one soldier and wounded two, said Iraqi Lt. Col. Abdul Hadi al-Najar.

At least nine more Iraqis were killed and nine wounded in other scattered violence, including bombings, shootings and mortar fire, officials said.

One American soldier was killed and two others wounded in a car bombing about 18 miles north of the capital, the military said. Two more U.S. soldiers were killed in another car bombing near Diyarah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad.

At least seven American soldiers were wounded in the attacks in and around the capital, said military spokesman Greg Kaufman.

At least 1,575 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

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Yahoo! News
Mrs. Bush Steals Show at Reporters' Dinner

By ELIZABETH WOLFE, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago

First lady Laura Bush stole the show with a surprise comedy routine that ripped President Bush and brought an audience that included much of official Washington and a dash of Hollywood to a standing ovation at a dinner honoring award-winning journalists.


The president began a speech late Saturday at the 91st annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, but was quickly "interrupted" by his wife in an obviously planned ploy.

"Not that old joke, not again," she said to the delight of the audience. "I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. I've got a few things I want to say for a change."

The president sat down and she proceeded to note that he is "usually in bed by now" and said she told him recently, "If you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later. "

She outlined a typical evening: "Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep and I'm watching `Desperate Housewives'." Comedic pause. "With Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife."

The line earned particularly rambunctious applause from the area of the Hilton Washington hotel ballroom where actor James Denton from the hit ABC show sat.

Laura Bush added that she and her husband obviously were destined to be together as a couple because "I was the librarian who spent 12 hours a day in the library and yet somehow I met George."

The guest professional comedian, Cedric the Entertainer, next came to the microphone to deliver one-liners, but not before conceding the first lady was a hard act to follow.

Joining the Bushes were Vice President Dick Cheney and wife, Lynne. News organizations hosted show business and sports stars such as Goldie Hawn, Richard Gere, Jane Fonda, Mary Tyler Moore, tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams and a few supermodels.

Award winners announced earlier this month:

_Ron Fournier of The Associated Press, the Merriman Smith Award for presidential coverage under deadline pressure for his stories on Bush's victory over John Kerry.

_Susan Page of USA Today, the Aldo Beckman Award for her stories on the presidency and the presidential campaign.

_Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Edgar A. Poe Award for a series of stories on athletes' steroid use.

Presidents since Calvin Coolidge have attended the dinner hosted by the association, which was established in 1914 as a bridge between the press corps and the White House.

___

On the Net:

White House Correspondents' Association: http://www.whca.net

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Florida girl has abortion blocked

BBC NEWS
Florida girl has abortion blocked
By Jeremy Cooke
BBC News, New York

A pregnant 13-year-old girl in Florida has been told she cannot have an abortion because she lacks the maturity to make such a decision.

A state court granted an injunction which prevents the girl from terminating her pregnancy.



She is three months pregnant and had planned to have an abortion on Tuesday of this week.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will launch an urgent appeal against the ruling.

'Too young to choose'

Florida's department of children and families intervened and took the matter to court, arguing the teenager, who is under the care of the state, is too young and immature to make an informed medical decision. Judge Ronald Alvarez in Palm Beach accepted that argument and has granted a temporary injunction and psychological evaluation, which effectively blocks her from terminating the pregnancy.

It is a case which, once again, plays into the heated and divisive debate about abortion in America.

The judge's ruling comes in spite of Florida state law which specifically does not require a minor to seek parental consent before an abortion.

The American Civil Liberties Union 's executive director in Florida, Howard Simon, said forcing a 13-year-old to carry on an unwanted pregnancy to term, against her wishes, is not only illegal and unconstitutional, it is cruel.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4500245.stm

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Media coverage of president's press conference largely ignored Bush's trust fund contradiction

mediamatters.org/

Media coverage of president's press conference largely ignored Bush's trust fund contradiction

Most major televised media outlets failed to note that President Bush, in his one-hour press conference on April 28, made two flatly contradictory statements about the viability of U.S. treasury bonds, in which the Social Security trust fund is invested. Repeating a claim made in his recent travels throughout the country in support of Social Security privatization, Bush said that the treasury bonds owned by the trust fund represent worthless IOUs from the U.S. government. But he later touted those same bonds for holders of his proposed private accounts looking for a safe investment that would be "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government." No reporter challenged Bush on the contradiction during the press conference, and only George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's This Week, noted it in the post-conference analysis.


And CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer did the rest of TV news media one better -- specifically noting that Bush mentioned treasury bonds as a safe investment, while failing to note that he has repeatedly disparaged treasury bonds when talking about the trust fund and did so again last night. Schieffer later commended Bush's performance in the press conference, saying "I think it's fair to say he did not step on his own story."

The Social Security trust fund is invested entirely in treasury bonds that, according to law, have been purchased with surplus payroll tax revenues. During the press conference, Bush dismissed the Social Security trust fund as little more than "file cabinets full of IOUs." Earlier in the press conference, however, Bush advocated an option that would allow wary private account holders to invest solely in those same treasury bonds, because they "are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government." Bush has used the "file cabinet" rhetoric in the past, such as at an April 15 town hall meeting in Ohio and when he visited the Bureau of Public Debt in West Virginia on April 5. His argument that the Social Security trust fund is a myth has been echoed by various conservatives in the media (here, here, and here).

A Media Matters for America analysis of the major cable and broadcast network coverage following the press conference revealed that Stephanopoulos was the sole commentator to note the president's contradictory trust fund rhetoric.

About seven minutes into ABC's press conference analysis, Stephanopoulos said:

STEPHANOPOULOS: He [Bush] got caught in a contradiction here. When he was talking about the treasury bonds and the overall Social Security system, he called them a file cabinet of IOUs. Yet, when they're in the individual accounts, they're backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

From Schieffer's analysis of the president's press conference:

SCHIEFFER: He said at one point in the news conference that he certainly believes any reform package ought to include the idea of creating personal savings accounts. He said one option that those who choose the personal savings account might want is to invest only in treasury bills. He said that would ensure that it would be a safe investment for them. I believe that's the first time he's said that.

[...]

But the president came on television tonight because he wanted to talk about Social Security, and I think it's fair to say he did not step on his own story. I think there was no bigger headline than what he said about urging these reforms in Social Security tonight.

— S.S.M.

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Fair and Balanced Fox: "Blame liberals for high oil and gas prices!"

mediamatters.org
Fair and Balanced Fox: "Blame liberals for high oil and gas prices!"

On the April 28 edition of Fox News Live, as Fox News host David Asman promoted Fox's upcoming Saturday show Forbes on Fox, by saying it would "focus in on exactly who's responsible for high gas prices -- it's not who you might think," the on-screen text read: "Blame liberals for high oil and gas prices!"

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