COME INTO MY PARLOR...:

Bush would veto Medicare drug price measure, Republicans say (AP, 1/11/2007)

President Bush promised on Thursday to veto Democratic-drafted legislation requiring the government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices under Medicare.

The House is to debate and vote Friday on the bill, which is one of a handful of priority items for Democrats who gained control of Congress in last fall's elections.

"Government interference impedes competition, limits access to lifesaving drugs, reduces convenience for beneficiaries and ultimately increases costs to taxpayers, beneficiaries and all American citizens alike," the administration said in a written statement.

Further, it said, competition already "is reducing prices to seniors, providing a wide range of choices and leading to a more productive environment for the development of new drugs."

Bush-Democrat alliance on education law feared (Amy Fagan, January 12, 2007, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

Some conservatives on Capitol Hill are worried that President Bush will cut a deal with Democrats that would not only renew his education law, but also dramatically expand it, including perhaps more requirements for the high school level.

Given the Democrats inability to get rid of what he's already achieved or pass stuff he opposes and their interest in completing the parts of his legacy that the GOP opposed -- immigration amnesty, NCLB, recognition of the state of Palestine, etc. -- the final two years of the Bush presidency are likely to be indistinguishable from the prior six in the history books.

MORE:
The Dems on Iraq: More Bark Than Bite (Massimo Calabresi, 1/10/07, TIME)

[W]hen it comes to actually taking any action to check Bush's war powers, there's not much bark to the Democrats' bite. Which raises the question: will Democrats use their new power to rein in what they say is an overreaching president? Or will they choose to continue what proved to be a successful political strategy when they were in the minority: criticizing the administration for unpopular policies while avoiding taking action themselves that could prove equally unpopular?

On Iraq, Hill Democrats have chosen the latter course. Sen. Edward Kennedy yesterday introduced a bill to block funding for deploying additional troops to Iraq. But Reid and the Democratic leadership prefer a non-binding, "sense-of-the-Senate" resolution opposing the troop increase that is designed to embarrass Bush by peeling off dissenting Republicans, without actually taking any action to block the move. Kennedy's proposal, leadership aides say, is a stalking horse designed in part to placate the base by attacking Bush while leaving Democrats who support the leadership's alternative safe from accusations they don't back the troops.

And if war opponents are likely to be disappointed by the Democratic response to Bush's proposed troop increase, those who believe he is eroding American civil liberties will be even more downcast in coming weeks. Yesterday at a press briefing in the Senate Hart office building, American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said that while Democrats had not been willing to obstruct Bush's war on terror initiatives before the November elections, he hoped the Democratic rout might have changed the political calculation. "We hope that the Democrats have found their spines again," he said.

Leahy, the incoming Judiciary chairman, is doing his part. In addition to the hearings, he and the ranking minority leader, Arlen Specter, have introduced a bill that would roll back Bush's habeus-overriding powers. Leahy, Wisconsin's Russ Feingold, and New Hampshire conservative John Sununu today will introduce a bill that would require executive branch agencies regularly to report on data mining efforts. On the record, Harry Reid's office is nominally supportive of these efforts. "The new Congress will review all aspects of the war on terror to see what improvements are needed," says Reid spokesman, Jim Manley.

But privately top Democratic Senators, aides and advisers say the political calculation has not changed since before the election. While Bush and his policies are unpopular in the extreme, Americans still support a strong hand at the White House when it comes to national security matters. From the Democrats' perspective, that means plenty of willingness to criticize Bush on all fronts when it comes to his handling of national security and even the use of his war powers -- but, at least for now, no overt efforts to curtail them.

Wartime linguistics: No one wins the Iraq war of words after the president's speech Wednesday night (Frank Luntz, January 12, 2007, LA Times)

The speech was a clear attempt to draw a distinct line between the past and the future. The president addressed head-on the most common attacks on him and his administration, countering "inflexible," "unrealistic" and "incompetent" -- three words pollsters like myself have heard from an angry electorate for more than a year -- with "adjust" and "change," "scrutiny," "responsibility" and, again and again, "our new strategy." Speaking from the White House library, a different setting befitting a different strategy, the president attempted to make the case that things in Iraq were going to be different from now on.

The problem is, for most Americans it is too little and too late. [...]

Not all of the speech was miscast. There were several examples of credibility-building passages and real-life references that will be well received by the American masses.

"A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them."

This is the most tangible reference to a genuine benefit that Americans can appreciate and share, regardless of ideological persuasion. It is a fact that we haven't had a successful terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Although many Democrats would deny him any credit, the president does still earn positive marks for the aggressive prosecution of the war on terror.

"If we increase our support at this crucial moment ... we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home." Finally, a nod to an end to the conflict. What has been missing from the Bush rhetoric for more than a year is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel -- a chance for Americans to put the war behind them and focus on a more hopeful future.

If the president had his verbal ups and downs, the Democrats' response wasn't brilliant rhetoric either. They should probably consider themselves fortunate that the networks didn't want to delay or preempt even a minute of fare such as "Deal or No Deal." Their stringent rhetoric and unwillingness to compromise highlights their continued inability to put forward a comprehensive, credible alternative.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2007 9:56 AM