Bush's Recruits
BARNES, FRED
Bush's Recruits Gephardt, McCain, and other surprising allies. BY FRED BARNES JUST AFTER LUNCH ON OCTOBER 1, President Bush telephoned House Democratic Leader Dick Gep-I hardt. Bush needed help....
...But ^ff V talks between the White House and Congress had dragged on for a week...
...He dropped out of the negotiations on a war resolution days before it was worked out...
...You have my full support...
...He wanted negotiations over a congressional war resolution to wind up quickly, so a vote could be held and pressure put on the United Nations to endorse tougher arms inspections in Iraq...
...Republican House members—with Gephardt absent—the president has gone out of his way to praise him...
...No one's ever talked to me...
...The standard of proof that you look for has to be reduced because of the presence of large numbers of terrorists and the whole history of Saddam Hussein and Iraq," he told Kondracke...
...Saddam Hussein is a bad guy...
...Gephardt isn’t Bush’s only unusual bedfellow on Iraq...
...Even attempts to work through intermediaries have failed...
...McCain’s name was presumably added to the list by Bush...
...be fully / pursued...
...I know nothing...
...As for McCain, he's had many disagreements with Bush—tax cuts, health care, guns, campaign finance—but national security isn't one of them...
...Bush couldn't have said it better...
...And while relations between Bush adviser Karl Rove and the McCain camp are nonexistent—a product of the 2000 GOP presidential primaries—national security adviser Condoleezza Rice has filled the gap...
...When Bush saw McCain at a White House session on the homeland security bill the next week, he thanked him profusely...
...A week later he heard from Nick Calio, the president's lobbyist on Capitol Hill...
...The day after, McCain’s office got a late-afternoon call from the White House scheduling office, inviting him to a meeting of congressional leaders and Bush the following morning...
...From all accounts, Daschle plays a different game from Gephardt at the bipartisan breakfasts on Wednesday mornings and at other White House meetings...
...He's spent more time with Bush, including a 90-minute talk aboard Air Force One, a week after the attacks, than he ever did with President Clinton...
...Gephardt probably doesn't need them...
...The result: a series of meetings at the White House between Bush and bipartisan groups of 8 or 10 House members...
...After Gephardt's anti-Iraq address in June, Berman says, "I may have been one of the few Democrats who went up to him and said, 'Great speech.'" Gephardt has also been plied with hawkish memos from John Weaver, once McCain's chief strategist and now a Democratic consultant...
...Bush has embraced McCain as never before...
...And Bush has met with uncommitted Democrats in marginal seats who'll be able to trumpet their consultation with the president...
...Their alliance on combating Iraq shows Bush’s effectiveness in developing a powerful Democratic supporter and Gephardt’s courage in breaking with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and other Democrats on the war issue...
...Their relationship is totally dysfunctional," says a congressional Democrat...
...Voters in Democratic primaries are disproportionately liberal and antiwar...
...He called a friend on Vice President Dick Cheney's staff...
...Bush : asked...
...Two things, Gephardt said...
...The thrust was that being pro-war would aid a Gephardt presidential run in 2004...
...Mc- Cain published an essay in Time over Labor Day weekend, endorsing “the president’s sense of urgency about ending the regime of an often irrational aggressor...
...We've got to get him out of there...
...John McCain of Arizona, and an influential Democrat from California, Rep...
...Now he argues September 11 has lowered what's required to justify an attack on Iraq...
...The odd man out is Daschle...
...Gephardt has needed support on Iraq, and Berman has been there for him...
...Bush is seeking a resolution that will generate strong Democratic support, Berman says, not one that allows Republicans to accuse them of opposing the president during a war...
...Berman, for one, is persuaded the president is not using the war for political purposes...
...Over the past year, Bush has talked to Gephardt more than any other Democrat in Washington...
...There’s his Republican nemesis, Sen...
...He's long seen Saddam Hussein as an international menace, and grew worried last August when the Bush administration appeared to be in disarray on how to deal with Iraq...
...With Gephardt and McCain, Bush has been pushing on an open door...
...Following Gephardt's appearance at a Rose Garden ceremony announcing the agreement on a war resolution, his motives were attacked in a front-page article in the Washington Post...
...He annoys Bush...
...What can we do to get agreement on a resolution today...
...Daschle's tack is to raise questions and present problems...
...Include language saying nothing would be done that detracts from the wider war on terrorism outside Iraq and a passage requiring that diplomatic efforts i at the U.N...
...He's an unwavering hawk...
...In Berman's case, he had to do the pushing on the White House door...
...Berman asked...
...Gephardt often expresses backing for Bush's Iraq policy...
...Since then, he's repudiated his vote against the Gulf War in 1991...
...He likes and trusts him, and the feeling is mutual...
...What's the administration doing...
...She speaks frequently to McCain and briefs him on foreign and defense issues...
...A lopsided pro-war vote would have the greatest impact, j the president said...
...Probably not...
...By the end of the day, an agreement was : reached with both of Gephardt's requests met...
...Howard Berman...
...The United States should use "military means if we must to eliminate the threat [Hussein] poses to the region and our own security," he said...
...At meetings with Democratic and Fred Barnes is executive editor of THEWEEKLY STANDARD...
...He was deeply affected by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001...
...Gephardt is likely to seek the Democratic presidential nomina-I tion against Bush in 2004, but that's had no effect on their friendship...
...Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, Bush and Gephardt have forged a warm and productive relationship...
...At a September 10 breakfast, he was quoted by Mort Kon-dracke in Roll Call as saying to Bush: "Regime change in Iraq has been the declared policy of the United States and it should be our policy...
...In a speech last June, Gephardt declared his support for regime change in Iraq...
Vol. 8 • October 2002 • No. 5
