Posted by Frank James at 9:00 am CDT

A quick, guided tour of some of the day's most important or interesting (or both) Washington news stories.

Iraq standoff. It's unclear whether President Bush or the Democratic-controlled Congress will prevail on whether there's a timeline or not for the U.S. military presence in Iraq in the $122 billion spending bill to fund operations there and in Afghanistan.

Our very own Chicago Tribune reporters Mark Silva and Aamer Madhani analyze the conflict and conclude that Congress may be in a better position than the president.

The key to a solution, some experts say, is what comes out of final House and Senate negotiations on a war spending bill, but congressional leaders have a powerful ally in public opinion.

"The president has time on his side, and the Senate and House have the people on their side," said Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman and president of the Center for National Policy. "Most of the people in this country want some kind of new policy and different results in Iraq. ... In the short term, the president has time and the rhetoric on his side ... but in the long term he is on the losing side."

Bush, noting that Gen. David Petraeus has received onl.y half of the additional forces he is seeking in Iraq, insists that the new security initiative supported by nearly 30,000 promised new troops has generated signs of hope.

Yet military experts are increasingly skeptical that the U.S. mission can succeed, and some question the administration's claims of progress.

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sees parallels in the Bush administration's portrayal of Iraqi forces to exaggerations made about successes in training Lebanese forces in the early 1980s. He also draws parallels to mistakes made in Vietnam.

"We have been where we are in Iraq before, and we have done great damage to other countries in the process," Cordesman told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

While Democrats draw strength from the November elections that handed them control of Congress, they also can point to recent opinion polls that indicate eroding support for the war and growing encouragement for their side of the debate

Talking (Power) points. In a related story, Roll Call reports Democrats are girding for the offensive they expect from the White House over the Easter recess when the president and his surrogates can be expected to bash congressional Democrats for trying to put the U.S. military in Iraq on a timeclock.

Anticipating those charges, Reid and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will try to put the public onus on the White House for threatening to veto the bill in the first place.

In a PowerPoint presentation during Democrats’ weekly luncheon Tuesday, Durbin argued that while Democrats should stress the accomplishments of the past three months — ranging from passing a budget resolution to “accountability issues” like the recent hearings on the firings of eight U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department — he also stressed the importance of remaining on the offensive on Iraq.

The presentation laid out several examples of responses lawmakers could use if they are attacked for going home without the military funds being finalized, including: “We have always supported our troops and made sure they have the resources they need;” “We will have offered Republicans opportunities to finish this bill by week’s end. Any delay will be due to Republican obstructionism;” and, “This supplemental also offers our troops something that the Administration and Senate Republicans refuse to give: a plan to change course in Iraq,” according to a copy of the presentation obtained by Roll Call.

Gonzales gets earful. So much for closed-door meetings. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had one when he was in Chicago with a group of federal prosecutors who essentially gave him a piece of their mind, according to a story in today's New York Times.

They evidently complained about him and the dismissals of eight of their colleagues. The fact that so many details leaked from this meeting may suggest it was part of a campaign to rehabilitate in Congress Gonzales's image as the Justice Department's top manager.

WASHINGTON, March 28 - Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured blunt criticism Tuesday from federal prosecutors who questioned the firings of eight United States attorneys, complained that the dismissals had undermined morale and expressed broader grievances about his leadership, according to people briefed on the discussion.

About a half-dozen United States attorneys voiced their concerns at a private meeting with Mr. Gonzales in Chicago.

Several of the prosecutors said the dismissals caused them to wonder about their own standing and distracted their employees, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Others asked Mr. Gonzales about the removal of Daniel C. Bogden, the former United States attorney in Nevada, a respected career prosecutor whose ouster has never been fully explained by the Justice Department.

Sampson's hair(shirt). One of Washington's biggest attractions today will be the testimony of Gonzales's former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, before Congress. He's expected to say the dismissals were justified but to apologize for mishandling them, according to the Wall Street Journal.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department, attempting to control fallout from the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys, released documents detailing consultations with the White House over a department letter sent to Congress last month that has since been contradicted by other documents.

The new documents -- 200 pages of emails -- bolster efforts by some in the department to show that a former aide, who is set to testify today, was largely to blame for at least some of the misleading answers so far given to Congress in the investigation of the dismissals. But at the same time the documents spread blame for the inconsistency to other Justice and White House officials.

The release of the emails came as Kyle Sampson, who resigned earlier this month as chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, prepared to appear before a Senate panel investigating the ousters. In his prepared remarks, Mr. Sampson defends the firings but apologized for how they were carried out. "I failed to organize a more effective response to questions about the replacement process, but I never sought to conceal or withhold any material fact about this matter to anyone," Mr. Sampson says. "Others in the
department knew what I knew about the origins and timing of this enterprise."

Big Dog Bill. Does President Bill Clinton help or hurt his wife's presidential aspirations. In a USA Today/Gallup poll, 70 percent of those surveyed say he definitely helps according to a story in today's USA Today. But, and there's always a but, with Bill on the scene, the topic of his sex life is never far away.

In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 70% of Americans say Bill Clinton will do more good than harm for his wife's campaign. Yet questions about their marriage — as well as the Lewinsky sex saga that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment by the U.S. House in 1998 — remain close to the surface. The reminders include a stream of jokes on late-night TV and even Hillary Clinton's own words, such as her recent joking reference to her experience with "evil and bad men."

The undercurrents are worrisome to some Democrats intent on winning back the White House, even those who say they don't care what kind of relationship the Clintons have. Bill Clinton is "a net plus," says Todd Gitlin, a sociologist and writer at Columbia University. "But any remnants of the old stuff about his sex life" could be "an impediment on the electability front."

With friends like these. Saudi Arabian leader King Abdullah is clearly putting a little distance between himself and the U.S. by calling the American efforts in Iraq an "illegitimate" as the McClatchy Washington Bureau reports today. That's on top of declining to make a state dinner the White House was going to hold in his honor next month.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, one of the United States' closest Arab allies, called the American presence in Iraq "illegitimate" on Wednesday as he opened a two-day summit here of the Arab League.

The characterization came amid growing signs that Saudi Arabia is distancing itself from Bush administration policies in the region.

The octogenarian monarch, swathed in traditional robes and speaking in a pained voice, also characterized as "unjust" the U.S.-led financial embargo of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and urged its end in the wake of an agreement between Hamas and the moderate Fatah party to form a unity government.
Abdullah also criticized Arab leaders for infighting, which he said had caused nations to drift "further from unity than they were at the time of the founding of the Arab League," the 22-member body created in 1945.
Sinking feeling. Republicans across the country are worried that an unpopular president and war may harm their fortunes in next year's elections after already hurting them in last year's, says politico.com.

Sinking feeling. There's a widespread Republican anxiety that an unpopular president and war will make for another disastrous Election Day in 2008 for the GOP, like the one they experienced in 2006, according to politico.com.

Republicans across the country are warning that increasing public discontent toward President Bush, the Iraq war and the GOP brand in general threatens to send the party's 2008 campaign planning into a tailspin.

Already, the problems are having tangible effects. Some of the party's top recruits in key races from Colorado to Florida are refusing to run for Congress. Business executives -- the financial backbone of the GOP -- are sending more and more money to Democrats. Overall Republican fundraising is down sharply from the same time frame during the past two presidential elections.

Then there are the voters.

Polling data released this month confirm what GOP officials are picking up anecdotally: Swing voters are swinging away from Republicans at high velocity. Most alarming to GOP strategists is a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that found 50 percent of those interviewed consider themselves a Democrat or leaning that way; only 35 percent tilt Republican.

"People are concerned and worried about the party's prospects," said Steve Duprey, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP and a backer of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the White House race.

"There's a certain nervousness I hear that if the war is going badly and we're still in this intractable fight between a Democratic Congress and President Bush about the course of the war, we may have a tough time."

President "Law and Order?" Former Sen. Fred Thompson's Tennessee is really, really thinking of jumping into the White House race, says the Washington Post. He's getting a lot of encouragement from his influential friends to do it and the fact that he hasn't even announced and came in third in a recent poll isn't shabby either.

"Law & Order" star and former U.S. senator Fred Dalton Thompson is considering a bid for the White House that would test whether Hollywood can once again launch a Republican to the world's premier political stage.

His interest, confirmed in a brief interview this week, is generating buzz in Washington. He was third among Republican-leaning voters in a recent Gallup-USA Today survey, behind Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

The onetime senator from Tennessee is known to many Americans for playing New York District Attorney Arthur Branch on "Law & Order" and an admiral in the film "The Hunt for Red October." But his real-life record as a no-nonsense lawmaker who also served as the minority counsel to the Senate Watergate committee is appealing to party activists dissatisfied with the current crop of Republican hopefuls.

"He has a conservative bearing and a conservative presence, but he's independent in his thinking and his voting record," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who added that Thompson is "seriously considering" a presidential campaign at the urging of many friends. "He has a commanding television presence that makes every other politician in America jealous."

Big Ben strikes. The current debacle in the sub-prime mortgage lending market has Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke saying aloud that it may be necessary for federal regulators to do some regulating, reports the Washington Times. But not too much regulating since no one wants to kill the nation's golden goose—the business of buying and selling homes.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke yesterday said the central bank is considering issuing nationwide regulations against abusive mortgage lending practices, but he cautioned that regulatory overkill could make it difficult for people to buy, sell and refinance homes.

"The Federal Reserve could set rules for all mortgage lenders" to prevent the loose lending practices and abusive sales tactics that have led to sharply higher defaults and foreclosures recently, he told the Joint Economic Committee, but the Fed is moving cautiously because such rules could misfire.

The Fed itself currently does not have authority to enforce nationwide rules that would apply to the majority of lenders that are not banks under the Fed's jurisdiction, he said. The law is enforceable only by private rights of action or citizen lawsuits, so any general rules or principles laid out by the Fed could make lenders subject to the widespread threat of civil lawsuits, he said.

"We would be setting up lenders for the uncertainties ... and would be probably killing the market because there would be so much legal uncertainty associated with lending in this market," he said. "Therefore, we have to make the rules extremely precise."

Lobbyists for Obama. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may have foresworn his campaign from directly taking lobbyist money but not their help in other ways, according to a story in The Hill.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is benefiting from the support of well-connected Washington lobbyists even though he has prohibited his campaign from accepting contributions from them and political action committees (PACs).

While Obama has decried the influence of special interests in Washington, the reality is that many of the most talented and experienced political operatives in his party are lobbyists, and he needs their help.

Mike Williams, the director of government relations at Credit Suisse Securities, said of the network of lobbyists supporting Obama: “I would imagine that it’s as large as the Clinton list,” in reference to rival presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who is an entrenched favorite of the Washington Democratic establishment.

He said that while lobbyists cannot give money to Obama, they can give “policy” and “campaign support.” Indeed, K Street denizens have rare policy and national campaign expertise.

Support the troops. It might have taken a Washington Post investigation to point out to Congress the scandal that was happening just a few miles away, that is, the bureaucratic and housing mess some veterans were subjected to at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

But now that it knows about it, Congress is acting, says the Baltimore Sun.

WASHINGTON -- Moved by reports of shoddy outpatient conditions and tangled bureaucracy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other facilities, House lawmakers lined up yesterday to unanimously support a bill that promises to improve medical care for the nation's service members and veterans.

The bipartisan measure, known as the Wounded Warriors Assistance Act, rocketed through the House of Representatives after its introduction two weeks ago. Of the 435 House members, 426 were on hand to support the bill, with some scrambling at the last minute to be counted in support of the troops.

Among its provisions, the bill would set up a toll-free hot line to handle patient complaints, streamline the transition in care from the Department of Defense to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and limit the number of patients assigned to case managers and other personnel shepherding service members through the recovery process.

"The key is to have a system that is customer-friendly to our wounded service members and their families," said Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. "We need to push back the bureaucracy and treat all these people like VIPs."

Rove's role. White House political advisor Karl Rove, the boogie man to many Democrats, is suspected by many in Congress's majority party of playing a key role in the firings of eight federal prosectors, the New York Times reports today.

Political advisers have had a hand in picking judges and prosecutors for decades, but Mr. Rove exercises unusually broad influence over political, policy and personnel decisions because of his closeness to the president, tenure in the administration and longstanding interest in turning the judiciary to the right.

In Illinois, Mr. Rove once reprimanded a Republican senator for recommending the appointment of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a star prosecutor from outside the state, to investigate the state’s then-governor, a Republican. In New Jersey, Mr. Rove helped arrange the nomination of a major Bush campaign fund-raiser who had little prosecutorial experience. In Louisiana, he first supported and then helped scuttle a similar appointment.

McCain the Democrat? In a report today that will only make many Republican conservatives more suspicious of him, the Hill says Sen. John McCain opened talks with Democrats in 2001 about switching parties.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was close to leaving the Republican Party in 2001, weeks before then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) famously announced his decision to become an Independent, according to former Democratic lawmakers who say they were involved in the discussions.

In interviews with The Hill this month, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and ex-Rep. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) said there were nearly two months of talks with the maverick lawmaker following an approach by John Weaver, McCain’s chief political strategist.

Democrats had contacted Jeffords and then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) in the early months of 2001 about switching parties, but in McCain’s case, they said, it was McCain’s top strategist who came to them.

At the end of their March 31, 2001 lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Bethesda, Md., Downey said Weaver asked why Democrats hadn’t asked McCain to switch parties.

Downey, a well-connected lobbyist, said he was stunned.

“You’re really wondering?” Downey said he told Weaver. “What do you mean you’re wondering?”

“Well, if the right people asked him,” Weaver said, according to Downey, adding that he responded, “The calls will be made. Who do you want?” Weaver this week said he did have lunch with Downey that spring, pointing out that he and Downey “are very good friends.”

Not in our back yard. "Live Earth," a large, multi-city environmental, Lollopalooza-like extravaganza associated with Al Gore, wanted to hold one event on the National Mall but was evidently thwarted by global-warming opponent Sen. James Inhofe, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.

Promoters of "Live Earth" — which they describe as "a 24-hour concert on 7/7/07 across all 7 continents" — wanted to use Washington's National Mall as the North American venue. When the Interior Department rejected the proposal, questioning whether planners could get enough portable toilets for the expected crowd, the promoters turned to Congress.

In partnership with Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, "Live Earth" organizers sought a congressional resolution allowing them to hold the concert — featuring such performers as Snoop Dogg, Bon Jovi, Lenny Kravitz, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, and the Black Eyed Peas — on the steps of the Capitol.

They lined up bipartisan support: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) cosponsored the resolution. After Republicans raised concerns about security costs, the promoters offered to reimburse the government for the estimated $1.5 million in police expenses. They started making plans.

But Inhofe objected "to having any events on the Capitol grounds that are either highly partisan or politically controversial — and the proposed Gore concert is both," said Marc Morano, the GOP communications director for the Environment and Public Works Committee. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) questioned the issue on the Senate floor last Friday, holding up its passage.

As a result, concert planners are checking the availability of other locations on the East Coast, including Shea Stadium and other venues in the New York area.

"While it's unfortunate for the American people that we are being blocked from staging the U.S. concert in our nation's capital, the show must go on," Chad Griffin, a "Live Earth" advisor, wrote in an e-mail to supporters on Capitol Hill.

The cancellation of the Capitol venue disappointed many in Congress. "It's unfortunate that Sen. Inhofe has decided to make something like the environment a partisan issue," said Reid's spokesman, James Manley.

State's rights. Some states wanting to impose tougher chemical security laws than the federal government are running up against the Homeland Security Department and chemical industry who are resistant to that notion, says a story in Newsday.

WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and the chemical industry have mounted an offensive to kill a proposal to permit state governments like those in New York and New Jersey to have tougher chemical plant security rules than the federal government.

The provisions, inserted into emergency spending bills on Iraq, were added by lawmakers attempting to protect existing and in some cases, stronger rules in states like New York and New Jersey.

Lawmakers say the federal rules potentially jeopardized the lives of millions of people in those states living near high-risk plants, unless they were interpreted as minimum rather than maximum standards.

"The secretary of Homeland Security is saying that it makes no difference if millions of New Jersey and New York residents are kept vulnerable to terrorist attacks against our chemical plants as long as the chemical companies are kept from having to deal with potential lawsuits if they violate state safety provisions," said Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), author of the House provision. "Frankly, I think that's outrageous."

But Chertoff insisted his interest was solely in making and enforcing tough national standards. He argued in a Tuesday letter to top lawmakers that the provisions would compromise his ability to do that and "materially delay the implementation of this important program."