by Matthew Hay Brown

President Bush takes a break from the issues of the day this morning to talk about mothers. His mother, his daughters' mother, new mothers, adoptive mothers, the mothers of U.S. troops, your mother.

"I wish every mother listening this morning a blessed Mother's Day, including my own," Bush says in his weekly radio address. "And I have a message for every son and daughter listening this morning: Remember to tell mom the first thing tomorrow how much you love her."

The complete address follows.

"Good morning. Today is my daughter Jenna's wedding day. This is a joyous occasion for our family, as we celebrate the happy life ahead of her and her husband Henry. It's also a special time for Laura, who this Mother's Day weekend will watch a young woman we raised together walk down the aisle.

by James Janega

A Pizza Hut spokesman has confirmed that the company's offer to help cater the wedding of First (Twin) Daughter Jenna Bush this weekend in Texas is sincere.

"It's the real deal. The letter was sent from our president (Scott Bergren) to the president this week," said Pizza Hut spokesman Chris Fuller.

The letter, dated May 5, 2008, circulated widely on the Internet Thursday, where it was picked up on the snarky political website Wonkette. The offer on Pizza Hut letterhead is signed by Bergren, congratulates President Bush on the marriage of his daughter and offers to provide the pizza chain's "Pizza Mia™ to hungry guests." The letter also makes clear that the company would provide it "with any of Jenna's favorite toppings."

If taken up, Fuller said, the offer would be a public relations coup for the Dallas-based company up the road from the Bush family's ranch outside Crawford, Texas. It would also associate with the first White House wedding in a generation a yellow-based greasy cuisine usually associated with family meals and college dorm binges.

"It has not yet been accepted," Fuller said.

He added that the offer was not to cater the wedding itself, which is Saturday, ("I'm sure that's been taken care of," Fuller said.) but to give guests a free slice of pizza on their way home.

"People have been throwing back all night, two-stepping, whatever they do. We want to give them pizza on the way out," Fuller explained.

Fuller, who is married, did not serve food (or alcohol) at his Texas wedding because - as is customary in parts of the Lone Star state - there was no formal reception, he said.

by Mark Silva

President Bush headed to Texas today to get ready for the private weekend wedding of his daughter Jenna and his new son Henry at the Prairie Chapel Ranch.

He plans to talk about this some in his weekly radio address on Saturday, actually a tribue to Mother's Day, but the White House won't be doing much talking about the exceptionally private affair.

"He is looking forward to the weekend, as is the entire Bush family,'' Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the early-to-bed president, said aboard Air Force one en route to Texas today. "He, I think, is also going to make sure he gets a good night's sleep tonight so he can stay up late the rest of the weekend and enjoy all the activities that are planned.''

Daughter Jenna, one of the Bush twin-daughters, will marry Henry Hager on Saturday.

The president is "looking forward to it, he's excited, like any proud father is, to see one of his daughters get married,'' Johndroe said.

It will be an event for family and friends only, but that's a pretty large group: "The very large Bush family is all going to be converging in Crawford to celebrate this weekend.''

And private, adds this spokesman for the National Security Council who is accustomed to delivering "read-outs'' of diplomatic sessions: "Be assured that there will be absolutely no read-out of the wedding, whatsoever. This really is a private event for the family.''

"If the family decides -- and I think they may -- on Sunday to release a couple of photos of the ceremony, then we will certainly provide those to you. But otherwise, I think the activities of the weekend are going to be a really private celebration for Jenna and Henry's family and friends.''

by Matthew Hay Brown

House Democrats are preparing another emergency war spending bill, and the antiwar movement is growing restive.

"In 2006, the voters of this country gave Congress a clear mandate to end the occupation of Iraq through a stunning Democratic electoral victory," Tim Carpenter, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, said Wednesday.

"But now, in 2008, we're still waiting for the war to end, while conditions get worse both here and in Iraq," he said. "To put it bluntly, if this Congress won't stand up and put an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq, and start addressing our needs at home beginning with a national single payer healthcare system, then we'll elect Democratic candidates who will."

The $195 billion legislation, which could come to a vote this week, includes funds to pay for military options in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring, with the requirement that the Pentagon begin removing combat troops within 30 days, starting a pullout that would be completed by the end of 2009.

It also would expand education funding for service members, extend unemployment insurance, suspend new rules that cut Medicaid funding for the poor and disabled, strengthen levees in New Orleans and restore funding for military base realignment.
Lawmakers will consider the bill in three separate parts, voting on the war funding, war policy and domestic spending.

President Bush has told Congress to give him the money for Iraq and Afghanistan without restrictions or add-ons; Republicans have accused Democrats of playing politics with the troops by loading up their legislation with other projects.

But some of the strongest opposition is coming from the antiwar left, where some oppose any additional war funding under any circumstances. Democrats.com is advising supporters to tell their representatives to "stop the Iraq sellout;" Progressive Democrats of America will be going door to door with its "Healthcare not Warfare" campaign.

by Matthew Hay Brown

In an apparent first for an American president, George W. Bush spoke this week with dissidents in Cuba, he said today.

"Video conferencing is one of the great wonders of the 21st century, and to be able to sit in the White House and talk to these three brave souls in Havana was a - it was an inspiring moment for me," Bush told the Council of the Americas, a hemispheric business group. "It reminded me about how much work the United States has to do to help the people in realize the blessings of liberty."

The president did not name the individuals, but described them as "a leading Cuban dissident, a former political prisoner, and a wife of a man who is held in a Cuban prison simply because he expressed his belief that all people should live in a free society." He said the conversation took place on Tuesday.

While the U.S. Interests Section in Havana supports and in some cases maintains relationships with Cuban dissidents, others keep their distance, to avoid the appearance of acting on Washington's behalf - a common criticism leveled by the Cuban government against the opponents it calls gusanos -- worms.

Cubans reportedly have welcomed modest economic reforms introduced by Raúl Castro since he succeeded his ailing brother, Fidel, as president of the Cuban Council of State in February. Bush is unimpressed.

"The Cuban government recently announced a change at the top," he said. "Some in the world marveled that perhaps change is on its way. That's not how I view it. Until there's a change of heart and a change of compassion and a change of how the Cuban government treats its people, there's no change at all."

by Matthew Hay Brown

House Democrats are taking exception to President Bush's dismissal today of a housing bill expected to pass today in the House.

Bush, after meeting this morning with House Republicans, said he would veto the bill to insure new loans for cash-strapped homeowners. The White House has called it a "bailout;" Bush said today it would reward "speculators and lenders."

"American families confronting foreclosue deserve better from the president than a veto threat," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in response to Bush's remarks. "They deserve the House's bipartisan housing plan that will protect the American dream of home ownership."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was more pointed.

"As the second term of his failed presidency winds to an end, President Bush has little left on the agenda but finger-pointing. With gas prices skyrocketing and with Americans losing their homes to foreclosure at record rates, the president can do little but blame, criticize, and pass the buck. ... Americans saw today an Administration out of leadership, and a president out of ideas."

Bush said he was "committed to a good housing bill that will help folks stay in their house, as opposed to a housing bill that will reward speculators and lenders. There's a House alternative that will do the right thing for the American people when it comes to housing."

By David Nitkin

A White House veto threat is complicating congressional efforts to stem a wave of foreclosures and help more homeowners get into mortgages they can afford.

As lawmakers move ahead on a plan to allow the Federal Housing Adminstration to grant higher loans and to make reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Bush administration has raised major warnings about the effort. Congress is planning to move the legislation today, according to Congressional Quarterly.

In a Statement of Administrative Policy, the White House called the legislative effort "overly burdensome and prescriptive. It would force FHA and taxpayers to take on excessive risk, and jeopardize FHA's financial solvency."

The White House says it could support some reforms for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but said the House plan, being advanced by Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, goes too far.

The housing legislation was one of several topics discussed yesterday during a meeting between Bush and congressional Republicans.

The housing plan "bails out scam artists and speculators," House Republican Leader John Boehner said in a statement after the meeting.

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by Matthew Hay Brown

Democrats are preparing for another confrontation with the White House over Iraq.

House Democrats have developed an emergency war spending bill that includes all the money President Bush has asked for, and much that he didn't, including spending on domestic programs that he has told Congress to leave out. The $170 billion legislation would also require the president to pull combat troops out of Iraq by the end of next year - a timetable of the sort Bush has already vetoed.

"We will address what we have consistently addressed, and that is a desire by Democrats, reflecting, we believe, the overwhelming desire of the American public, 60-percent-plus, for a change in the course that we have been pursuing in Afghanistan and Iraq," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, describing the bill that could hit the House floor as early as Thursday.

Hoyer said the legislation, which has not been made public, also would " reflect things that we have talked about before in terms of redeployment, in terms of dwell time, in terms of length of stay in theater and other things along that line that we have expressed our view on, including the status-of-forces agreement that the administration seems to be pursuing, which, without Senate approval, which seeks to bind a successor administration. We don't think that is appropriate without the Congress's involvement."

Finally, he said, it would address domestic needs. Democrats have spoken of funding for veterans, investment in infrastructure and extending unemployment insurance.

"Sending $100-billion-plus to Iraq and Afghanistan may be necessary in the short term," he said. "But both in the short and long term, investing in America and Americans is also a critical priority, certainly for us."

by Jim Tankersley

From a blue-state brewery comes a red beer that puts a name to every liberal's worst nightmare: "W '08".

On shelves in Oregon grocery stores now, the Crimson Wheat microbrew is a product of Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, which is famous for its hefeweizen. The brewery calls it "traditional" and "experimental." The '08 version is the latest in the annual "W" series of seasonal beers - a different one each year - that dates to 2005; this just happens to be the first that sounds like a presidential election bumper sticker. It also won a silver medal at last year's Great American Beer Festival.

The label describes the taste thusly: "The three different red, caramelized, and dark wheat malts give this beer an intense red color that runs as deep as the flavor. The toasted grain flavors blend perfectly with the subtle spiciness of the hops just as the entirety fades to a smooth quick finish."

Your Swamp correspondent calls it smooth with a kick, and surprisingly light on the wheatiness.

Oregon produces some of the world's best beer. It also produced state wins for Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. So even if the constitution allowed for a "W '08" campaign it's unlikely it would sell well here.

President George W. Bush, of course, does not drink alcohol. But we guess he'd appreciate the foods the brewmasters say go well with the W '08 brew: hamburgers, roast beef sandwiches and seafood.

We'll let you decide which, if any, of these brewmaster descriptions of the W '08 brew best describe a potential Bush re-re-election ticket:

"...bound to fill you with cheer..."

"It's dark and mysterious. But strangely goes well with anything."

"Ride the coattails..."

"You need to hold it up to the sun."

Please vote responsibly.

by Mark Silva

On the anniversary of a tornado that devastated the Kansas town of Greensburg, President Bush today delivered the commencement address at the high school - a rare event for a community that has suffered rare hardship.

"The Greensburg Class of 2008 has learned that Americans will always rebuild stronger and better than before,'' Bush told the graduates at a ceremony underway now. "Often in life, you are dealt a hand that you do not expect. The test of a community and a people is how you play that hand.''

The president also commended one graduate in particular, whose next stop is Marine Boot Camp.

."This fall, Aaron decided to enlist in the Marine Corps,'' the president said. "Like many other courageous young men and women across America, he has stepped forward to defend our freedom during a time of war, and we honor him today. Aaron, I wish you best of luck at boot camp, and I look forward to serving as your commander-in-chief.''

Bush, former managing partner of the Texas Rangers, delivered his commencement address at the home of the Greensburg Rangers. "As some of you know, I used to be the owner of a baseball team by the same name,'' the president told the graduating class. "So from one Rangers fan to another, I give you this message: "Beat 'em up, beat 'em up, GHS."

Bush also thanked the school for moving its commencement to today, from its originally planned date next weekend - when his daughter Jenna will be married at the family ranch in Texas. "I could have suggested changing the date of the wedding instead,'' Bush said, "but I think we all know how that idea would have turned out.''

by Matthew Hay Brown

President Bush has warned Democrats against adding domestic spending to the upcoming war spending bill. The Democrats aren't listening.

"All the while President Bush has invested in the battlefront, he has consistently ignored the home front," Rep. Andre Carson says today in the weekly Democratic radio address.

"American tax dollars are supporting the construction of new roads in Iraq while the potholes in my hometown of Indianapolis are only getting bigger," says the Indiana Democrat, who was elected in March to succeed his late grandmother, Rep. Julia Carson. "Our tax dollars are being used to train teachers to teach in Iraqi schools, while too many American children go without the education they need and deserve. While new hospitals and health clinics are being built in Iraq, the President proposed cutting Medicare for seniors and refuses to extend health insurance coverage to millions of children.

"If we took even a fraction of the billions of dollars we spend in Iraq and used them here at home, we could make real progress and help get our nation out of our economic slump."

President Bush has said the emergency supplemental bill to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is not the place for the spending the Democrats contemplate. The Democratic address follows.

by Mark Silva

President Bush was on the road today talking about the economy - the one that grew by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of the year, the same GDP growth recorded in the last quarter of 2007.

"That's not good enough for America,'' Bush said at an appearance in St. Louis today. "It's positive growth, but we can do better than that.''

The president also had to deliver bad employment news today: With 20,000 more jobs lost last month, yet the unemployment rate easing back a notch to 5 percent.

"That's a sign that this economy is not as robust as anybody would like it,'' the president said - not the kind of message that Bush is happy about delivering on the road in this election year.

"Since I've been your president, I want to remind you, we have been through a recession, we have been through a terrorist attack, we have been at war,'' Bush told his audience in Missouri. "But this economy's going to come on. I'm confident it will.''

by Mark Silva and updated

Hope springs eternal among opponents of the proposed George W. Bush Presidential Libary at Southern Methodist University, with the general conference of the Methodist Church this week voting overwhelmingly to refer a petition for the library's rejection to the South Central jurisdiction of the church which owns the university property.

"I hereby petition the UMC General Conference to prevent leasing, selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University,'' a petitioner from South Carolina wrote. "We should support separation of church and state, and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement of that president by the United Methodist Church.

"Texas is a big state,'' petitioner Diane Smock of Greenville, S.C., wrote. "Surely there are other venues.''

The conference's committee on Ministry and Higher Education voted 51-5 to refer it to the full conference, and the conference voted yesterday by 844-20 to refer it to the jurisdiction that controls the Dallas-based university. That jurisdiction plans a meeting in July.

"They're going to be forced to allow a vote here,'' says the Rev. Andrew Weaver, a Methodist, research psychologist and anti-war activist who is among the opponents of the library. "There will be a real vote here.''

It's not so much the library, as the research institute attached to it, that opponents are protesting. They warn that the think tank, to be dedicated to the study of the policies of the 43rd president, will besmirch the reputation of an independent university.

The university's leaders are welcoming the library, and the Bush library foundation has formally selected SMU for the facility and already hired an architect.

by Matthew Hay Brown

Congressional Democrats and the White House are headed for another showdown over war funding. But this time, the conflict is unlikely to be over the mission in Iraq.

With a Senate majority too narrow to overcome Republican opposition, and quieted by the success of the troop surge in tamping down violence, Democrats have backed away from efforts to force President Bush to wind the war down.

Instead, they're talking about loading up the next emergency supplemental bill with other spending. Congressional leaders are considering using the legislation, which could hit the House floor as early as next week, as a vehicle for funding another economic stimulus package, investing in infrastructure or boosting benefits for veterans.

Bush doesn't like that either.

"I made my position very clear to Congress and I will not accept a supplemental over $108 billion," he said this week. "We will work with Congress on these veterans' benefits.
I'm a firm believer that we ought to treat our veterans with respect. In the State of the Union I talked about the idea of transferring - a soldier being able to transfer educational benefits to a spouse or children. We've sent legislation to that effect up to Congress; we would like for them to move on it quickly. But the $108 billion is $108 billion."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Wednesday that he didn't want to discuss what would be in the supplemental before final decisions had been made. But he didn't sound bound to Bush's figure.

"I reject the President's view that all this supplemental should be is for spending money overseas," the Maryland Democrat told reporters. "We believe Americans have needs. Whether it's still responding to Katrina years after we promised that we would do so, whether it's responding to people who are unemployed and having a tough time, whether it's responding to making sure that we have some emergencies met in this country as opposed to in Iraq or Afghanistan, we think Americans believe that that is a priority item for them. We share that view."

If past experience is any guide, Bush seems likely to get his way in the end. On previous war spending bills, the president and his congressional allies stared down Democratic efforts to change the mission in Iraq; in the end, Congress has always delivered the money Bush has sought.

(Photo by Scott Applewhite/AP)

by Matthew Hay Brown

Five years ago today, President Bush stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln before a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" and declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

Antiwar activists aren't about to let the anniversary pass unremarked. This morning, several groups are planning to unveil a 50-foot replica of that red, white and blue banner in front of the White House.

"It is amazing that five years after saying Mission Accomplished, we now don't even know what our mission is in Iraq, or how to accomplish it," said Iraq War veteran Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org. "There are still no metrics, there is no diplomatic surge, there is no political strategy to deal with Muqtada al-Sadr, and no road to home for our troops."

The White House has maintained that it had nothing to do with the original banner, which it says referred to the end of the Abraham Lincoln's 10-month deployment.

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino told the Associated Press on Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

Not only the media. Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg, Robert Menendez and Jim Webb are planning a press conference this morning to share their thoughts. And activists are planning demonstrations at congressional offices and in cities across the country.

Some will be looking to link the war to the presumptive Republican nominee.

"Senator John McCain is more responsible than most Americans realize for the situation in Iraq," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action. "Like Bush's Mission Accomplished speech five years ago, McCain too declared that the end was very much in sight in 2003. He would continue President Bush's failed policies - in Iraq and elsewhere."

by Mark Silva

Here's my evening "pool report'' from a cool night out with the president of the United States, attending a closed-door $500,000 fundraiser for the Republican Party's congressional campaigns at the suburban Virginia spread of a party loyalist:

This report contains one really large bush trimmed in the shape of a poodle or terrier or maybe both, $500 K raised by the RNCC with the help of President Bush and no news at all, nothing worth reading really, save for gratuitous color commentary on a nice night out in Virginia.

In this nation addicted to oil, three black vans departed from the White House at 4:32 pm EDT with a mission of delivering a travel pool to sit outside a closed-door fundraiser in Fairfax.

The president would find his way there aboard Marine One. The pool thinks it knows the preferred rush-hour conveyance.

The closed-to-press fundraiser was held for the benefit of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The hosts were Milton and Carolyn Peterson. The NRCC said 130 were expected at the reception, and a little over 500,000 USD was raised.

Your pool van caravan rode the HOV lanes down I-395 at a fair rate of speed and then out the Fairfax County Parkway at an even better clip.

Up Ox Road we went, like the wagon trains of old. Move em move em move em. And then on Braddock Road west of George Mason University, where the vans turned into the crunchy-gravel West Campus Parking Lot where other elements of a real motorcade, the limos and all, were parked.

It was 5:20 pm EDT at our arrival, cool, crisp and only partly cloudy and definitely not in a traditionally defined recession yet, and, friends, the excitement was mounting by the minute. We waited, motors running, glug glug glug, for the landing of Marine One on a lush soccer pitch, green as the cash the RNCC was raising this evening.