Washington Wrap
Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris, Clothilde Ewing, Nicola Corless, Smita Kalokhe and Joanna Schubert of The CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.
Kerry Lets It Rip: A newly emboldened John Kerry, fresh from his strategy session with 21 campaign advisors in Nantucket, came out today and blasted the "failed Bush administration policy in Iraq." He accused the White House of having no plan to win the peace in Iraq and said the U.S. is now viewed as an occupying power.
"It's time for the president to tell the truth that we lack sufficient forces to do the job of reconstruction in Iraq and withdraw in a reasonable period," Kerry said, and "to tell the truth that America should not go it alone." He called for a multinational coalition to rebuild Iraq.
Kerry also said it's clear that the war is still going on and called on Mr. Bush not to compound his credibility problem after admitting that he overstated Saddam Hussein's alleged efforts to obtain uranium for nuclear weapons in his State of the Union address.
Kerry once again defended his vote in the Senate to authorize the use of military force in Iraq as "100 percent, the right vote," since it encouraged Mr. Bush to go to the U.N. That vote has been a political albatross for Kerry and gave rival Howard Dean the space to mobilize the anti-war activists in the Democratic Party.
Some of those activists, who formed MoveOn.org and the Win Without War coalition, are coming out with another ad scheduled to start next Monday. The group, which ran ads featuring Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen prior to the war, has a new one accusing President Bush of misleading the country in order to gain support for the war.
Kerry ran third in last week's MoveOn.org "primary" behind Dean and Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He would, however, receive overwhelming support from the groups if he were the eventual Democratic nominee.
Campaign Finance Solution? Abolish The FEC: The congressional sponsors of the new campaign finance law announced legislation today to abolish the Federal Election Commission altogether.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., and Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Marty Meehan, D-Mass., want to replace the FEC with a new agency.
The four, along with campaign finance watchdog groups, feel the FEC is ineffective, in essence because the bipartisan commission with three Democratic and three GOP members is more interested in protecting the parties' interests than enforcing tough election laws. After the FEC adopted new rules last summer that angered McCain and his cohorts, the four promised they would come up with a plan to overhaul the FEC.
Democratic commissioner Scott Thomas told the Associated Press that he's interested in checking out the legislation.
"I'm very anxious to take a fresh look at whether the agency could be structured in a better way so we could be in a better position to apply the law as Congress intended," Thomas said.
The watchdog groups would like to see the FEC replaced by a new agency run by an administrator with stronger enforcement power.
"This agency has a long history of failure," Democracy 21 founder Fred Wertheimer said. "The track record of this agency is that it is a captured agency, an agency that responds (to) and reflects the interests of those being regulated as opposed to the interests of the American public."
The Cat's Still In The Bag: Republicans are targeting North Carolina Democrat John Edwards' Senate seat, which is up in 2004, and now the Democrats are putting pressure on Edwards, too.
Edwards, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has not been definitive about whether he plans to stay in the Senate race. On Wednesday, according to the Raleigh News and Observer, he met behind closed doors with Erskine Bowles, a possible Democratic Senate candidate, to discuss the upcoming elections. Bowles and Edwards left the meeting with their lips sealed.
State law allows Edwards to keep his name on the ballot for both the Senate and the White House, but political insiders don't think that will wash. North Carolina Democrats are asking him to give a clear sign of his plans so the party's candidate will have enough time to prepare for the election and raise adequate funds.
As a vague indication, Edwards' presidential campaign press secretary Jennifer Palmieri said Edwards has no intentions at this time to meet with any other potential Senate candidates.
Bill And Hillary: Real Estate Moguls: Since leaving the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have spent much of their marriage in public housing and vacationing at the pleasure of their friends, have been steadily acquiring real estate.
The former first couple purchased homes in Chappaqua, N.Y., and Washington, D.C. Mr. Clinton has a big office in Harlem and will soon have an apartment in his presidential library in Little Rock. Yesterday, the AP reported that the Clintons bought a condo for Hillary's mother in Chappaqua, and now the Belfast Telegraph reports that the former president bought a luxury Irish holiday home for 1.2 million euros.
Mr. Clinton, an avid golfer sealed the deal for the two-bedroom apartment in the exclusive K Club in County Kildare, while playing golf at another course in County Down, the paper reports.
Although Mr. Clinton has played at the K Club on many occasions, it is understood that he bought the property without a viewing. Maybe the two full K Club memberships, or the fact that the club is hosting the 2006 Ryder Cup, were far more important than the size of the bathrooms or the view.
Quote of the Day: "After a lot of soul searching on this, I decided I'd probably get whipped." --Rep. Jeff Flake on his decision not to run against Sen. John McCain in next year's Republcian primary in Arizona. (AP)
