[The speech] is sandwiched between a big fight on Republican leadership in the House and the Supreme Court fight in the Senate. |
A big, bipartisan vote sends a message to the Iraqis and the White House. It's very, very significant. |
A month from now, if Katrina is still dominating the headlines, he really is in bad shape, |
A president's second term is like an hour glass with the sand running out. |
An adequate withdrawal by mid-year 2006 could neutralize Iraq as the overriding issue of the mid-term congressional elections. |
As Democratic prospects get better and better for winning back Congress in 2006, there is less and less desire to cut any deals. |
At this stage of an administration, nearly six years into it, it's incredibly difficult to get new people. Time is short. The most creative, interesting things have already been done. |
Besides, he's already spoken extensively about the hurricanes. |
Bill Clinton is taking the biggest public policy risk of his career and Gore just has to be there with him all the way. Otherwise what happens -- it becomes a Hubert Humphrey situation. |
But he can't ignore it. |
But it's embarrassing when they're caught at it. This time, we caught them leaking from the top. |
But life did not work quite as he designed it in the next year. He picked the wrong major item, Social Security. And then the war got worse and he had the hurricane. So now it's not only the sand that has run out of the hourglass but also the political capital has run out of the bank. |
By never having used a veto, either everything has gone his way--which is never true in this world--or he's been able to reach an agreement. When politics gets into this range of right and wrong, religion and morality, it is increasingly difficult to compromise. |
Cindy Sheehan had one glorious shining moment and she took advantage of it and the peace movement took advantage of her as it created the attention that the movement hadn't had previously. |
Do not forget that it is a Congress in which the president's party has the majority. |