He'll dance to Dubya's tune. The Bush Administration would have to destroy itself before then for it to be otherwise.
No mercy.
Coming soon: Tha SYNDICATE.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
Posted on 11/15/2002 7:10:19 PM PST by GeneD
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 — A few minutes past 7 on the morning after Election Day, Senator Trent Lott called President Bush, who pointedly asked him if he was still at home.
Mr. Lott knew he was being baited. The president, an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, loves to razz Mr. Lott, a confirmed night owl, about how hard it is to make it to crack-of-dawn meetings at the White House.
Mr. Lott shot back: "No, Mr. President, I'm in my office. Let's go to work."
The exchange, while jocular, hinted at what some Republicans said was below-the-surface tension between the White House and Mr. Lott, the Mississippi Republican who will again become majority leader when the new Congress convenes in January.
Their complex relationship has been shaped by personal history, friction over some appointments, and the normal clashes between the executive and legislative branches. Now it will be tested in new ways as Senate Republicans face a critical decision: how much to defer to a president whose popularity enabled them to recapture the majority, and how much to pursue their own agenda on their own terms.
Mr. Lott says his relationship with the president has always been good, going back to their work together on the first President Bush's unsuccessful re-election campaign in 1992.
"We had a friendship and a generational affinity," said Mr. Lott, 61. "I went down to Texas in 1999 and met with him, and we got to know Laura, too. My wife and I made an early decision to support him."
But now, with the administration sending signals that Mr. Bush intends to flex his new muscle more aggressively on Capitol Hill, Mr. Lott's job becomes even trickier than it already was.
Right after the election, Mr. Lott suggested that it did not matter much if Republicans had to wait until January to pass domestic security legislation that was to their liking. The next day Mr. Bush made clear that he wanted the bill dealt with immediately in the current lame-duck session of Congress, and Mr. Lott quickly changed his tune.
Mr. Lott fired up social conservatives right after the election by promising to bring up and pass legislation banning the procedure that its opponents call partial-birth abortion. At almost precisely the same time, the White House was counseling religious and anti-abortion groups to be patient and not to push for quick action, in part because Mr. Bush did not want to start the new Congress on an issue that would be inflammatory to many Democrats.
Despite Mr. Lott's early support for Mr. Bush in 1999, the two have a complicated history that some Republicans say has left each man a bit wary of the other.
Mr. Lott supported Jack Kemp for the Republican presidential nomination against Mr. Bush's father in 1988 and opposed the Bush tax increases in 1990. Since the current president took office, he has overridden Mr. Lott's wishes on a number of personnel and patronage decisions.
Over Mr. Lott's protests, the president replaced a close associate of Mr. Lott, Curtis Hébert Jr., as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to make way for a Texan, Pat Wood III, favored by Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Lott's quiet efforts to secure a government post for his brother-in-law, Richard F. Scruggs, a prominent trial lawyer, have failed to win support from the White House, where trial lawyers are viewed as enemies of big business and as financial supporters of Democrats.
Mr. Lott's political skills were also questioned by some White House advisers last year after Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the party, costing Republicans their majority in the Senate. The White House felt blindsided by the defection, and some officials faulted Mr. Lott for not heading it off or at least seeing it coming. Mr. Lott's defenders said the White House had contributed to the defection by snubbing Mr. Jeffords. Some administration officials have privately raised questions about the energy and focus of Mr. Lott's leadership.
White House officials say Mr. Bush's relationship with Mr. Lott is strong, close and cordial, as are the senator's ties to the administration in general.
"He and the president have a very good relationship," said Nicholas E. Calio, the president's Congressional liaison. "The president likes him. He trusts him. He calls him a lot. Beyond the president, Senator Lott has a good relationship with the vice president, with Andy and certainly with me."
Kenneth M. Duberstein, a lobbyist and consultant who was chief of staff in the Reagan White House and has close ties to the current administration, said Mr. Lott would be "javelin thrower and javelin catcher" for Mr. Bush in the Senate.
"The White House is betting an awful lot on Trent Lott right now," Mr. Duberstein said. "He and the White House have to produce together so the Republicans and the president will be known for effectively governing on all the domestic and foreign issues that are likely to come up."
Allies of both men said their political dance was tricky and sometimes awkward, and one that some Republicans said Mr. Lott had not yet fully mastered. But in a way, they said, Mr. Lott's pirouettes will be less important than Mr. Bush's emerging assertiveness in dealing with Congress — a product of his comfort in his office and his recent demonstration of electoral muscle.
One senior Republican aide on Capitol Hill said Mr. Lott was learning that even as majority leader, his power would be diminished relative to that of Mr. Bush.
"Lott sees the writing on the wall that Bush is the master of the universe in Washington," the aide said. "Ultimately he's as much of a pragmatist as Bush is. The days of Lott as the conservative revolutionary are long gone anyway — what he understands now is who holds the power."
Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist and the president of the Free Congress Foundation, said Mr. Bush had been annoyed at times that Senate Republicans under Mr. Lott had not fought as hard for the administration's agenda over the last two years as had House Republicans.
"Generally, the president thinks that senators are much too much oriented toward keeping their own prerogatives rather than acting on behalf of the common good," Mr. Weyrich said. "And my understanding is that Bush doesn't like Lott all that much personally."
But Mr. Weyrich said Mr. Lott and the president would be able to work together as long as there was a clear understanding that Mr. Bush was in charge.
Mr. Calio said the White House recognized that senators and presidents had different constituencies.
"In most relations in life there can be tensions at times," Mr. Calio said. "In relations between the executive and legislative branches, the founders built it into the system. Trent fights really hard for Mississippi, as he should. In the process, he may have been unhappy with the results at times, but it would be very easy to overplay that. It doesn't undermine the relationship at all."
The NYT is terrified and trying to find daylight anywhere they can between any 2 Republicans.
The truth is...Lott is going to be a good man to have in the Senate over the next months.
Sour grapes, NYT?
Well, no kidding. He is the president, afterall. And ole Trent wouldn't have his majority status back were it not for the president.
Word to Lott...do what the president says!
Message to Lott: Get your lazy butt and jelly-spine(*) in gear!
(*)Credit goes to the no-compromise Lott-haters for that term. :-)
Why? He never has been before.
Dennis Hastert was elected speaker of the house and not a single vote was cast against hime.
Nancy Pelosi was elected Minority leader of the house and two candidates actively ran against her.
The new york times finds that means the Republicans are divided.
Lott and Bush are playing good cop bad cop to the criminal party.
Lott and hastert have been educated well by Bush. It is a new strategy. They always talk compromise but they never do.
Go back to the tax cut. The only thing bush really gave up was something he had 10 years to fix. Making the tax cuts permanent after 10 years. The odds were pretty good that Bush would have the senate by 2004. So it was a compromise he could revise.
On the Iraqi resolution Bush did not give an inch. He got what he wanted.
He and Lott could have caved to the union rules on homeland defense, but they didn't. Now they are going to send the senate and house home.
Think about that a moment. When all the hard stuff about Saddam is going on CONGRESS WILL NOT BE IN SESSION. They will most all be in their home districts. Bush will have the national stage to himself.
There are lots of considerations. Bush and Lott don't miss many.
Everything Bush has really wanted Lott has managed to get through the senate for him. Lots of Democratic party offcicials are mad at both Gephardt and Daschle. But any Repubican who knows what is going on, knows that both Lott and hastert follow the game plan to a t.
Mr. Lott knew he was being baited. The president, an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, loves to razz Mr. Lott, a confirmed night owl, about how hard it is to make it to crack-of-dawn meetings at the White House.
Mr. Lott shot back: "No, Mr. President, I'm in my office. Let's go to work."
This is a big scandal, but Klinton getting a BJ in the oval office, bombing the Balkans while proudly claiming that he has no tangible foreign policy, and selling nuclear weapons technology to China for personal profit ain't nothing at all.
Way to go, NY Times, you make more sense every day.
This was the only truly funny line in the article. It prompts the reader to imagine Lott in a tutu.
It's a set piece to divide Republicans. It won't work. Lott may not wear a tutu, but he, if anyone, knows how to dance with the one what brung him.
/john
He'll dance to Dubya's tune. The Bush Administration would have to destroy itself before then for it to be otherwise.
No mercy.
Coming soon: Tha SYNDICATE.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
Trent, it might be a good idea to FRICKIN' LISTEN TO HIM.
I'm sure it is. With a Repub majority everywhere, the media will claim that the party is in disarray and that everything coming out of it is pure evil.
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