The Note

ByABC News
July 18, 2003, 9:57 AM

W A S H I N G T O N July 17&#151;<br> -- Today's Schedule (all times Eastern):

9:00 am: Senate convenes for legislative business9:45 am: Off-camera White House press gaggle10:00 am: House convenes for legislative business10:00 am: Representative Dick Gephardt, Senator Joe Lieberman and Representative Dennis Kucinich address the NAACP conference, Miami Beach 11:00 am: PoliticsNH.com's James Pindell takes questions on WashingtonPost.com12:30 pm: White House daily press briefing with Scott McClellan1:00 pm: Former President Gerald Ford addresses National Press Club luncheon, D.C.1:00 pm: Senator Bob Graham delivers economic policy speech, Concord, N.H.2:00 pm: DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe leads press conference about the recall, Los Angeles2:45 pm: Senator Joe Lieberman makes remarks at a job training center, Council Bluffs, Iowa4:00 pm: Prime Minister Tony Blair addresses a joint session of Congress, Capitol Hill6:00 pm: President Bush and Prime Minister Blair hold joint press conference, White House8:00 pm: Former Governor Howard Dean attends IBEW 11th District Regional Dinner, Cedar Rapids, Iowa8:00 pm: President Bush departs for Waco, Texas11:15 pm: President Bush arrives at his ranch, Waco, Texas11:35 pm: Ari Fleischer appears on the Late Show with David Letterman

NEWS SUMMARY

America is a nation of list makers and list readers.

However, The Note finds nothing more depressing than a wedding reception or office going-away party at which someone reads a lame "Top 10" list.

But some days, the list is an indispensable tool for thinking about political news.

So, today, we have three: the most important political events of the day; the most important newspaper stories of the day; and the most important political dynamics to watch.

In each case, we are going to list from most-to-least.

MOST IMPORTANT POLITICAL EVENTS OF THE DAY

1. Bush-Blair news conference: There's no doubt the two communications staffs and two leaders will work out a plan to try to diffuse all the yellowcake unpleasantness. What insiders want to know is: what will that plan be, and how will it be executed? What REAL insiders want to know is how the evening newscasts will deal with it, since it happens at 6 pm ET.

2. Blair speech to Congress: Who will be sleeping in the cutaways?

3. Candidates Gephardt, Lieberman, and Kucinich at the NAACP: make nice, make good, make it go away?

4. Bob Graham economic speech at Page Belting in New Hampshire: Will he connect like John Edwards did with those hard-working, taxpaying citizens?

5. Terry McAuliffe rides West: The Macker joins the Save Gray Davis effort, proving yet again how beloved the California chief executive truly is loved by Democrats all over the country.

MOST IMPORTANT NEWSPAPER STORIES OF THE DAY

1. The Wall Street Journal 's Jeanne Cummings on the politics of yellowcake.

2. Dana Milbank in the Washington Post on same.

3. The New York Times ' Adam Nagourney on deficit politics, '92 versus '04.

4. USA Today 's Bill Welch on the AARP and Medicare.

5. Anything by Deborah Orin.

MOST IMPORTANT POLITICAL DYNAMICS TO WATCH

1. Do Blair and Bush turn the page?

2. Do Democrats overplay their hand (as some are worried about)?

3. Is there a backlash against the Pentagon for saying there will be a price to pay for criticizing the brass?

4. Where is Miles? (We were unable to spot Miles Lackey during Senator Edwards' CNN appearance this morning. Our working assumption is that a junior staffer found some anti-epoxy agent and got the two men unstuck since yesterday.)

5. Just try to get your hands on all the polling data the pros are reading nationally and in California.

In California recall news today:

--Governor Davis takes to morning rush hour radio to declare the recall an effort to "hijack our government."

--California First Lady Sharon Davis addressed reporters in Washington saying the recall effort has put a lot of stress on the Davis family.

--Davis supporters suffered a bit of a legal setback yesterday when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge set a hearing for their case against the signature gathering process for August 8th. The anti-recall litigants were hoping to get a hearing set prior to next week's deadline for signature submissions to the Secretary of State.

--The San Francisco Chronicle reports more details about Darrell Issa's 1972 weapons charge arrest in Michigan. According to police records, the Chronicle reports that Congressman Issa was carrying a loaded .25 caliber pistol and 44 bullets.

-- DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe will hold a press conference in Los Angeles today denouncing the recall effort.

The president holds that joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House this evening.

DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, the California Democratic Party's Bob Mulholland and Dan Terry, chairman of Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall, headline a press conference today to speak out against the recall. The event takes place in Los Angeles at none other than the Ronald Reagan State Office Building.

Senator Graham unveils his economic plan today at the Page Belting Company in Concord, New Hampshire.

Per PoliticsNH.com's Pindell: "Democratic presidential candidates Joe Lieberman and Bob Graham are promising policy speeches on the economy; Lieberman will unveil his manufacturing policy initiative at the Diversified Optical Products factory in Salem Friday as part of 'Joe's Jobs Tour.'; Graham's plan, which includes increased investment in schools, infrastructure, and $40 billion a year in tax relief to middle class families for advanced education and job training, will be announced at Page Belting in Concord." www.politicsnh.com

See more below.

Governor Dean campaigns in Iowa today.

Senator Lieberman also campaigns in Iowa today, focusing on job training programs. Mrs. Lieberman is in Memphis, Tennessee, where she'll attend a reception with Democratic activists and tour the National Civil Rights Museum.

Ambassador Braun attends the Junior Statesman Foundation meeting on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Senator Lieberman, Congressman Kucinich and Congressman Gephardt will attend the NAACP conference.

Senator Edwards, Senator Kerry and Reverend Sharpton have no public events scheduled for today.

Politics of national security:

Is it too obvious to ask why the Pentagon thinks it is okay to try to discipline troops for criticizing Secretary Rumsfeld to ABC News, but General Abizaid can say Iraq is now a guerilla war (contradicting the Secretary from his colloquy with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday) and no one seems to want to discipline him.

And is it too obvious to wonder if the Pentagon think it can discipline the unhappy military spouses who talked to ABC News yesterday?

The argument over bad intelligence supporting the war in Iraq has electrified political debate, writes the Washington Post 's Dana Milbank. LINK

In the midst of criticism, the "White House has been uncharacteristically flat-footed, responding with defensive and often contradictory explanations."

"'This is a canary in the coal mine for what the administration could face if these other problems aren't resolved,'" a senior Republican aide told Milbank. "'If we go through a bad August, there will be immense pressure to have hearings up here in September.'"

But while the president is taking hits on his and his Administration's credibility not just from political opponents but from the rank-and-file of the armed services and in polls it remains to be seen whether Democrats will capitalize on the flap long-term.

"One Democratic operative reluctantly agreed that the issue will not endure. Once Hussein and weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq, 'that is the spear in the heart of this whole argument.'"

The Wall Street Journal 's Jeanne Cummings' recalls last week's DNC e-mail to a million activists seeking cash for an ad slamming President Bush for his infamous 16-word statement. DNC spokesman Tony Welch wouldn't tell Cummings how much they raised, though the ad is set for an upcoming though not nationwide buy.

Meanwhile, Cummings writes, Hill Republicans are rallying around the president, but the White House's communications staff is divided on how to handle the controversy. Some advocate "a frank session with reporters to explain how the dubious charge got in the speech." (Italics ours.) Others, Cummings Notes, want to stick to the tried-and-true clam-up strategy.

The Los Angeles Times' duo of Greg Miller and Mark Z. Barabak write up CIA Director Tenet's closed-door testimony before the Intelligence Committee yesterday and report that both Republican and Democratic senators are considering widening their investigation and may perhaps call White House officials to testify. LINK

USA Today 's John Diamond reports, "The Senate Intelligence Committee indicated Wednesday that it will widen its investigation into President Bush's disputed charges last January about Iraq's attempts to buy uranium in Africa, going beyond the CIA's responsibility to examine the White House's role in the controversy." LINK

What went on in that marathon closed Senate Intelligence hearing yesterday with CIA Director George Tenet? The Washington Post 's Walter Pincus reports that Tenet told the committee he didn't know about the erroneous claim before the president's State of the Union address. LINK"'Members were stunned,' one Democratic senator in the meeting said, 'because he said he basically wasn't aware of the sentence until recently.'"

Committee Republicans, including Chairman Pat Roberts (Kan.), criticized the process of vetting information between the intelligence community and the White House.

And Democratic presidential hopefuls joined the clamor from the stump. Campaigning in South Carolina, Senator Lieberman said he'd replace Tenet and took aim at President Bush. "'This president seems to be saying, 'The buck never stops here,''" he said.

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean also said Tenet should resign, but that he isn't the most serious problem, Pincus reports.

Senator Graham urged congressional investigations to cover what "'Rice and the White House did with information and what kind of pressure was put on intelligence analysts during this process.'"

As for the White House taking the unusual step of taking on John Kerry from "this podium," Chris Lehane tells us: "Bring it on Bush the White House staff researching John Kerry speech quotes from 1998 ought to be spending their time reviewing Bush speeches from 2003."

Big Casino budget politics:

USA Today 's William Welch reports, "The nation's largest organization of seniors is threatening to oppose a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare recipients unless its objections are met, a move that could jeopardize action in Congress." LINK