Morning Political Note: Jan. 28

ByABC News
January 29, 2002, 9:12 AM

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 28 -- This is not your typical "Days of 43" Monday, which are usually kind of sleepy and slow.

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News Summary

For our regular but impatient readers, here's the lead straight up (or at least as straight up as we can make the words accommodate the confusing reality):

The State of the Union address Tuesday meant this already was going to be a high-stakes week for the Bush administration. Throw in the seemingly likely prospect of an unprecedented GAO lawsuit against the administration to force the release of the energy task force records, due to be filed this week by a disgruntled GAO chief who says "Talk is cheap."

Add in that New York Times /CBS poll showing Americans "perceive Republicans as far more entangled in the Enron debacle than Democrats, and their suspicions are growing that the Bush administration is hiding something or lying about its own dealings with the Enron Corporation before the company filed for bankruptcy protection." ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/business/27POLL.html )

Stir, and set pan aside.

Then get out a whole other mixing bowl because, despite the intense focus on the SOTU, the energy task force and Enron, and the economy, there are plenty of foreign policy stories simmering out there, any of which could boil over and overwhelm all things domestic.

Beyond the war on terrorism in general, there's captive Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, the big National Security Council meeting today to deal with the detainee question, and the ongoing chaos in the Middle East. Plus, the president's got some foreign travel coming up, and meetings with foreign leaders in Washington today and this week.

President Bush will meet with Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai this afternoon. His only other currently scheduled public event is a photo op with the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Wall Street Journal says Bush will meet privately with members of both parties to talk about prescription drug costs.

And of course, to paraphrase the old joke, "How do you get to the Capitol to deliver the State of the Union?" "Practice, practice, practice." We'd expect the president to be doing some of that today, too.

If you don't know that the State of the Union will focus on three areas the war against terror, homeland security, and the economy well, then, the White House needs to recalibrate its effective pre-event message machine, because somehow you have slipped through the cracks.

Let's see how enduring the message of the speech winds up being the wake of many more Enron disclosures certain to come. That story is everywhere, from Time's cover to this morning's morning shows (new whistleblower Ceconi on Good Morning America, and Mrs. Lay and kids on Today, making the first serious bid to rehabilitate and recontextualize the image of Ken, complete with B-roll of the silent and strolling former corporate titan).

One paragraph from the Wall Street Journal puts the Big Speech in the political context within which some of our best sources view things: "With polls showing Americans united behind the president's war effort, aides believe his emphasis on security will overshadow political squabbles about Enron and the economy. Democrats, however, already are drafting a campaign to focus attention on the economy, deficits and Enron."

The anticipated soaring rhetoric of, and rousing response to, the SOTU will momentarily draw many eyes away from the undergirding budget numbers that will come out a week from now.

The New York Times ' Dick Stevenson previews that release with characteristic understatement, albeit right on the front page: "The budget that President Bush will send to Congress a week from Monday strays far from the agenda of small government and fiscal conservatism that the administration advocated on taking office a year ago."

"It will propose a spending increase of around 9 percent for next year, more than any big-government Democrat would dare to put on the table. It will cast aside all the promises about maintaining budget surpluses and paying down the national debt that both parties made in recent years, and instead will project at least several years of budget deficits."

USA Today adds: "Bush has made clear to White House staff that he does not want to repeat the mistake made by his father, former president George Bush, leading up to his State of the Union address in 1992. For two months, the elder Bush deflected questions about his economic strategy by saying he would have 'some new ideas' in his speech. But the speech failed to live up to its buildup." ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2002/01/28/stateofunion.htm )

"House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt will give his party's response. He is expected to voice strong support for the war effort while trying to pin the blame for the continued sluggish economy on Bush's leadership."

We don't know how much rehearsing the president already has done, or whether internal debates are still going on at this late hour about what to leave in and what to take out, but here's a list of things to look for in the SOTU some obvious, some long-range fliers, but all in our patented (well, not really) clip-'n'-save format:

1. Who'll sit with Mrs. Bush, besides Afghan interim leader Karzai? (We know a few governors will be in town, including the embattled Acting Governor of Massachusetts.)

2. Will the president utter the word "Enron?" (Andy Card on Sunday made that seem unlikely.)

3. Word count on use of "workers."

4. How soon or how far into the speech does the president bring up the education package, and how strongly does the president stress his as-yet-unattended to, core campaign promises of Social Security reform, prescription drug benefits, and faith-based initiatives?

5. Does the president mention finding money for fixing the individual alternative minimum tax, in order to live up to his promise of tax relief for every American?

6. With the expectation that Cheney will attend, what Cabinet member doesn't? Thus elevating the traditional Cabinet member in absentia role to its highest-profile status ever?

7. Does the president expand the war/anti-terrorism rhetoric beyond Afghanistan to other countries?

See below for more SOTU preview.

On Cheney and the GAO, there is still some confusion about whether the White House is actually asserting executive privilege or not and, if they are, how solid that claim is. The Administration appears to have cleverly asserted at least a pseudo claim, to try to bring the documents under that penumbra (we throw that legal word in there to signal that we are faking it a bit on this) without actually using the phrase in shielding the documents, because of its Watergate-y overtones.

Tout le Washington has decided that the normal rule applies here "Documents that are famous for not being released eventually will have to be released" and that Bush and Cheney are subjecting themselves to futile pain now because ultimate disclosure is inevitable. It's not clear what Walker and Cheney discussed in their recent conversation, or how seriously the White House has considered finding some other way to put out the material without compromising on the principle.

But as it stands now, Cheney made it clear Sunday that, for now, he doesn't see any overwhelming political imperative to back down and let the GAO have the documents. Still, all the questions to Cheney and others about the "political" imperative to turn the stuff over miss one very important point about Bush and Cheney that one overlooks at one's peril: these two guys have a highly principled and dogmatic view of the importance of the primacy of a strong executive branch, and they will take political hits galore in order to try and restore it.

As Time points out, the White House clearly is responding to Hill skittishness (and perhaps polling data) in going on the offensive, both substantively and politically, to show concern over Enron. From the invocation of the president's mother-in-law's failed stock investment, to the GOP's strategy of never failing to begin every Enron answer expressing concern for the workers, to Friday's announcement that the government is reviewing all Enron and Andersen contracts this White House is engaging on all fronts to ward off Enron demons.

The wily Walker of the GAO has got kind of a hidden stiletto, which turns him from Wally Cox to Ray Liotta when he wields it. Look what he said to the New York Times : "Walker responded this evening in an interview that it was now 'highly likely' that he would file a lawsuit against the Bush administration if Mr. Cheney did not turn over the documents by the end of this week. Of the vice president's assertion that the agency was overstepping its bounds, Mr. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, replied, 'Talk is cheap.'"

"An administration official said today that it was likely that any court fight over the documents would take years, and that the White House was convinced it had a strong case."

Trent Lott looked mighty uncomfortable, at least to us, on Face the Nation Sunday in talking about this stuff, and we still aren't clear on why he and Senator Nickles last week made it sound like they thought a compromise was afoot shortly after they lunched with the VP. And/but check this out from the New York Times : "During the weekend, Mr. Fleischer said, Mr. Cheney previewed for the group the position he would take on the Sunday morning talk shows, which was to refuse once again to turn over documents demanded by Congress as part of an inquiry into workings of the administration's energy task force, including records of a meeting that Mr. Cheney had with Mr. Lay. No one disagreed with his position, Mr. Fleischer said."

USA Today makes this their lead story, even though they don't offer any new news. ( http://www.usatoday.com/hlead.htm

CNN is heavily promoting a King/Cheney interview which will air tonight at 8 p.m., where this is sure to come up some more.

In a report that may soothe ruffled GOP feathers (and inspire even more SOTU cheering), Roll Call points out that President "Bush, Cheney and first lady Laura Bush will make as many as 50 appearances this year on behalf of Republican incumbents and challengers, according to House GOP officials, with Cheney accounting for approximately half of that total. The president would do roughly 15 events, and Mrs. Bush another 10 under the plan, although there are still questions about what role, if any, the first lady will have in the fall campaign. The appearances will be a mixture of fund-raisers and campaign events designed to exploit Bush's and Cheney's popularity." (http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2002/01/news0128b.html)