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<p>President Bush delivered a message to France and Germany yesterday as his personal envoy arrived in Europe to negotiate forgiveness of at least some of Iraq's debt: Prime reconstruction contracts in that war-torn country are not a topic of negotiation.</p>

<p>President Bush yesterday said forgiving Iraqi debt would be "a significant contribution" to postwar reconstruction efforts and suggested that such a move by France, Germany and Russia might be enough to permit those countries' companies to compete for prime contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.</p>

<p>President Bush turned a fund-raising visit to Pittsburgh Tuesday into a defacto campaign stop for Sen. Arlen Specter, praising the liberal-leaning Republican after a trip on Air Force One.</p> <p>"I want to thank Arlen Specter, who is the state campaign co-chairman for Bush-Cheney '04," Mr. Bush said to a room full of well-heeled supporters. "I look forward to working with him as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the United States Senate to make sure my judges get through and appointed."</p>

<p>Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, fresh from her own trip to Iraq, accused President Bush yesterday of conducting the war by a "political calendar," saying he had dispatched the wrong "mix of troops" to secure the country and that victory "is not certain."</p>

<p>Nondefense spending has skyrocketed under Republican control of Congress and the White House, and critics say the outlays will hit the stratosphere with the passage this week of a drug entitlement for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office reported that nondefense spending rose 7 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, nearly double the 4 percent discretionary spending caps that President Bush insisted Congress honor. Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, nondefense spending has leapt 13 percent — 21 percent if spending on the war on terrorism is included. And he is poised to become the first Republican president to sign into law a new federal entitlement: the $400 billion Medicare expansion to cover prescription drugs. Sean Spicer, spokesman for Rep. Jim Nussle, Iowa Republican and the conservative chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the spending increases appear worse when lumping in the annual late-year "emergency" congressional expenditures that he said are little more than thinly veiled pork projects. "Even without the emergencies, we're looking at [spending] numbers well above inflation, and that's definitely a concern," Mr. Spicer said. Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the Bush record on spending has been a major disappointment. "My impression of Bush is that I've never seen him give a speech in which he says government is too big and we need to cut costs," Mr. Edwards said, pointing out that President Reagan vetoed 23 bills in his first three years in office, while Mr. Bush has yet to unsheathe his veto pen. Accepting additional spending is the price Mr. Bush pays for getting his agenda through Congress, Mr. Edwards said. "When you have a president who has a bunch of his own spending initiatives like education and the Medicare drug bill, it makes it difficult for him to go out and say that Congress is being wasteful," he said. Prominent conservatives are beginning to chafe about the kind of spending occurring on their watch. Nine Republican senators and 25 House Republicans voted against the Medicare drug bill, citing cost as the major reason. The $31 billion energy bill also has stalled, largely because many in Congress object to the price tag. The president is itching to get the bill to his desk even though it is four times more expensive than what he had proposed. Even radio host Rush Limbaugh, an unwavering booster of the president and his policies, told listeners Tuesday that after passing the Medicare bill Republicans no longer can contend they are the party of smaller government. The White House did not return a call for comment. Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said mandatory government spending on entitlements such as Medicare will reach 11.1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, a record high. That number will climb exponentially, he said, once seniors begin getting government-paid drugs in 2006. "Congress often underestimates entitlements by a lot," Mr. Riedl said. "By our calculations, it will cost $2 trillion between now and 2030." That's assuming that the program never is expanded, he said, an unlikely scenario. When Congress created the Medicare program in 1965, the projected cost in 1990 was $9 billion. The true cost, after several expansions that came with low-balled price tags, was $67 billion, 7.4 times higher. "The lawmakers who pushed for the Medicare drug bill never answered the question of how they would pay for it," Mr. Riedl said. "Apparently, they are leaving the $2 trillion tax hike to future congresses to figure out." Tom Schatz, executive director of Citizens Against Government Waste, said he hopes that conservatives can bring the president and Congress "back to earth in terms of spending" if Mr. Bush wins a second term. "We hope that this is not the legacy of the Bush administration," Mr. Schatz said. "We hope these will be aberrations that will be corrected in coming years." A senior Republican congressional aide said many conservatives on Capitol Hill are hoping that is the case. If it isn't, Mr. Bush and the party will have some explaining to do to their political base. "There's only so long we can be told [by the White House], 'Just keep waiting for spending restraint,' " the aide said. "Eventually you develop a credibility problem. There's a point where people say, 'We've heard that for five years and nothing's happened.' "</p>

<p>The economic wind is at President Bush's back, and the passage of a Republican-backed expansion of Medicare coverage to include a prescription drug benefit, political watchers say, leaves Democrats with few political bones to pick in 2004.</p> <p>"The Democrats will be left running their whole 2004 campaign in the past tense," said political consultant Dick Morris, who was a top aide to President Clinton. "They are out of issues."</p>

Some of President Bush's most strident critics acknowledge that his trip last week to Britain was not the failure they expected, while his allies see it as a historic moment in international diplomacy.     The keystone was Mr. Bush's speech Wednesday, peppered with self-deprecating humor and reaffirming the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain.     "The British people are the sort of partners you want when serious work needs doing," Mr. Bush said, thanking Prime Minister Tony Blair for being his staunch ally in "a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East."     Mr. Bush also vowed that the...

<p>President Bush's latest job-approval ratings are mixed, but still place him close to the positions shared by the last four presidents at this point in their first term.</p> <p>A USA Today-CNN-Gallup poll released yesterday showed that 50 percent approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing as president and 47 percent disapprove, both numbers matching the worst showing for him in each category in the Gallup Poll since he entered office. The poll was conducted Nov. 14-16, among 1,004 adults.</p>

<p>President Bush arrives in Britain today braced to hear the shouts of protesters whose already low opinion of him has plummeted to new depths of ridicule since he led the war to liberate Iraq.</p> <p>Mr. Bush told BBC interviewer David Frost last week that he welcomes the protests because it demonstrates how "lucky" the protesters are "to be in a country that encourages people to speak their mind."</p>

<p>Senate Republicans expressed outrage yesterday over a memo that plotted a Democratic strategy for taking maximum political advantage of an investigation into U.S. intelligence before the war in Iraq.</p> <p>The memo, written by a staffer for Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat and co-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested Democrats "pull the majority along as far as we can."</p>

<p>Sen. Bob Graham, Florida Democrat, yesterday announced that he will not run for re-election in 2004, ending a nearly 40-year political career and giving Republicans a good opportunity to pad their slim majority in the Senate.</p> <p>Mr. Graham, who dropped his foundering bid for the Democratic presidential nomination last month, said it was a "difficult decision" to not seek re-election, but he looks forward to spending more time with his family.</p>

Democrats seek leak coverage By James G. Lakely Published October 28, 2003 Democrats are engaged in a full-throated attack on President Bush over the leak of the identity of a CIA employee, frustrated over the story's apparent lack of traction in the national media. "I'm concerned about the lack of media attention," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat. "If it is not raised often, people will forget and we won't ever get to the bottom of this." Mr. Daschle attempted to raise the story's profile Friday with a press conference conducted in a style of a formal...

<p>Three Democratic senators are pushing for reauthorization of a law that bans plastic guns, calling it a test of Republican antiterrorist rhetoric.</p> <p>The bill, introduced yesterday by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, would make permanent the "Terrorist Firearms Detection Act" that is set to expire Dec. 10.</p>

<p>Pulsing lights, throbbing hip-hop music and Bill Clinton are on tap next week for a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser at a Washington nightclub designed to transform young professionals into political donors.</p> <p>DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe described the fund-raiser at Dream, one of the hottest nightclubs in the District, as a way to "connect with young people, bringing together entertainers and one of the most popular figures among Democratic activists — President Clinton."</p>

<p>If Arnold Schwarzenegger can be elected governor of California, can comedian Dennis Miller unseat Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer?</p> <p>Some Republicans in the Golden State think so, and quietly hope they can persuade the sharp political wit &#8212; and registered Santa Barbara Republican &#8212; to take on the liberal senator. Variety magazine reported this week that Mr. Miller has contacted California Republican consultants to feel out a campaign.</p>

<p>The perception that Democrats are hostile to the rights of gun owners has damaged the party in the last two elections and will do so again in 2004 unless they change their ways, the Democratic Leadership Council said yesterday.</p> <p>Al From, founder of the centrist DLC, and Democratic Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas said the antigun image perpetuates the idea that Democrats are "cultural elites," alienating them from mainstream voters.</p>

<p>Democrats ended their boycott against President Bush's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, voting overwhelmingly yesterday to send the nomination of Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt to the Senate floor.</p> <p>The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 16-2 with one abstention to allow a floor vote on the popular three-term Republican governor, who was nominated by Mr. Bush in August to replace former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES &#8212; California Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday pledged to cut the car tax, not raise any other taxes and work to help "undocumented immigrants" gain legal status.</p> <p>"I said it before that I will not raise taxes, and I will not raise taxes," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in his first press conference since he began his victorious campaign for governor.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES - California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis yesterday and replaced him with Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, ending one of the most bizarre elections in American history.</p> <p>The Austrian-born actor thanked California´s voters early this morning, describing the vote as the latest chapter in his journey from champion bodybuilder to action film star and now governor of the nation´s most populous state.</p>

SAN DIEGO — Arnold Schwarzenegger, beginning to anticipate victory in the California recall election, yesterday released a 10-point plan for his first 100 days in office. The plan includes ending the huge tax exemption given to Indian casinos, and repealing new laws that increase the tax on automobiles and allow illegal immigrants to obtain state driver's licenses. "I'm not here to talk about campaigning; I'm here to talk about governing," Mr. Schwarzenegger said at a Sacramento rally. Mr. Schwarzenegger's campaign has gained a lot of momentum in recent weeks, according to a Los Angeles Times poll released yesterday. Fifty-six percent...