Free Republic

<p>Growing frustration over President Bush's immigration plan and lack of fiscal discipline came to a head behind closed doors at last weekend's Republican retreat in Philadelphia.</p> <p>House lawmakers, stunned by the intensity of their constituents' displeasure at some of Mr. Bush's key domestic policies, gave his political strategist Karl Rove an earful behind closed doors.</p>

<p>President Bush yesterday said the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's ruling on homosexual "marriage" was "deeply troubling," and he chided "activist judges" who seek to "redefine marriage by court order."</p> <p>"He believes it's an issue of great consequence," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday. "That's why he said [in last month's State of the Union address] that the people's voice must be heard."</p>

<p>Sen. Joe Lieberman ended his presidential bid last night after failing to win any of the first 10 primaries and caucuses, and Wesley Clark proclaimed his lone victory in Oklahoma yesterday will keep him in the race to challenge President Bush in November.</p>

<p>President Bush yesterday said he will appoint an independent commission to "analyze where we stand" in U.S. intelligence capabilities in the wake of revelations that spy agencies were wrong about Saddam Hussein's possession of chemical and biological weapons.</p> <p>Mr. Bush met yesterday with former weapons inspector David Kay, who testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that he doesn't expect the exhaustive search of Iraq now under way to turn up any large caches of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).</p>

<p>The White House yesterday rejected calls by Democrats for an independent investigation into how and why intelligence agencies thought Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) before the Iraq war.</p> <p>Speaking on NBC's "Today" show yesterday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration "simply believes that there is still work to be done" in Iraq before an independent inquiry should take place.</p>

<p>A so-far fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq has put the Bush administration on the defensive, but Republican strategists say Democrats won't be able to exploit the issue for political advantage in November.</p> <p>Democrats have seized on a statement by David Kay — who resigned last week after leading the search for banned weapons in Iraq for seven months — that he doubts WMD ever will be found there.</p>

<p>The battle for third place in the New Hampshire Democratic primary was much closer than the two-man race for victory, but the failure of Sen. John Edwards and Wesley Clark to garner any significant support imperils their prospects in the upcoming contests.</p>

<p>A former weapons inspector's prediction that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will never be found in Iraq doesn't invalidate President Bush's decision to go to war, the White House said yesterday.</p> <p>David Kay, who resigned Friday as the lead weapons inspector in postwar Iraq, said over the weekend that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent threat" to the United States, but he is "personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction."</p>

<p>The White House is reviewing an immigration reform bill introduced this week that would meet its goal of granting legal status to millions of illegal aliens.</p> <p>A bill introduced Wednesday by Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, would allow all illegal immigrants now working in the country to gain temporary legal documentation and after five years apply for legal residency — a green card.</p>

<p>New polls show that President Bush's proposal to grant legal status to millions of illegal aliens is widely unpopular, even among his most loyal supporters.</p> <p>Opposition to the plan runs so deeply that the Christian Coalition of Georgia, a conservative pro-family organization, has dedicated a panel discussion for later this month that will focus on the pitfalls of Mr. Bush's plan.</p>

<p>New polls show that President Bush's proposal to grant legal status to millions of illegal aliens is widely unpopular, even among his most loyal supporters.</p> <p>Opposition to the plan runs so deeply that the Christian Coalition of Georgia, a conservative pro-family organization, has dedicated a panel discussion for later this month that will focus on the pitfalls of Mr. Bush's plan.</p>

<p>President Bush will use Tuesday's State of the Union address as a firm defense of his proposal to loosen immigration laws, issue a "passionate" plea to make his tax cuts permanent and soberly remind the country that we are still a nation at war.</p>

<p>Former Vice President Al Gore delivered a speech on the theory of global warming yesterday, the coldest day in New York City in decades, calling President Bush a "moral coward" for adhering to policies that put the planet in catastrophic peril of overheating.</p>

<p>Mexican President Vicente Fox yesterday said he favors open borders across North America, not amnesty for his countrymen illegally residing in the United States.</p> <p>The alien work program announced last week by President Bush would not encourage aliens to remain in the United States, because they love their home country, the Mexican president told the "Fox News Sunday" program.</p>

<p>A country on "orange alert" is a no-win political situation for President Bush, who can't take credit for the absence of terrorist attacks and must watch Democrats running for president argue that all his efforts to thwart domestic carnage are doomed to fail.</p>

<p>President Bush tomorrow will propose sweeping changes to U.S. immigration policy that would allow a portion of the 8 million illegal aliens in the country to move toward legal status without penalty, a plan sure to meet strong resistance from Republicans on Capitol Hill.</p>

<p>Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself yesterday from the investigation into who leaked a CIA operative's name to the press, putting the politically sensitive matter in the hands of a U.S. attorney with broad investigative powers.</p> <p>Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Mr. Ashcroft made the decision in an effort to exercise "an abundance of caution" to avoid conflicts of interest, but would not elaborate on what specifically prompted the decision.</p>

The war on terrorism and President Bush's reputation for being a good friend to Israel, Republican strategists hope, might finally curb the trend of the party doing poorly among Jewish voters in presidential elections. Mr. Bush's Monday schedule was dominated by Jewish events: a meeting with rabbis and Jewish leaders in the afternoon, lighting the official White House menorah for Hanukkah — the first such event in history, and an official Hanukkah party that night. "Reaching out to Jewish voters is one of the many things we are doing to help expand our party," said Heather Layman, spokeswoman for the...

<p>The war on terrorism and President Bush's reputation for being a good friend to Israel, Republican strategists hope, might finally curb the trend of the party doing poorly among Jewish voters in presidential elections.</p> <p>Mr. Bush's Monday schedule was dominated by Jewish events: a meeting with rabbis and Jewish leaders in the afternoon, lighting the official White House menorah for Hanukkah — the first such event in history, and an official Hanukkah party that night.</p>

<p>Conspiracy theories continued to sprout among Democrats yesterday in the wake of the capture of Saddam Hussein. Some Democrats expressed alarm that the party was drifting out of the "mainstream."</p> <p>Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state in the Clinton administration, in a conversation with Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call and a Fox News Channel political analyst, suggested that Osama bin Laden has been captured by U.S. forces and will soon be produced to the public.</p>