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Politics

Gingrich brings deaths into debate

By TIMES WIRES
Published August 15, 2007

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, never shy of provocative rhetoric, had some sharp words for President Bush and Congress on Tuesday, saying he is "sickened" they are on vacation "while young Americans are being massacred by people who should not be here." The potential GOP presidential candidate said that two suspects in the Aug. 4 deaths of three youths in Newark, N.J., turned out to be illegal immigrants with criminal records and that Bush should call Congress into special session to deal with the situation "if he is serious about winning the war here at home," which he said "is more violent and more dangerous to Americans than Iraq or Iran." Gingrich said he favors a national identification system to ferret out illegal immigrants who have committed felonies.

Giuliani explains his policy on Iran

Laying out his views on foreign policy, Rudy Giuliani, one of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, said he would be open to negotiations with Iran but would not rule out destroying its nuclear facilities as a last resort.

The Bush administration and other Republican candidates have not ruled out such military action against Iran if it flexes its nuclear muscle and if there is evidence that it is colluding with Iraq in the killing of Americans.

"The theocrats ruling Iran need to understand that we can wield the stick as well as the carrot, by undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy, weakening Iran's military, and, should all else fail, destroying its nuclear infrastructure," Giuliani wrote in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

Edwards' wife blasts Obama, Clinton

Elizabeth Edwards lashes out at Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama for their Iraq war stances, deriding the latter as "holier than thou" in the August issue of the Progressive magazine.

Edwards slapped both Obama, D-Ill., and Clinton, D-N.Y., for failing to better use their influence to block an Iraq funding bill in May.

Her husband, former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, voted to authorize the war, but he has since called that vote a mistake. He voted against several funding requests but not all.

Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for Obama, said the senator was "proud to be against the war from the beginning." A spokesman for Clinton declined to comment.

White House furious over Clinton TV ad

The White House on Tuesday assailed Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton for criticizing President Bush in her latest TV ad, calling it "outrageous."

"If you're a family that is struggling and you don't have health care, you are invisible to this president," the New York senator says in the ad, which began running Tuesday in Iowa. "If you're a single mom trying to find affordable child care so you can go to work, you're invisible, too." The ad also argued that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are "invisible" to Bush.

"As to the merits of it, I think it's outrageous. This is a president who, first and foremost, has helped millions of seniors across the country have access to prescription drugs at a much lower cost," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. "As to whether or not our troops are invisible to this president, I think that is absurd and that it is unconscionable that a member of Congress would say such a thing."

Clinton files stuck in archival backlog

Millions of documents from Hillary Rodham Clinton's days in the White House, including phone logs, schedules and other files, may not be released before the 2008 presidential election.

Archivists are sorting through 80-million pages of documents and 20-million e-mails at the Clinton Presidential Library, but few records have come out in response to Freedom of Information requests. Officials with the National Archives said Tuesday that they couldn't predict when any of the material from the former first lady will be released.

[Last modified August 15, 2007, 01:36:21]