John McCain's complex relationship with President Bush can be summed up with a simple saying: can't live with him, can't live without him.
The president's own popularity is bottom-of-the-barrel low. Even allies privately fret that he's an albatross for the Republican looking to succeed him. Voters are crying out for change amid a prolonged Iraq war and a weakened economy.
But Bush also is beloved among GOP loyalists. He's a proven campaigner who can raise serious money. Those are huge assets as Arizona Sen. McCain works to rally the Republican base and fill his coffers while facing the Democrats' unrivaled enthusiasm and record-breaking fundraising.
The president and his would-be successor were appearing together Tuesday for the first time in nearly three months at an event that epitomized both elements of their tricky alliance — they were holding a fundraiser with GOP faithful at a private home, without the media to document it.
By the McCain campaign's own planning, the only time Bush and McCain would be captured on camera would be after the event — and too late to make most evening newscasts — on the Phoenix airport tarmac in the shadow of Air Force One, just before the president departs. McCain's fundraisers typically are closed to the press; the White House deferred to the campaign. No statements were expected.
Washington lobbyists aren’t the only ones trying to figure out their relationship with John McCain’s presidential campaign.
Some members of the business community are just as mystified about their role, if any, in the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign.
It’s a disorienting state for people who were recruited — or herded — into campaign assignments by an über-organized Bush-Cheney team during the past two presidential campaigns.
Some are explaining their quandary this way: The Bush campaigns, they say, were like cruise ships, with lots of space for everyone and crews eager to find jobs for all comers. Together, they sailed through the often rough waters to the White House — and reelection.
The McCain campaign seems more like a pirate ship. It has a small, feisty and loyal crew that’s uninviting to outsiders. It careens around the campaign seas, sometimes attacking, more often skirting disasters. It’s happy for others to come along for the journey; they just have to bring their own pirate ships.
It’s a metaphor that has been circulating throughout Washington in recent weeks. I heard this account from three different people in three different conversations last week. They all ended with the same bemused shrug.
President Bush, linking the wars of his tenure to the deadliest one in history, is asking the country to commit anew to postwar rebuilding.
In an address for Wednesday to more than 1,000 graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Bush frames their futures by drawing back to the World War II generation. He links the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to postwar Germany and Japan six decades ago.
"America has assumed this obligation before," Bush said in prepared remarks released by the White House. "After World War II we helped Germany and Japan build free societies and strong economies. These efforts took time and patience, and as a result Germany and Japan grew in freedom and prosperity and are now allies of the United States."
The result, Bush says, was "generations of security and peace" in the United States.
"Today we must do the same in Afghanistan and Iraq," he says in the prepared comments. "And by helping these young democracies grow in freedom and prosperity we will once again reap the benefits in generations of security and peace."
Today's wars aren't over yet. As reconstruction unfolds, the enemy keeps fighting — not national militaries but a complex mix of militias and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another difference: It remains in debate within the country whether the pre-emptive Iraq war has bolstered U.S. security or weakened it. Bush has expressed no doubts it was warranted.
At least 4,085 U.S. military members have died in the Iraq war. More than 430 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department.
The U.S. death toll in World War II was roughly 406,000. Overall, tens of millions of people died. The conflict transformed the globe; chief U.S. enemies of that day, Germany and Japan, re-emerged as major allies.
Bush's speech was expected to compare air power and warfare techniques of World War II and today. He also was to talk about the differences in the enemies that U.S. forces face.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush would zero in on one constant — "that freedom has the power to overcome tyranny and transform societies." That theme has underpinned Bush's foreign policy and was the calling of his second inaugural address.
The president is on a three-day trip through five states. The purpose is mainly to raise money for Republicans, something Bush remains strong at even as his influence wanes.
After the commencement, Bush was heading to Utah for two closed events to raise money for John McCain, the Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and other GOP candidates. Bush held a similar event on Tuesday in Arizona, raising an estimated $3 million.
John McCain sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for not having been to Iraq since 2006, and said they should visit the war zone together.
"Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost," the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview Monday, noting that the Illinois senator's last trip to Iraq came before the military buildup that is credited with curbing violence.
"He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time," the Arizona senator added. "If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn't had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly."
McCain, a Navy veteran and Vietnam prisoner of war, frequently argues that he's the most qualified candidate to be a wartime commander in chief. In recent weeks, he has sought portray Obama, a first-term senator, as naive on foreign policy and not experienced enough to lead the military.
President Bush paid tribute Monday to America's fighting men and women who died in battle, saying national leaders must have "the courage and character to follow their lead" in preserving peace and freedom.
"On this Memorial Day, I stand before you as the commander in chief and try to tell you how proud I am," Bush told an audience of military figures, veterans and their families at Arlington National Cemetery. Of the men and women buried in the hallowed cemetery, he said, "They're an awesome bunch of people and the United States is blessed to have such citizens."
That provoked a standing ovation from the crowd in a marble amphitheater where Bush spoke. "Whoo-hoo!" shouted one woman, who couldn't contain her enthusiasm.
Bush and his wife, Laura, traveled from the White House across the Potomac River to the rolling hillsides of Arlington. Along the way, one man stood with a sign that said: "Bring out troops home." But, otherwise, the presidential motorcade on a sparkling clear spring day was warmly greeted at the cemetery entrance by scores of people, including two men in hats, shirts and shorts made out of American flag material. Others visited gravesites where each white tombstone was marked with a tiny American flag.
President Bush's former chief political adviser denied meddling in the Justice Department's prosecution of Alabama's ex-governor and said Sunday the courts will have to resolve a congressional subpoena for his testimony.
"Congress, the House Judiciary Committee, wants to be able to call presidential aides on its whim up to testify," Karl Rove said. "It's going to be tied up in court and settled in court."
Last week, the committee ordered Rove to appear July 10. Lawmakers want to ask him about the White House's role in firing nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman, D-Ala.
Also under congressional subpoena are Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, and his former counsel, Harriet Miers. The White House is citing executive privilege, the doctrine intended to protect the confidentiality of presidential communications, in refusing to let them testify.
Sen. Edward Kennedy's battle with a malignant brain tumor is likely to put a dramatic personal stamp on a health care cause he first championed nearly 40 years ago: The nation's war on cancer.
Kennedy had already begun work on an overhaul of the 1971 National Cancer Act when his tumor was diagnosed, and advocates hope the fact that Kennedy has fallen victim to this disease will generate public support and lend new urgency to the need to update the bill.
"People think of Ted Kennedy as a fighter and as someone who has always been there for everyone," said Daniel E. Smith, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Cancer Society's advocacy arm. "The fact that he now is fighting this disease is a jolt. It's a wake-up call to everyone."
"With that diagnosis, the irony for us is Senator Kennedy has been one of our great champions," Smith said.
The 76-year-old Kennedy has been a prominent and passionate advocate of cancer research and other health care issues throughout his long tenure in the Senate.
