Democrats Pile On Bush

Emboldened by a spate of bad news for the White House, Democrats stepped up their attacks on President Bush on Wednesday, calling on him to remove the “cloud that hangs over your presidency” by issuing a public apology in the CIA leak case.

They also assailed Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq; the administration’s denial of U.N. human rights investigators’ request to meet with detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and the president’s plan for a possible flu pandemic.

The assault coincides with the lowest approval ratings of Bush’s presidency.

Republicans scoffed at the Democratic criticism. “With the presidency and control of Congress, we have an easier time setting the agenda,” House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told his rank and file Wednesday. “We can act when the other side can only talk and complain.”

Republicans were still angry Wednesday that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had forced the Senate into a rare closed session the day before to discuss a Senate committee investigation into prewar Iraq intelligence.

“Politics” was how Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) described Reid’s motive. Still steamed that Reid acted without consulting him, Frist told Fox News on Wednesday: “I’m not going to forget about it.”

Democrats want to keep the focus on the administration’s recent troubles -- the mounting death toll in Iraq, the indictment last week of vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in the CIA leak investigation, high energy prices and the administration’s widely criticized response to Hurricane Katrina.

Among the Democratic broadsides Wednesday:

* Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) called on Bush to fire his top political strategist, Karl Rove, and to support congressional investigations into the leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer. “With three years remaining in your term, we believe it is imperative that you move quickly to remove the cloud that hangs over your presidency,” they wrote Bush, calling it “totally unacceptable that anyone involved in the unauthorized disclosure of the identity of a CIA officer, including your deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, should remain employed at the White House with a security clearance.”

* Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) emerged from a closed-door briefing on the Iraq war by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to call for a “major course correction” in administration policy. He was joined by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who said, “We just can’t keep hearing ‘Stay the course, stay the course,’ ” citing “growing frustration” on both sides of the aisle at “how slowly the training of the Iraqi troops and police force is going.”

* Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) wrote to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, urging him to reconsider his refusal to allow a United Nations team to meet with detainees at Guantanamo Bay. “The clear implication of the decision is that America has something to hide,” they wrote. “An inspection by the U.N. group could demonstrate to the world our willingness to live by our principles, and could be a major step to improving America’s standing in the eyes of the world.” Rumsfeld said the International Committee of the Red Cross had access to the detainees. Critics counter that the Red Cross does not make its findings public.

* And Kennedy assailed Bush’s flu plan, calling it “incomplete.”

But as Democrats accelerated their attacks, Hastert said at a closed meeting of House Republicans: “As tough as things seem, it is much better to be us than them.” According to a copy of his remarks provided by a House GOP leadership aide, Hastert said that although polling showed a slump for the president, “it does not show a boost” for Democrats.