Inside Politics

Sending a message

President Bush has enjoyed teasing the press for the past week, sticking his re-election in their faces, now that every gaffe or answer to a tough question doesn’t have dire and immediate consequences. He also has subtly made it clear that world leaders — even those who aren’t thrilled about a second Bush term — had better get used to dealing with him for another four years.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is among those who have showered Mr. Bush with flattery, saying yesterday after an Oval Office visit that he relished “the pleasure and the privilege of speaking to the president as the first foreign visitor after his electoral success.” He also promised that NATO would take a more active role in training Iraqi security forces, despite the objections of the anti-war coalition of France and Germany.

Mr. Bush has also taken more than a dozen calls from world leaders eager to congratulate him on his re-election. The new prime minister of Spain, who angered the White House by keeping his campaign promise to withdraw his country’s troops from Iraq, is conspicuously not among them. It’s not for a lack of trying, though.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero phoned the White House shortly after Mr. Bush’s Nov. 2 win, but was not put through to the president. Subsequent calls have been similarly ignored, and White House spokesman Scott McClellan left the impression that the slight is purposeful.

“I think that may be the case, that [Mr. Zapatero] has tried to reach out,” Mr. McClellan said yesterday. “Calls are scheduled at times that are mutually convenient. Some calls are able to be scheduled quicker than others.”

Adding to the snub, Mr. Bush found the time Tuesday to meet privately at the White House with former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar — whose staunch support for Mr. Bush and the Iraq war cost him his job to Mr. Zapatero.

Specter’s defense

“To resolve any concern that I would block pro-life judicial nominees, take a look at my record,” Sen. Arlen Specter wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, responding to conservative critics who want to block his ascension to chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

“I have consistently opposed any litmus test. I have backed that up by voting to confirm pro-life nominees including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Anthony Kennedy. I led the fight to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas, which almost cost me my Senate seat in 1992,” said Mr. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican.

“I have voted for all of President Bush’s judicial nominees in committee and on the floor.

“The current controversy was artificially created by incorrect reporting. I never ‘warned’ the president on anything — and especially not that I’d block pro-life nominees.

“Brian Wilson, a reporter for Fox News, said: ‘I looked at the tape very closely. … Senator Specter was the victim of some spin on the part of some reporters who took some comments and were looking for a kind of a good headline out of it.’

“Similarly, Rush Limbaugh refused to join the critics, saying: ‘This Specter story … may be a story about the media again … apparently, just from the looks of this, it may be that some words were put in his mouth that he didn’t say.’

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