Well maybe not the last. After all, there are still 71 days to go before the inauguration.
But late Sunday, George W. Bush's administration scrapped its original $123-billion bailout of American International Group (AIG) and offered a new one, for $170 billion, that extends the loan from two years to five. The deal is part of the $700-billion stash that Congress passed last month.
So far this morning, Wall Street seems to like the news. As for AIG, its CEO Edward Liddy said the new plan "is a significant step forward" that will help AIG divest itself of bad business loans. Tapped to lead the company amid its turmoil five weeks ago, Liddy also said it feels more like five years.
For one thing, Democrats have signaled that under President-elect Barack Obama's administration, the Treasury will use the $700-billion bailout money differently. If there's any left.
For another, Democrats are likely to be enraged that the U.S. government is bailing out Wall Street -- again -- while the Big Three auto makers are nearing the precipice. The White House has been resisting a direct bailout of an industry, preferring to dole out the money to the financial sector and let those traditional gatekeepers of the nation's money supply do their thing.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: Stan Honda / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
President Bush, who kept a public silence on the race to succeed him in the closing days of the campaign, called Barack Obama seven minutes after the Associated Press projected that the Democratic senator would win the presidency.
The president called John McCain 26 minutes later, after McCain conceded defeat.
In a brief e-mailed statement, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush spoke with Obama at 11:12 p.m. EST.
According to Perino's message, Bush said:
Mr. President-elect, congratulations to you. What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters. Laura and I called to congratulate you and your good bride.
I promise to make this a smooth transition. You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations and go enjoy yourself.
She said Bush invited Obama and his family "to visit the White House soon, at their convenience."
Perino said Bush told McCain:
John, you gave it your all. I'm proud of you, and I'm sorry it didn't work out. You didn't leave anything on the playing field.
Your statement was fabulous and very classy. Please give our love to Cindy.
Both calls were made from the Treaty Room, the president's office in the White House residence, Perino said.
She said Bush would speak in the Rose Garden at 7:40 a.m. PST on Wednesday.
Somehow, however, the paper managed the produce its endorsement editorial without reference to Cheney or President Bush--while making abundantly clear that conditions in the country after eight years of their leadership demanded a change.
The newspaper's editorial board wrote:
The next occupant of the White House will inherit a national economy that's collapsing and two wars our nation has been fighting for years, depleting valuable resources we need to fix a multitude of domestic problems. Far too many of our nation's citizens live paycheck to paycheck, worried about whether they'll have a job next week or if a medical crisis will bankrupt them.
By a count assembled by Editor & Publisher, that makes the pro-Obama editorial tally over McCain 250 to 110.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo: Ben Woloszyn / Laramie Daily Boomerang, via Associated Press
Keeping in mind that it is more difficult to undo a government regulation than it is to put one into place, President Bush's aides are making a final push to shape the federal rule book -- and weaken the regs that protect consumers and the environment.
The idea is to put the new rules into effect before Bush leaves office -- knowing that whether he is followed by Barack Obama or John McCain, the changes are likely to remain in place for a long time.
In bits and pieces, the administration has been chipping away, tweaking here, chain-sawing there, in an effort to redraw the government's reach -- and in many cases, pull it back.
Countdown to Crawford reported on a couple of moves earlier this month, including one to limit product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states.
The Washington Post took a look at the administration's efforts today, noting:
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
The paper noted that the latest changes would reduce obstacles to some commercial fishing activities, reduce controls on the emissions that contribute to global warming, "relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining."
If a new administration wants to remove the rules, in most cases it would have to go through a lengthy regulatory proceeding involving a period of public comment, rule-writing and analysis of the proposed changes.
Remember all that chatter eight years ago when the letter "W" went missing from computer keyboards, and the other reports of transition shenanigans, when the Clintonistas turned over the White House to the Bushies?
By one government account, they did $15,000 in damage and left some quarters resembling a fraternity house as the sun came up.
With eight days to go until election day, President Bush's White House has reached out to representatives of John McCain and Barack Obama to begin working on the transition to a new administration.
If anyone is being assigned keyboard duty, they're keeping it quiet.
"We have a very aggressive and thought-out transition plan that we are already working through," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said today.
She added:
We have been in contact with both of the major party candidates, identified people who would get security clearances, so that on Nov. 5, they can hit the ground running and make sure that they get all the information that they need.
Now they are comic book, radio, television and movie super heroes, all rolled into one.
The Democratic presidential nominee, who began Saturday saying that McCain trying to distance himsef from the president was akin to "Tonto getting mad at the Lone Ranger," ended it by saying "it's like Robin getting mad at Batman."
"John McCain hasn't been a maverick -- he's been a sidekick when it comes to George Bush's economic policies," Obama said.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo: Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin, in the mid-1960s television series "Batman." Credit: Museum of Radio & Television
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino sent out this e-mail a few minutes ago:
Today the President and Mrs. Bush cast their ballots for the 2008 election during the early voting process. The ballots will be mailed back to Texas today.
So, there will be no trips to the fire station polling place in Crawford, where the president voted in 2006.
Perino said the Bushes planned to spend election night at the White House.
Oh, by the way, for whom did they vote?
Do we really have to answer that? Apparently, we do.
Consider: The president has barely seen John McCain this year. He didn't make it to the Republican National Convention. He's spending the final days of the election campaign at the White House, and not at get-out-the-vote rallies for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket.
Gimme a break.
For those who want everything nailed down--or perhaps for those just harking back to the endorsements of Barack Obama by former Bush administration biggies Colin L. Powell and Scott McClellan--Perino dispatched a subsequent message 19 minutes later.
Under the subject line "I find this hard to believe..." she wrote:
But so many reporters have asked just who the president voted for, I guess I have to make it clear--for months the president has said he supports John McCain for president and of course he voted for him.
And now comes his grinning declaration, taped for a new weekend CNN show, "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News," that he has a favorite in the presidential election, and it is not John McCain.
His face lighting up as bright as his French blue shirt, it is clear what he's going to say before he opens his mouth.
So the week that began when one former top Bush administration figure, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, endorsed Obama ends with the endorsement of another.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino indicated as recently as Wednesday that the president indended to vote for McCain.
— James Gerstenzang
Photo: Scott McClellan and President Bush, in 2006. Credit: Ron Edmonds / Associated Press
Sen. John McCain hit him for leaving future generations with a mountain of debt, failing to meet the cost of bigger Medicare expenses, and abusing the power of his office. He said of the Bush years and his own Republican Party: "We just let things get completely out of hand."
But White House Press Secretary Dana Perino brushed it aside today.
McCain dissed the president in an interview with the Washington Times -- not a bunch to lightly dis the prez themselves, at least not the way they go after the Democrats. He went after him again today, while campaigning in Florida, for not moving quickly enough to help homeowners in the housing and credit crisis.
But none of it could bring Perino to suggest the president was unhappy with the Republican presidential nominee.
Here's how she dismissed the matter at the daily White House news briefing:
This is all I'll say on it, is that the president stands by his policies. The president believes that a Republican Congress has got a lot more done than the current Democrat-led Congress. He supports John McCain and he still believes that he can and should win, and he'll continue to support him until election day.
Question: Follow on that, McCain said that the president had let things get completely out of hand. That's a pretty damning statement of a president who McCain supported and supports him.
Perino: I'm not going to comment on the words that our candidate chooses to use. All I'll say is that the president stands by his policies. He also stands by John McCain.
During the two weeks before election day 2000, President Clinton was a busy man.
He spent nearly half his time out of town, campaigning for Democratic candidates in New York (his wife and others), Kentucky, California, back to New York, and Arkansas. He spoke at several political events in Washington, D.C., too.
There were private receptions and public rallies. And even as Al Gore, the Democrats' presidential candidate and Clinton's vice president, sought to distance himself from the president to leave no doubt about his own political identity, Clinton was aggressive -- and very out there -- on behalf of Democratic candidates.
Friday is pretty busy: Briefings at the National Security Agency, an Oval Office meeting with the secretary-general of NATO, and a ceremony bringing Albania and Croatia into the Atlantic alliance.
The president is spending this weekend at Camp David, the ultra-private presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.
On Monday, he is meeting with the president of Paraguay, and, with Laura Bush, he is speaking at a White House reception marking the 150th birthday of Theodore Roosevelt.
And on it goes.
What's missing?
Hint: Is there an election taking place?
When he blessed McCain's bid for the presidency last March, Bush said he would campaign for or against the Republican -- whichever would help.
That was before the Wall Street meltdown and broader global financial crisis. So, we're not likely to be seeing any picture like this one -- at the White House or anywhere -- in the next few days:
As of now, with his poll numbers continuing to bump along near record lows for an incumbent president, and even McCain structuring much of his campaign as a contrast to the last eight years, Bush is neither working for nor against his preferred successor.
He's just disappearing.
For the president's public schedule, click on Read Full Story...
-- James Gerstenzang
Upper photo: President Clinton at a Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza rally in 2000. Credit: Anacleto Rapping / Los Angeles Times. Lower photo: Sen. John McCain and President Bush at the White House in 2008. Credit: Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
