Daily Briefing: 'Just Getting Started'
• Hastings, Smithrecuse themselves from ethics panel looking intoDeLay"to remove any doubt about this at the very start of the process." [ NYT , LAT , USAT ]
•House Republicans consider stricter rules on travel and lobbying; may "grant amnesty for minor violations in order to preclude hundreds of potential investigations." Aide: "It is becoming obvious that there was a chronic disregard for the letter of the rules." [ WP ]
•Twelve "current or former House and Senate leaders... flew on corporate-owned jets at least 360 times" from 2001 through 2004, according toWPexamination;Blunt, DeLaywere frequent fliers. [ WP ]
• Bushphones Italian prime minister ahead of visit to Rome to express condolences for death of Italian in Iraq;Berlusconiunder pressure to withdraw 3,000 troops. [ NYT ]
•Letter fromBushto president of the Baltics irksPutinon eve of trip to Moscow. [ NYT ]
•In Moscow,Bushfaces "balancing act of honoring the enormous Russian sacrifice during World War II without condoning the repression that followed." [ WP , USAT ]
• Bush"just getting started" on promotion of Social Security proposal. [ WP , WSJ ]
• Thomashas not given up on private accounts; he "wants to get in the game." [ WP ]
•F.B.I. still bogged down by bureaucracy, Justice Department study finds.Grassley: "The fact that these experts who are supposed to be analyzing terrorist information are taking out the trash or answering phones 50 percent of the time doesn't seem to be a good use of anybody's talents." [ NYT ]
•Administration questions legality of A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s opposition to Social Security proposal; Labor Department "very concerned" that workers' money may be used to "advocate a particular result in the current Social Security debate." [ NYT , WT ]
• DeLaycan't hide from reporters, photographers. [ WP ]
• Kerrytries to stay in the spotlight and improve legislative record. [ WT ]