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141 chapter Sixteen Win at All Costs One of the gems of Virginia is the Tides Inn, a Chesapeake Bay hotel on its own peninsula with a clear view of the Rappahannock River.The hotel had been cleared of other guests, and the Republican leadership in the House and Senate had come to town for a summit to plan the next Congress. The attire was casual; Speaker Hastert was wearing a sleeveless sweater vest over a white shirt and khaki pants. The congressional leadership settled into their seats in the hotel’s conference room.Out of the bay windows,U.S.Coast Guard boats bobbed on the waters of Carter’s Creek. The Coast Guard was there because the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate—the second and third in the presidential line of succession—were in attendance. The White House brought a team down to the retreat to lobby for an ambitious second-term agenda. Josh Bolten, the president’s OMB director, and Karl Rove, the architect of the president’s reelection, were on hand. But a familiar issue intruded. Before moving on to new business, the agenda showed one item under “old business”: what to do about the intelligence reform measure they had left smoldering in a heap the week before. The president pro tempore, Ted Stevens, an ardent opponent to the 9/11 Commission’s approach, addressed the group. Since the collapse of the bill, the president had been excoriated. Despite his misgivings, Stevens said Congress had to pass the bill next week to help the president. Next, David Hobbs spoke. The compromise had failed because“people’s positions are changing from what they had previously agreed to.”1 The president’s lobbyist lifted his hands in the air,“Hold to the light the language Hunter says he supports and the language he had objected to—there’s absolutely no difference.” Hobbs suggested that the only explanation for 142 Win at All Costs Hunter’s opposition was that he simply did not want a bill.2 But this was just what Tom DeLay’s staff was worried about: beware of a“get-it-done-atany -cost attitude, ”a leadership staffer later warned the White House;“if you force us to vote without Hunter, it will cause serious damage and burn a lot of capital; DeLay is not in buckle mode, he is getting madder and madder. Don’t raise the stakes because the result [the collapse of the intelligence reform bill] could be the same.”3 DeLay was angry because in his mind the White House and the Senate had cooked up the plan to put the bill on the floor despite the opposition from Hunter and Sensenbrenner. Hobbs’s tone irked DeLay further and he got aggressive.“That is bullshit, David, that is bullshit.”4“It was an octave higher than normal talk, ”according to one witness.5“That’s a chairman you’re talking about, ”DeLay added, glowering at Hobbs. A DeLay staffer later said that it was a “remember-you’re-a-staffer moment.” Hobbs handled it well, according to two witnesses; essentially, he apologized and gracefully made the point that the bill had to get done because it was time to move on to new issues in a new Congress. DeLay told the White House the only way to get through this was to deal with Hunter.6 Throughout the argument, Hastert had sat quietly,“steaming, ”a former leadership aide recalled.7 Once the discussion ended, the Speaker walked out. The White House gave up trying to cajole the leadership into simply disregarding Hunter and putting the bill up for a vote; Hunter’s concerns would have to be addressed. The Speaker asked Chairman Hunter to put in writing his“bottom line. ”Two days later on December 2, Hunter produced a letter to the Speaker with the “minimum necessary to ensure that our combat troops now and in the future are well served by our Intelligence Community.”8 The letter reiterated that Hunter could support the original “chain-of-command” language offered by the White House or a slightly modified version. But Hunter could not work off the language Hastert had tried to roll past him.If the language Hunter had opposed became law,“the record and history would show that there was an explicit and conscious decision to shift critical authorities to the national Intelligence Community at the expense of the defense...

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