Under the Radar

ADMINISTRATION -- CONSERVATIVES URGE BUSH TO BYPASS CONGRESS WITH EXECUTIVE ORDERS: President Bush is "struggling for relevancy in the same way many other second-term presidents have. But Bush's burden seems much harder than other presidents in recent memory." Seventy-one percent of Americans see Bush as a "lame duck" president, and 58 percent "wish the Bush presidency were simply over." With Bush "unable to get much traction so far in moving his agenda through Congress," conservatives are looking for new ways to "jump-start his final two years, including issuing executive orders to get things done without having to ask for support" from Congress. "He should get a list of the executive orders for the last 200 years, as a guide, and choose what he wants to do," one White House adviser told U.S. News. The right wing is reportedly telling Bush that even if he were to work with the Congress, the legislation "wouldn't be very good," "so he should go the executive-order route and bypass Congress altogether." Bush has already begun to implement the strategy. Last month, Bush signed Executive Order 12866 to put political appointees in charge of regulatory agencies and "give the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy."

IRAN -- WHITE HOUSE BACKS OFF INTEL CLAIMS: Last Sunday, the Bush administration finally presented its long-delayed intelligence briefing on Iranian arms shipments into Iraq. Prior to the presentation, a U.S. official told the New York Times that it had been delayed because they were "trying to scrub" the intelligence, adding "the last thing we want to be accused of is cherry-picking." While much of the information had previously been known, the highlight of the presentation -- as reported by ABC World News -- was that it was "the first time military officials...made the link to the highest level of Iran's government." But the briefing "offered no evidence" to substantiate that claim. After coming under intense scrutiny for an intelligence presentation that was approved by the highest levels of the administration, the White House has slowly backed off its claims of Iranian government involvement. Yesterday, CNN reported that the White House is blaming the anonymous intelligence briefer who presented the Iran intelligence. According to CNN's Ed Henry, the White House says the anonymous intelligence briefer went "a little too far" in stating the evidence. In a press conference yesterday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace "confirmed that bomb-making materials were coming from Iran, but he pointedly left open the question of whether the flow was the product of freelance thuggery, or dictated by senior officials in Tehran."

ENVIRONMENT -- JANUARY 2007 WAS WARMEST EVER: While February has been characterized by swaths of snow across parts of the nation, last month had the dubious distinction of being the hottest January ever recorded. According to the U.S. National Climactic Data Center, the world's land areas were on average 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer last month than a normal January, a major increase since "such records are often broken by hundredths of a degree at a time." With the help of El Nino, which the scientists assert was only partial, traditionally frigid areas of the world witnessed huge temperature spikes, such as Siberia, where January temperatures were recorded as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. While global warming skeptics have cited the colder February air as evidence against global warming, climate scientist David Easterling said the patterns witnessed last month are indicative of man-made climate change. Larger increases in temperature farther north, compared to mid-latitudes, is "sort of the global warming signal," Easterling countered. The scientists warn that such records could become commonplace as the Earth continues to warm.