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Like the momentous 2002 decision authorizing the invasion of Iraq, Congress’ vote on a $700 billion financial industry bailout figures to reverberate unpredictably, both for the economy and for the politicians vowing to protect it.

Which gives added emphasis to Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s heartfelt summation: “We’re in this moment, and if we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us.”

Whatever the right thing is — or may someday be.

The White House and congressional leaders already have made up their minds. Confronted with the defeat of an earlier measure in the House this week and increasingly urgent warnings of economic hardship, they’ve begun rounding up votes the old-fashioned way.

They’re buying them.

A revised bailout bill includes tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the middle class, for homeowners who don’t itemize their deductions, and for property owners in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Add on the $3 billion funding dollop for rural school programs over the next five years. And another $8 billion over the same period in disaster aid, much of it for Midwestern states. And toss in unrelated legislation, far-reaching in its own right, requiring insurance plans to provide better benefits for mental health.

None of these has any direct bearing on the problem afflicting Wall Street and the entire economy. Yet in the currency of Congress, each is rapidly becoming part of the solution.

On the dominant issue of the presidential campaign, the two major party candidates are in agreement. Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R-Ariz., both flew back to the Capitol to vote for the measure.

Whatever side individual lawmakers come down on, there is little debate about the significance of the issue.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., a supporter of the bailout, said in remarks on the Senate floor that he was about to take “what is without question the most important vote and most challenging vote I’ve ever been asked to cast in 30 years as an elected official.”

Not long later, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. said, “As the blood of our young men and women fall on foreign soil in the defense of freedom, our own government appears to be leading our country into the pit of socialism.”

For its sweep, the rhetoric is reminiscent of the congressional debate in the days leading up to the vote authorizing the war in Iraq.

“To our friends around the world, I say thank you for standing with us in our time of trial. … To our enemies who watch this democratic debate and wonder if America speaks with one voice, I say have no doubt,” former Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, the House Democratic leader, said at the time as he worked with Bush to secure passage of the measure.

“America did not become the leader of the free world by looking the other way to heinous atrocities and unspeakable evils,” said Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., like Gephardt, now gone from Congress.

Yet if the vote on Iraq is any indication, the consequences will be more profound than even the lawmakers understood at the time.

Then, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld predicted that U.S. troops would be hailed by Iraqis as liberators.

Now, six years later, more than 4,000 members of the armed forces have lost their lives in a war that has so far cost taxpayers more than $653 billion. Top military officials concede the Army is overextended, and generals and politicians alike agree that more troops are needed for a companion war in Afghanistan.

For a political precedents, consider Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

In 2002, as a relative newcomer to Congress, the former first lady voted to give Bush the permission he sought to send troops against Saddam Hussein.

But in 2008, as a presidential candidate, she spent months dodging questions from anti-war activists furious about her decision, refusing to apologize for her vote, and blaming Bush for abusing the authority she and others had granted him.

On the other side of the political aisle, Republicans who had voted so eagerly to hand Bush the authority he wanted were swept from power in 2006.

Voters wreaked their revenge where they could, at the ballot box.

Five weeks from this year’s election, it’s not a lesson lost on anyone, least of all Ryan, who voted for a measure most Republicans opposed.

“Most of us say, ‘I want this thing to pass, but I want you to vote for it, not me,’” he said.

Yet public opinion on the issue is so volatile that Republican leaders say it has shifted dramatically in the 48 hours since the House rejected the first bailout measure.

“Calls to members’ offices have changed from being 90 percent don’t do this; they’re at least 50-50, and in some offices they’re 90 percent, “You have to do something,” Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the second-ranking Republican leader, said during the day.

In the two days since that vote, the stock market has suffered its largest one-day drop in history. The credit market remains tight, with banks required to pay record interest rates for funds they borrow from other banks.

And in the Internet age, millions of investors can track the losses in their personal investment accounts online.

Indian and French leaders vowed to boost nuclear energy cooperation Monday at an annual summit on EU-India ties dominated by trade, global warming and the world financial crisis.

“France, which has great trust in India and its prime minister, has worked hard so that India can have access to civilian nuclear energy,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

He made the comment at a press conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrived in France from the US, where he took India a major step closer to rejoining global nuclear commerce after 30 years in the cold.

Singh was to meet Tuesday in Paris with French political leaders and nuclear energy executives and was expected to sign a major nuclear trade pact.

French energy firm Areva said Monday it hopes to profit from the nuclear pact by supplying the Asian giant with two of the latest design of reactors.

A spokeswoman said Areva planned to ship two third-generation European Pressurised Reactors and a supply of nuclear fuel to India, which could lead to a bigger contract to supply a series of power plants.

On Saturday, the head of the Indian chamber of commerce said his country’s nuclear market could be worth up 20 billion euros (29 billion dollars) to Areva and other French firms such as Alstom over the next 15 years.

India was banned from nuclear trade 30 years ago after its first nuclear test and refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but the Vienna-based Nuclear Suppliers Group lifted the ban this month after lobbying by Washington.

The US House of Representatives passed a major atomic energy pact, which, if it gets Senate approval, will allow India to buy nuclear power plants, fuel and technology provided it allows UN inspections of some of its facilities.

New Delhi, which is critically short of energy to fuel its booming economy, is looking at investments worth billions of dollars in its power sector.

The world’s second producer of nuclear energy after the United States, France is vying to lead a worldwide revival of the industry, fuelled by worries about global warming and rising energy prices.

Since Sarkozy’s election last year, France has signed nuclear power deals with half a dozen developing nations in the Middle East and north Africa.

Sarkozy also said at Monday’s summit in the southern French port of Marseille that European Union and Indian leaders had decided to “accelerate talks” aimed at reaching a free trade deal.

Singh, the leader of the world’s largest democracy and one of its fastest growing economies, said he wanted the agreement signed by the end of 2009.

The European Union is India’s largest commercial partner — ahead of China — with annual bilateral trade of around 60 billion euros, but India ranks only ninth behind South Korea in the EU’s list of major trading partners.

Sarkozy said the global financial crisis also figured in the Marseille talks and that Singh had shared the French president’s call for a global summit to establish “a new international financial system.”

Climate change was also raised during the talks, with a joint statement saying afterwards the EU and India would work to reach an agreement on climate change by the end of 2009.

Brussels has long accused New Delhi of failing to make stringent efforts to reduce carbon emissions, while India has underlined its status as a developing country that cannot be expected to slow its modernisation.

Some EU lawmakers last week voiced concerns over rights abuses in India, in particular about attacks by extremist Hindus against Christians.

But European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, also speaking at Monday’s press conference, said that “we appreciate the vigour and clarity of Mr Singh’s comments, he has clearly condemned these attacks.”

Hindu-Christian violence occurs periodically in India, where 2.3 percent of the country’s population of more than 1.1 billion are Christians.

Hardline Hindus accuse missionaries of bribing poor tribal and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity by offering free education and health care.

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain on gingerly embraced a newly negotiated congressional deal for a $700 billion bailout of the hobbled financial industry.

“This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with. The option of doing nothing is simply not an acceptable option,” McCain said. Obama said he was inclined to back it “because I think Main Street is now at stake.”

True to form after a week of posturing, both campaigns sought to take at least partial credit for the outcome. Obama said McCain did not deserve any pats on the back.

“Here are the facts: For two weeks I was on the phone everyday with (Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson and the congressional leaders making sure that the principles that have been ultimately adopted were incorporated in the bill,” Obama said in an interview on “Face the Nation” on CBS.

McCain said the latest version of the plan meets his insistence of an oversight body to monitor the treasury secretary and limits the compensation of executives of financial institutions applying for loans.

“Let’s get this deal done, signed by the president, and get moving, because the real effect of this is going to restore some confidence, and get some credit out there, and get the economic system moving again, which is basically in gridlock today,” McCain told “This Week” on ABC.

The measure would allow the government to buy defaulted mortgages and other distressed housing-related assets, many of them held by Wall Street banks, in an effort to keep the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression from spreading throughout the entire economy.

Obama predicted quick passage of the measure, which he said contained important consumer-friendly provisions he had supported. “Today, thanks to the hard work of Democrats and Republicans, it looks like we have a rescue plan that includes these taxpayer protections,” Obama said in remarks prepared for a Detroit rally. “And it looks like we will pass that plan very soon.”

McCain made a show on Wednesday of “suspending” his campaign to return to Washington to help negotiate terms of a bailout agreement. He initially suggested that Friday’s presidential debate be postponed if no deal was struck. But his campaign ads continued to air and McCain attended the debate even though there was no deal.

While McCain is not on a Senate committee involved with the financial crisis, he said Sunday he rushed back to Washington because he was not going to “phone in” his advice.

“I’m a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. I’ve got to get in the arena when America needs it,” McCain said.

Republicans generally have said his participation helped prod the agreement. Democrats countered that his presence had little effect on the outcome and may have even delayed a deal.

“Whether I helped or hurt, I’ll be glad to accept the judgment of history,” McCain said.

McCain said he planned to return to full-time campaigning Monday.

He also said he probably would have voted for legislation to keep the government running even though it contained thousands of the type of pork barrel projects he strongly opposes.

The $634 billion measure passed the Senate on Saturday. It also includes $25 billion in taxpayer-subsidized loans for automakers.

Like McCain, Obama spent parts of several days in Washington because of the bailout talks. But he has returned to the trail and on Sunday he and running mate Joe Biden planned to attend a rally in Detroit, the home of the nation’s auto industry. Michigan is a key battleground in the November.

Obama said in his television interview that he was inclined to support the bailout because it includes increased oversight, relief for homeowners facing foreclosure and limits on executive compensation for chief executives of firms that receive government help.

“None of those were in the president’s provisions. They are identical to the things I called for the day that Secretary Paulson released his package,” Obama said. “That I think is an indication of the degree to which when it comes to protecting taxpayers, I was pushing very hard and involved in shaping those provisions.”

The safeguards were supported by many in Congress, including Democrats and Republicans.

Congressional leaders continued to work through the weekend on the bailout package and hoped to have a vote on the measure Monday in the House, with a vote in the Senate coming later.

The Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, credited McCain with helping to ensure that the bailout plan protected taxpayers. Reporters were kept at a distance when she made a campaign stop in Philadelphia, although Palin took one question about the $700 bailout agreement.

“I’m thankful that John McCain is able to have some of those provisions implemented in that Paulson proposal,” she said. “I’m glad that John McCain’s voice was heard.”

A military interrogation expert, Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, told Congress on Thursday that prior to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, he witnessed interrogations of Iraqi detainees that he considers violations of the Geneva Conventions.

One interrogation was conducted by an Air Force civilian and a contractor employed by his own organization, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. It had sent a small team to Iraq in September 2003 to help a special forces task force improve its interrogations of stubborn prisoners. The team was asked to demonstrate an interrogation on an Iraqi prisoner. It was an unusual role for the organization, which trains soldiers how to resist interrogations, not conduct them.

Kleinman said his two colleagues forcibly stripped an Iraqi prisoner naked, shackled him and left him standing in a dank, six-foot cement cell with orders to the guards that the prisoner was not to move for 12 hours. Had the prisoner passed out, he would have hit his head on a wall, Kleinman said.

Kleinman stopped the interrogation, which had veered from his careful plan into abuse.

“Until their time in Iraq they had never seen a real world interrogation,” he said.

The men, Terrence Russell and Lenny Miller, had learned the harsh techniques working with the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program for U.S. forces, which conducts stressful mock interrogations to prepare soldiers to withstand and resist abusive questioning in the event they are taken prisoner. The program uses methods derived from the real-life experiences of American prisoners of war. The techniques include forced nudity, stress positions, exposure to extremes in weather and waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.

Russell is a civilian JPRA employee involved in “research and program development.” Miller was a contractor who no longer works for JPRA, according to the military.

Joint Forces Command, which oversees JPRA, did not investigate Kleinman’s allegations because they were made directly to the task force in Iraq, said spokesman Capt. Dennis Moynihan.

At the time, Kleinman called his now retired commander, Col. John Moulton II, to express concern about the harsh methods he saw being used in several interrogations. He said Moulton checked with his superiors and called him back to say the techniques had been specifically approved. Moulton later told investigators that he understood that the Pentagon’s general counsel or higher had approved the measures, and that the prisoners were considered terrorists and were not protected by the Geneva Conventions.

The Geneva Conventions, however, did apply in Iraq.

The Senate Armed Services Committee also released responses from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and legal counsel John Bellinger regarding their knowledge of the CIA interrogation program when Rice was the national security adviser and Bellinger was the National Security Council’s top lawyer.

She and Bellinger were also briefed on SERE interrogation methods at the White House in 2002 or 2003.

“I recall being told … that these techniques had been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm,” Rice wrote.

Rice told the committee the CIA had sought NSC approval before embarking on its own harsh interrogation program in the spring of 2002. Rice said she asked then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to review its legality. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the White House on legal matters, later determined the CIA’s program to be legal.

Rice also said Bellinger advised her regularly about “concerns and issues” relating to the Pentagon’s interrogation and detention program at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. She said the Justice Department never discussed with her the FBI’s now documented concerns with interrogation practices at Guantanamo Bay and CIA detention facilities.

Bellinger said he knew the FBI refused to participate in some CIA interrogations, which included waterboarding for at least three detainees. He was also aware of allegations of abuse at Guantanamo in 2003.

Also Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee took a step closer to forcing the Justice Department to hand over secret legal memos authorizing the Bush administration to use harsh and potentially illegal interrogation techniques on detainees.

By a 10-9 vote, the committee agreed to give the chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., authority to subpoena the memos from the Office of Legal Counsel. It is now up to Leahy to decide whether to issue the subpoena, which the Justice Department likely will fight because much of the information in the memos is highly classified.

Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse did not answer a question about whether the department would comply with such a subpoena.

“We regret that the committee authorized the subpoena,” Roehrkasse said in a statement. “We will continue to work with them to ensure that their legitimate oversight needs are met.”

Proposed bans on same-sex marriage are on the ballot in three important states this fall, rousing passions on both sides, yet neither John McCain nor Barack Obama seem eager to push the issue high on their campaign agendas.

In California, the stakes are particularly high — it’s the first time a ban-gay-marriage amendment goes before voters in a state where same-sex couples already have the right to wed. Similar amendments are on the ballots in Florida, a battleground in the presidential race, and Arizona, McCain’s home state.

McCain supports the amendments, Obama opposes them — yet the two nominees rarely mention them proactively as they compete for middle-of-the-road voters who rank the marriage debate low on their list of concerns.

“It doesn’t benefit either one to promote it for their own campaign,” said Matthew Corrigan, a political science professor at the University of North Florida. “You have the economy, the war. It makes it more difficult for social issues to get people’s attention.”

Both presidential candidates say they oppose same-sex marriage, although Obama adds that his personal beliefs do not translate into support for banning it. And unlike McCain, Obama has declared his support for civil unions that grant marriage-like rights to gay and lesbian couples.

McCain, while asserting it’s an issue for states to decide, has endorsed the proposed bans on this year’s ballots and has not advocated for federal recognition of the various same-sex partnerships now legal in 10 states.

In the past, McCain has voted against a federal ban on same-sex marriages, but in this campaign he’s signaled he would back such a ban if federal judges sought to impose them on states that didn’t want them.

For partisans on both sides, there’s a degree of frustration that marriage isn’t more prominent in the campaign, coupled with an understanding that economic issues are taking precedence.

“We wish it were a top issue — it seems not to be,” said Tom Minnery, a senior vice president with the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family.

In Florida, where presidential campaigning will be intense, gay-rights activists hope Obama will not be too cautious in discussing the state’s ban-gay-marriage measure.

“We would like Sen. Obama to be much more emphatic in his opposition to Amendment 2. We’d like his campaign to acknowledge that in a stronger way,” said Stephen Gaskill, a spokesman for the Florida Democrat’s gay and lesbian caucus.

The spotlight on same-sex marriage will be brightest in California, where Proposition 8 would amend the state constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman. If approved, it would overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that made the state only the second, after Massachusetts, to legalize same-sex marriage.

Statewide polls indicate the amendment will be defeated, but both sides are raising millions of dollars for a campaign they depict in epic terms. Opponents of same-sex marriage say California represents a last chance to block its spread; gay-rights activists say affirmation of it by voters in the largest state would be a watershed victory.

The president of the largest national gay-rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, expressed hope that young voters — who are relatively supportive of same-sex marriage — will help defeat Amendment 8 while turning out in large numbers to back Obama.

Some conservatives see the possibility of a contrasting demographic trend in Florida, with churchgoing African-Americans turning out in huge numbers for Obama while casting votes for the ban-gay-marriage measure.

“We’re expecting black support,” said John Stemberger, who heads the campaign for the Florida amendment.

Florida is unusual among the states — requiring 60 percent support from voters for proposed constitutional amendments to be enacted.

“If the threshold were 50 percent, it would likely pass, but 60 percent is a very difficult scenario,” said David Johnson, former executive director of Florida’s Republican Party.

The Arizona campaign is noteworthy because in 2006 it became the only state to defeat a proposed ban on same-sex marriage. Similar measures have passed in 27 other states.

The Arizona measure failed two years ago in part because opponents contended it would jeopardize domestic partnerships and other arrangements benefiting unmarried couples. This year’s version has been streamlined to simply define marriage as between a man and woman; its prospects are considered strong.

Yet gay-rights activists insist that same-sex marriage and other “culture war” issues will be less effective for Republican candidates than in November 2004, when marriage amendments won approval in 11 states.

“No matter where you fall on the issue of marriage, people are seeing these divisive tactics for what they are,” Solmonese said

Solmonese said there is broad support for Obama among gays despite his hesitancy on same-sex marriage. In contrast to McCain, Obama supports other gay-rights priorities — extending job discrimination and hate-crimes laws to cover sexual orientation, and scrapping the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bars gays from serving openly in the military.

John Marble of Stonewall Democrats, which represents the party’s gays and lesbians, said activists were encouraged that Obama was wrestling with how to extend federal recognition to same-sex couples.

“We’re not in total agreement with him, but at least he’s engaging in that conversation,” Marble said.

Marble and Solmonese said McCain was sending two sets of signals regarding same-sex couples — telling conservatives he firmly opposed gay marriage while suggesting to moderates that same-sex relationships were entitled to some sort of legal recognition. They said his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as running mate reinforced his message to the religious right, which views her as a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage even though she hasn’t publicly raised the issue since her nomination.

“McCain has been quite skilled at wrapping up discriminatory views in a nice package,” Solmonese said. “I couldn’t tell you where his heart genuinely is.”

The looming threat of Hurricane Gustav forced President Bush to cancel his planned valedictory address before the GOP national convention Monday night.

For many delegates gathering here, that’s not a bad thing.

Everyone assembled in St. Paul hates the circumstances that forced Bush’s absence; concern about Gustav dominated every conversation. But given the deeply conflicted emotions that swirl around the president from within his party, Bush’s decision to forgo the occasion saves Republicans an awkward moment.

The view toward Bush from this convention is complex. Some delegates praise him for a job well done. Others nurse resentments over a host of Bush actions — the government’s botched and insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina, ironically, is at the top of that list.

But most feel a sense of disappointment for what might have been.

From senators and governors to county chairmen and rank-and-file delegates, many of the GOP faithful present in St. Paul say that while Bush meant well, he didn’t always live up to the principles — particularly on fiscal discipline and social issues — that he claimed to hold dear.

“For those of us who believe in limited government, it hasn’t gone too well,” said Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake. “Not just the levels of spending, but the type of spending, have been atrocious. Whenever the big legislation came through, the White House was always there to sign it, whether the Farm Bill, prescription drug benefits, some of these bloated appropriations bills [or] the highway bill.”

Others have a more nuanced view of Bush’s two terms and see him as a captive of the era in which he governed — a period framed by the shadow of Sept. 11, 2001, a day of terror that forever altered the nation and Bush’s plans for his presidency.

“President Bush will be recognized for being a wartime president,” said South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds. “People will recognize that he understood that as the chief executive officer and the person responsible as commander in chief, he undertook that as his primary role.”

Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. agreed that Sept. 11 overshadowed the administration’s other goals by  removing the president’s ability to advance a more traditionally conservative domestic agenda.

“All of the oxygen was taken out of the room. There was no real opportunity to build a real party vision,” Huntsman said. “He’s done his best trying to manage events that have been thrown at him.”

Party Faithful

To be sure, many GOP delegates still revere Bush.

“I regard Bush 43 as one of the greatest presidents of the last century, right up there with [Ronald] Reagan, and I have tremendous respect and admiration for what he’s done,” said Clint Moore, a Texas delegate.

“His approach to the tax system of this country was virtually perfect,” continued Moore. “He’s been as socially conservative as Reagan by appointing Supreme Court justices who respect our laws.”

Brian Sullivan, a national committeeman from Minnesota who lost the 2002 gubernatorial nomination to Gov. Tim Pawlenty, echoed appreciation for Bush’s conservative views on social issues, including his opposition to abortion rights.

“On some issues, he’s been probably the most articulate and powerful pro-life president we’ve had,” Sullivan said. “More than Reagan.”

On national security, Bush gets grudging respect from most delegates.

Jill Buck of Pleasanton, Calif., a former Navy lieutenant attending her first national convention, praised Bush’s leadership in responding to the threat of Islamic terrorism. By launching the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, she said, Bush was able to get troops positioned in that country and Afghanistan simultaneously, which she believes will help contain Iran.

“I think it’s an asset for the entire region to have forces of stability and well-meaning U.S. troops who are trying to create an environment of freedom,” Buck said. “Years from now, I’ll look back at that positioning as a very smart military move.”

Jon Woodard, a delegate from St. Johns County, Fla., also believes the Iraq invasion was justified. Even if no weapons of mass destruction were recovered, he said, ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein was worth it.

“To watch the news and see women and minorities involved in government and in voting, just a few years after they were ruled by a dictator, I take pride in the fact that we’re playing a role in that,” he said.

Others argued that Bush’s unsteady record on spending may have been heavily influenced by his need to win support for wartime funding in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think in this particular case, the president said ‘I will go into the red because I’m not going to get the war funding unless I compromise on these other issues,’” said Rounds, the South Dakota governor.

Joe Repya of Minnesota, a veteran of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq who strongly supports Bush’s policies in Iraq, offered a similarly sympathetic view. He said the war “consumed so much of [Bush's] focus that perhaps he has not focused on some of the domestic issues as hard as possible.”

Some of Bush’s more enthusiastic supporters even suggest reports of the president’s unpopularity have been greatly exaggerated.

“Right now he’s an outgoing president, like Ronald Reagan,” said Katon Dawson, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. “I don’t think anyone’s willing to hitch their team to his wagon now, but I don’t think you’ll find many people here critical of him outside of the media.”

Another South Carolinian, Glenn McCall, who is his state’s first African-American GOP national delegate, agreed.

“It will get better as historians have time to look back at what he’s done for the country. His popularity in South Carolina is still strong,” he said.

The Discontented

Other convention delegates are much harsher in their assessments, expressing disappointment and anger over Bush’s handling of a number of issues. The administration’s massive uptick in federal spending heads that list.

Budget studies by several Washington think tanks have shown that discretionary spending under Bush has risen at a significantly higher rate than the administrations of Reagan and Bill Clinton. Many Republicans also complain that Bush never vetoed an appropriations bill while the GOP had control of Congress.

Said Flake: “There’s no way you can portray this as a good record on fiscal issues.”

Tom Conlon, a member of the St. Paul school board, echoed those concerns. “The failure has been mostly on the economic end: big spending,” he said. “The government’s grown considerably more under his administration.”

Rep. Jim Jordan, a freshman Republican from Ohio, said Bush was at his best when he held to his 2000 campaign promises.

“Our party wins when we stick to our principles,” Jordan said. “There really are, in my opinion, four: one, strong national defense; two, reducing the tax burden on American families; three, keeping spending under control; four, standing up for those basic American values I think makes us the great country we are.”

“The president has been great on three of them,” he said. “But he spent too much money.”

Immigration is also a sore point for many delegates. Bush famously tried to reach out to Hispanic voters, proposing a guest worker program and other policies critics consider tantamount to amnesty.

“Just trying to appease certain groups is not the direction to go. I want to reach out to Hispanic voters, but legal American Hispanic voters, not to people who can’t even vote, or shouldn’t be voting,” said Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who in June defeated Rep. Chris Cannon in the 3rd District Republican primary and will almost assuredly be a new member of Congress come January.

Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield also chastised Bush over the hot-button issue, complaining that he tackled the problem in a similar manner to Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain and Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Democrats’ liberal icon.

“Immigration, he’s on the wrong side,” Mayfield said. “He should have known better.”

For Utah’s Huntsman, Bush’s domestic policy has fallen especially short on two other key policy issues: environmental protection and education.

Huntsman, whose GOP pedigree dates back to the Reagan years, has led a push for climate change legislation in his state. He faults the Bush administration for being too slow to recognize the threat of environmental degradation.

“That is a complete dismissal overall with what Theodore Roosevelt did, and what Richard Nixon did with the EPA,” Huntsman said. “The quality of the air that we breathe. We’ve largely been missing in action, as opposed to [being] the party that deals with established science.”

On education, Huntsman had sharp words for the president’s signature achievement: “No Child Left Behind has been an unmitigated disaster.”

Bush’s go-it-alone foreign policy style, particularly in his first term, has also left a bitter taste for some party leaders.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), formerly chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and now its ranking member, said that in the future the United States will need to collaborate better with Middle Eastern countries and other allies that are vulnerable to terrorist threats.

“A lot of these countries warned about what would happen when we went into Iraq,” he said.

“Their predictions ended up being pretty good, and the administration basically blew them off.”

Laura Gadke, chairman of the Tulare County, Calif., Republican Party, faulted Bush for a different reason: his communications skills. According to Gadke and others, the president’s weakness as a communicator has undermined his well-intentioned policy efforts.

“He is a very awkward interviewer. As he’s gotten more and more criticism, it got worse and worse,” said Gadke, who previously taught communications at San Jose State University. “But he’s meant well. I think history will be very kind to him.”

Ken Mayfield of Dallas voiced the same concern, but more bluntly. “He’s been a failure on communication,” Mayfield said. “He doesn’t know how to do it effectively or won’t do it effectively.”

Plenty of Blame

Bush isn’t the sole target of delegates’ recriminations for the disappointments of the last eight years. Congress also gets a substantial share of the blame, particularly the now-extinct majorities Bush enjoyed for much of the first six years of his presidency.

Arizona’s Flake, who called Bush’s presidency “a tough time for believers in limited government,” said Congress also bears responsibility for out-of-control spending.

“It’s unfortunate, but when Republicans were in control everywhere we let spending run amok,” Flake said. “When we got thrown out and the president did finally start vetoing some bills, the credibility was gone.”

“[Bush] could have helped,” he went on, “but we’re basically asking the president to save us from ourselves.”

Jon Woodard from Florida agreed that Congress was also to blame. Convicted former House Republicans like Randy “Duke” Cunningham (Calif.) and Bob Ney (Ohio), along with Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley’s scandals, have contributed to the party’s misfortunes, he said.

“When I see congressmen, including Republicans, that are making a profit off what they’re doing when they’re in office,” he said, officials are “getting away from what the Republican Party has stood for many years.”

More than anything else, delegates are looking forward to a new administration.

“The president just doesn’t come up much anymore” in local party gatherings, said New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Fergus Cullen.

Josh Kraushaar contributed to this story.

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President Bush on Saturday blamed the Democratic-led Congress for the high cost of gasoline and renewed his call for expanded offshore drilling to increase U.S. oil supplies.

“To reduce pressure on prices, we need to increase the supply of oil, especially oil produced here at home,” Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Congress left for the August recess without a solution to fuel prices. In a bid to force a vote on offshore drilling, Republicans blocked Democratic proposals to use the nation’s petroleum reserve, curb oil speculation and require oil companies to drill on already leased federal lands.

The president, who is vacationing at his Texas ranch, said Americans support expanded exploration of oil in areas that include the Outer Continental Shelf. The shelf is the shallow, sloping land that stretches for miles undersea between the coastline and the deep ocean.

New oil drilling is only allowed now in federal waters in the western Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., signaled last week the Democrats’ position could be shifting. With energy legislation to be introduced after Congress returns, lawmakers will be able to “consider opening portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling, with appropriate safeguards, and without taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil,” she said.

But Bush said the Democrats are pushing a plan that would reduce domestic production and drain the country’s emergency oil supply.

“Democratic leaders know that these counterproductive proposals will not become law,” Bush said. “They need to stop standing in the way of expanding domestic production and take meaningful steps now to address the pain caused by high energy prices.”

Bush said offshore drilling can be done in an “environmentally responsible” way. Experts believe production from below the ocean can produce nearly 10 years’ worth of America’s current annual oil output, he said.

“When Congress returns they should remove this restriction so we can get these vast oil resources from the ocean floor to your gas tank,” Bush said.

The president also said Congress should lift a ban that blocks access to oil shale on federal lands. Oil shale, a sedimentary rock, can be mined and processed to produce oil.

And lawmakers should extend tax credits to encourage the development of alternative sources of energy such as wind and solar, Bush said.

“This Congress has been one of the most unproductive on record. They’ve failed to address the challenge of high gas prices,” the president said. “They need to send me a bill next month that I can sign so we can bring relief to drivers, small business owners, farmers and ranchers and every American affected by high prices at the pump.”

President Bush said Wednesday that “hope is coming back” to New Orleans with the help of $126 billion in disaster aid poured into the Gulf Coast region over three years after Hurricane Katrina.

Bush tempered his upbeat remarks by acknowledging much more work must be done.

He spoke before a friendly audience at Jackson Barracks, a historic Louisiana National Guard post badly damaged by Katrina. The crowd gave a standing ovation when Bush said he recently agreed to a request by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and other state leaders to give Louisiana 30 years to repay $1.8 billion for levee improvements in the New Orleans area. The money initially was to be repaid by 2011.

State officials said they needed 30 years to avoid hurting a still-recovering economy.

Bush seemed in no hurry to get through his prepared remarks, spending the first few minutes acknowledging Jindal, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and other notables. The bad blood between city officials and the White House after the Bush administration’s bungled response to the Katrina disaster was set aside, at least for the moment.

“The mayor and I have had some quality time,” Bush said of his difficult history with Nagin.

“The good future is here,” Bush said. “I predicted New Orleans would come back as a stronger and better city. We helped deliver $126 billion in taxpayer money.”

“Who would have thought three years after the storm the president could come and say, `New Orleans, La., is on its way back as a stronger and better city.’” Bush said.

“I think the message here today is hope is being restored. Hope is coming back.”

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said in an interview with The Associated Press this week that the New Orleans recovery was far from complete and that key projects won’t be finished without more federal money.

Following Bush’s speech at Jackson Barracks, Landrieu released a statement saying too much of the money has been lost to red tape and government inefficiency.

“Let no one suffer the illusion that $126 billion has gone straight to where it is needed and where it belongs,” Landrieu said.

Bush traveled to New Orleans and later to nearby Gulfport, Miss., after appearing at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Orlando, Fla.

In Gulfport, Bush had dinner at a downtown restaurant with business owners and local and state leaders, including Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

“Are there still people wondering about their future? Absolutely,” Bush told reporters afterward. “But things are better here on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.”

Bush returned to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Wednesday evening.