White House Gaggle

By Lovisa Frost
White House Gaggle
June 15, 2006
By Lovisa Frost

President’s Schedule

President Bush makes remarks at the Initiative for Global Development’s
2006 National Summit at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington. At

11 am, the President signs S.193, the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of
2005, followed by the signing of S.2803, the Miners Act.

He has his weekly lunch with the Vice President, and continues the afternoon
with policy time on international economical development in the world.
At 2.30 pm, the President makes remarks on the establishment of the
northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument, held in the East Room of
the White House.
The last event of the day is the Congressional picnic on the South Lawn,
attended by both the President and First Lady Laura Bush.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow briefs the press at 12.15 pm today.

Iraq:

Helen Thomas asked if the President would welcome a debate on his invasion
of Iraq. Snow replied that there is going to be a debate on how to proceed. However, the President has no interest in debating what happened three years ago.

Public perception on Iraq

Snow says that people want to know that we will win in Iraq; and the
practical consideration for the President is a series of policies that is going to lead to that result. "What you really have is the necessity of having
policies that work in the long run", Snow said. The President has also made
the point that if you try to judge in terms of violence, you allow terrorists
to define success and failure in Iraq. "Now, you have got a government there
that is setting a number of practical goals, such as electricity generation,
gas pipelines, things that you can measure and see. I think what the
American people have seen is a President who is leading at this point
regardless of polls, and I don’t think he is going to be consulting polls
for the way forward," Snow concluded.

Immigration

The President will continue have conversations with members of both the
House and Senate, Snow said. Immigration is a very interesting issue and
if you took a look at polling . . . 50% of the American public supports his approach, and 33% support different approaches.