BY MICHAEL A. MEMOLITribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Before hetook his campaign for the Repub-lican nomination to the next pri-mary battleground inPennsylvania, Mitt Romney usedthe same Washington stagewhere President Obama had spo-ken a day before to accuse hislikely general election rival ofplans to wage a “hide and seekcampaign” in the fall.
The former Massachusettsgovernor, one day after winning aset of primaries that all but en-sured he would be his party’snominee, used a “hot mic” inci-dent involving the president andhis Russian counterpart to castdoubt about what Obama woulddo if he wins a second term.
Referring to Obama tellingDmitry Medvedev last week he’dhave more “flexibility” to negoti-ate on missile defense after hiselection, Romney asked: “Onwhat other issues will he statehis true position only after theelection is over?”
“His intent is on hiding. Youand I will have to do the seeking,”Romney told a gathering of newsexecutives and editorsWednesday.
Obama, speaking to the samegroup on Tuesday, used theHouse Republican budget plan au-thored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.,a Romney supporter, to frame hisown general election case againstRomney.
Obama noted that Romney hadcalled the Ryan plan “marvelous,”but said it actually would “gut” in-vestments meant to grow the mid-dle class to pay for tax cuts forthe affluent. The goal: To defineRomney before he has the chanceto reintroduce himself to thebroader national electorate.
“This isn’t a budget supportedby some small rump group in theRepublican Party,” the presidentsaid. “This is now the party’s gov-erning platform. This is whatthey’re running on.”
The White House saidWednesday it wasn’t a campaignspeech, but a “wonky expositionof his views.”
Romney responded as if thetwo were in campaign mode,however, and used his speech in-stead to say Obama has lackedthe leadership needed in the of-fice to guide the nation’s econ-omy onto surer footing.
He said the president lackedfocus when he took office, dele-gating an economic stimulus planto Democratic leaders in Con-gress so he could instead pursuea “government takeover of healthcare and apologizing for Americaabroad.”
On the budget, Romney saidObama “railed against argumentsno one is making — and criticizedpolicies no one is proposing.”
“I understand some people areamused that I have so many ideas.But I think the American peoplewill prefer it to President Obama’sgrand total of zero,” he said.
Among those ideas: cut all
marginal tax rates, repeal thepresident’s health reform law andcut “programs that we cannot af-ford.” Romney said he also wouldreform Social Security andMedicare in a way that “strength-ens them for future generations,”using the issue of entitlement re-form to cast Obama as weak.
“Unlike President Obama, Ihave the courage to stand be-hind my plan and the leadershipto enact it,” he said.
“This November, we will facea defining decision. Our choicewill not be one of party or per-sonality. This election will beabout principle. Freedom and op-portunity will be on the ballot.”
Much as Romney would liketo focus exclusively on Obama atthis point, he was set to take hiscampaign to Pennsylvania afterthe speech to campaign ahead ofthe state’s April 24 primary. No-tably, in his victory speech inWisconsin a day earlier Romneyappealed to primary voters thereas well as New York, Connecticut,
Rhode Island and Delaware, notto pivot to the Novemberelection.
Asked if he’d contacted rivalsRick Santorum, Newt Gingrich orRon Paul to drop out of the race,Romney said he hadn’t. But, headded, “I hope that we’re able toresolve our nomination processas soon as possible, of course.”
At the luncheon, hosted bythe Newspaper Association ofAmerica and American Society ofNews Editors, Romney also re-flected on how quickly the paceof the news cycle has changedjust in the four years since hislast campaign, as well as the na-ture of the reporting.
“In 2008, the coverage was allabout what I might have said in aspeech. Today it’s about whatbrand of jeans I’m wearing orwhat I had for lunch,” he said.“Frankly in some of the newmedia, I find myself missing thepresence of editors to exercisequality control.”
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NEWS DEPARTMENT: [email protected] 13PRESS DAKOTANthe worldHolder: J.D. Will Respond To Upset Judge
CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednes-day that the Justice Department will respond "appropriately" to a fed-eral appellate judge in Texas who demanded a letter recognizing theauthority of the federal courts to strike down laws passed byCongress.
Holder spoke a day after 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals JudgeJerry Smith questioned President Barack Obama's remarks earlier inthe week about an "unelected" court possibly striking down the presi-dent's health care overhaul. Smith, during oral arguments in a separatechallenge to the health law, asked the Justice Department for a three-page, single-spaced letter affirming the federal court's authority.
On Wednesday, Holder acknowledged the courts have "the finalsay" and defended the president's remarks. He shrugged off a re-porter's suggestion that reaction to Obama's comments have becomea distraction.
When asked what an appropriate response to Smith would be,Holder said, "I think what the president said a couple of days ago wasappropriate. He indicated that we obviously respect the decisions thatcourts make."
"Under our system of government ... courts have the final say onthe constitutionality of statutes," Holder said. "The courts are alsofairly deferential when it comes to overturning statutes that the dulyelected representatives of the people, Congress, pass."
GOPs Not Interested In V. President NomineeWASHINGTON (AP) — Tag. I'm not it.Republicans considered to be up-and-comers are scrambling to de-
clare a lack of interest in becoming Mitt Romney's running mate, takingthemselves off the still-forming short list of would-be vice presidents.With Romney poised to win the GOP nomination in June, if not earlier,some of the focus has shifted to his pick for the No. 2 spot on theticket. But no one is rushing forward and many of the top prospectsare trying to shut down the conversation before it begins.
"I'm not going to be the vice president," Sen. Marco Rubio saidWednesday.
"If offered any position by Gov. Romney, I would say no," South Car-olina Gov. Nikki Haley told The Associated Press a day earlier.
"I've taken myself off the list," former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlentysaid recently.
Stocks Fall Sharply, Following European MarketsNEW YORK (AP) — European debt flared again as a worry for Wall
Street and drove stocks Wednesday to their worst loss in a month. TheDow Jones industrial average lost 125 points, and the price of goldplunged to its lowest level since January.
It was only the second time this year the Dow has recorded a triple-digit decline. The average gained 8 percent from January throughMarch, its best first quarter since 1998, but has lost 1 percent alreadyin April.
The Dow was down as much as 179 points earlier in the day. It re-covered to close down 124.80 at 13,074.75. Only four of the 30 stocksthat make up the average rose for the day.
A disappointing auction of government debt in Spain signaled thatinvestor confidence in that country's finances is weakening. Spain an-nounced tax increases and budget cuts last week, which could hurt itseconomy further.
Bond yields in Spain shot higher, making it more expensive for thecountry to raise money. Benchmark stock indexes fell 2.8 percent inGermany, 2.7 percent in France and 2.3 percent in Britain.
Nursing Program Director Was Target In Calif.OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Police confirmed Wednesday that the
nursing program director of the California college where a former stu-dent is suspected of going on a shooting rampage was the suspect's in-tended target.
Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan told The Associated Press thatinvestigators believe Ellen Cervellon was the person sought by sus-pect One Goh.
Police said that when Goh was told Cervellon wasn't there at thetime, he began shooting in classrooms.
Goh had been upset after dropping out of the nursing program be-cause school officials would not fully refund his tuition, Cervellon said.
Death Penalty Trial Of 9/11 Suspects To ResumeBY CAROL ROSENBERGMcClatchy Newspapers
MIAMI — The Pentagon on Wednesdaycleared the way for a death penalty trialagainst five Guantanamo Bay captivescharged with engineering the Sept. 11, 2001,terrorist attacks.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald,who is in charge of military commissions,signed off on the capital trial against allegedmastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 46,and four accused co-conspirators.
The men face charges of terrorism, hijack-ing aircraft, conspiracy and murder in viola-tion of the law of war, among other charges,in the system set up by President George W.Bush within months of the attack, and thenmodified by President Barack Obama in 2009.
If convicted, they could be sentenced todeath using a method to be decided byDefense Secretary Leon Panetta or hissuccessor.
The charges accuse the five of organizingthe attacks — including funding and trainingthe 19 men who hijacked four commercial air-liners on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed theminto the World Trade Center, the Pentagonand a field in Shanksville, Pa., killing 2,976people.
The lead trial attorneys are retired ArmyCol. Robert Swann and federal prosecutor Ed-ward Ryan — the same two men designatedby the Bush administration to prosecute thecase.
Obama halted the previous trial and Attor-ney General Eric Holder was initially deter-mined to prosecute the five in Manhattan, notfar from the site of the World Trade Center.
But Holder reversed course a year ago aftermembers of Congress raised a variety ofprotests — arguing that a federal prosecutionwould put an even larger al-Qaida bull’s-eyeon New York, would snarl traffic or would riskacquittal if a civilian judge or jury concludedthat the evidence against them was obtainedthrough torture.
Pentagon prosecutors have been prepar-ing their case since then.
White House spokesman Jay Carney saidthe decision to go forward with the trial atGuantanamo did not diminish Obama’s desireto close the detention center there.
“There have obviously been obstacles inachieving that. But he remains committed todoing that,” said Carney. “In the meantime,we have to ensure that Khalid Sheikh Mo-hammed and others who are accused ofthese heinous crimes are brought to justice.And a procedure is now under way to ensurethat that happens.”
The decision drew a rebuke from theAmerican Civil Liberties Union, which hasfunded some of the 9/11 defense lawyers.
The Obama administration “is making aterrible mistake by prosecuting the most im-portant terrorism trials of our time in a sec-ond-tier system of justice,” said AnthonyRomero, the group’s executive director. Hesaid the war court was “set up to achieveeasy convictions and hide the reality of tor-ture, not to provide a fair trial.”
“Whatever verdict comes out of the Guan-tanamo military commissions will be tainted byan unfair process and the politics that wronglypulled these cases from federal courts, whichhave safely and successfully handled hundredsof terrorism trials,” he said.
All five were interrogated by the CIA in se-cret overseas prisons — Mohammed waswater-boarded 183 times, according to de-classified CIA documents — before their 2006transfer to Guantanamo. Once in Cuba, hebragged to a panel of U.S. military officersthat he was responsible for the Sept. 11 at-tacks “from A to Z.”
The chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen.Mark Martins, has said that by law no evi-dence derived through torture can be used ata Guantanamo trial.
MacDonald signed the 123-page chargesheet alleging the five men engaged in ayears-long conspiracy that trained the 9/11hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, fundedthem in wire transfers from Persian Gulf na-tions and dispatched some of them to theUnited States from Germany. It will be up toan 11-member team of U.S. prosecutors toprove it to a military jury of a dozen or moremembers.
But first, the military has to present thecharges at the remote prison at the U.S. basein southeast Cuba, assign a judge to the caseand give the defendants a formal appearanceat the war court compound, Camp Justice,probably in May. Months of pretrial chal-lenges, including wrangling over defense re-sources and whether the men are competentto defend themselves, are likely to follow.
The other four men facing the deathpenalty charges in the joint trial are Waleedbin Attash, 33, a Yemeni; Ramzi Binalshibh, 39,a Yemeni; Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, 43, aSaudi; and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, 34, a Pakistaniwho is Mohammed’s nephew and also knownas Ammar al Baluchi.
Romeny: Obama Is Waging ‘Hide And Seek’ Campaign
