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A lame duck in a financial downpour, President Bush called senators ahead of Wednesday’s big vote on the financial rescue plan but he wields dwindling overall influence.

The dimming of his clout is part of the price the president is paying for a general loss of confidence in the administration’s ability to deliver — from misleading Congress on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and its fumbled handling of Hurricane Katrina to suggestions that it was asleep at the switch on Wall Street regulation.

After weeks of limited public involvement, Bush has been speaking out publicly almost daily on the nation’s financial meltdown and the need for lawmakers to pass a rescue plan that could cost up to $700 billion to protect the larger economy from imploding. And he was working the phones.

Shaken by House rejection of the plan on Monday, and the subsequent 778-point dive in the Dow Jones industrials, supporters made another stand on Wednesday with a sweetened Senate version in hopes of building momentum. The Senate was seen as more supportive than the House, where all 435 seats are on the ballot on Election Day.

The House vote showed how little influence the president has these days on Capitol Hill.

While a majority of Democrats supported the plan, two-thirds of the GOP membership voted “no.” Bush reportedly called nearly every Republican in his home-state delegation. But only four of Texas‘ 19 Republican members voted with him.

“He talked about how he was going to sprint to the end. But he’s sprinting through knee-deep mud,” said Fred Greenstein, a political scientist at Princeton University and author of books on the presidency. “He is one of the lamest of lame-duck presidents.”

With his approval rating in the mid-20s, Bush is seeing what he once liked to call his “political capital” about as devalued as an investment in mortgage-backed securities.

Despite being the first president with a master’s degree in business administration, Bush until recently remained mostly behind the scenes, letting Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson be the point man. But while Paulson clearly knows the subject, he helped fuel suspicions among some that fat cat financial barons would be the prime beneficiaries, given Paulson’s background as former CEO of brokerage Goldman Sachs.

Jack Kemp, the 1996 GOP vice presidential candidate and now an adviser to John McCain, said, “I don’t want to criticize Secretary Paulson because I think he’s done an able job. … But I don’t think this has been sold very carefully or marketed very carefully to both the center left and the center right who worry about taxpayers and Main Street and homeowners.”

“I’ve been calling a lot of conservatives to try to convince them that this is the proper thing to do and an immediate thing that has to be done,” said Kemp, who as housing secretary under the first President Bush helped oversee the Resolution Trust Corp. that tackled the 1980s-1990s savings and loan crisis.

Polls show the economy as the dominant national issue. Large numbers — eight in 10 — fear the financial crisis will impact them directly, according to an AP-Gfk poll conducted Sept. 27-30. Yet 45 percent of all adults still opposed the proposed government bailout, with 38 percent in favor and 16 percent not sure. The poll, as well as other recent ones, found more support when words like “rescue” or “investment” are being used.

The current administration strategy is to persuade Congress and the nation that the plan isn’t a “bailout,” especially one for Wall Street, but a vital step to allow the U.S. to buy an array of bad mortgage-related securities from weakened financial companies so they can raise fresh capital and resume normal lending.

“It’s very important for (lawmakers) to take this very seriously to get credit flowing again,” Bush told reporters on Wednesday.

The administration has been taken to task in many quarters for being asleep on financial industry regulation.

While the White House did call early on — unsuccessfully — for tougher regulation of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it also cultivated a culture encouraging more and more home ownership, from Bush’s trumpeting of an “ownership society” to failure to crack down on financial institutions that wrote mortgages for people who clearly couldn’t afford them.

With the election so close, Bush’s options for political leverage are limited. GOP consultant Rich Galen suggested that’s likely why the president put Paulson in the driver’s seat. “It makes sense when you’re dealing with an issue that is this complex, this fragile, five weeks out from a major election where everything is politicized.”

And because of — or in spite of — Paulson’s ties with Wall Street, many lawmakers trust him more because of that, Galen suggested. “It takes the politics essentially out of it. He understands the semicolons, knows the nuances of what the causes and effects of some of these things are.”

A group of conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives offered a mortgage insurance plan on Thursday as an alternative to the Bush administration’s $700-billion Wall Street bailout.

As Congress struggled to find agreement on modifying the massive Bush proposal to attack the housing market crisis, three members of the Republican Study Committee criticized the administration’s proposal and presented their own ideas.

“We think this insurance model works… This is an alternative,” Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan said at a press briefing where he distributed a one-page proposal.

He said dozens of House Republicans are involved in the group developing the alternative insurance approach.

Texas Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the study committee, said its more than 100 members “remain skeptical, fearful and unconvinced” about the administration’s plan.

“The insurance model is one that appeals to us,” he said.

The conservative group called for the U.S. government to offer insurance coverage for the roughly half of all mortgage-backed securities that it does not already insure.

The Treasury Department, they said, should charge premiums to holders of those securities to finance the insurance.

They also called for temporary tax cuts and regulatory relief for businesses. In addition, they said, financial institutions participating in their proposed program would have to disclose more about their mortgage asset holdings.

The Alaska lawmaker directing an abuse-of-power investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin promised Friday the probe will be finished before the election, despite refusals by key witnesses to testify, including the governor’s husband.

After waiting 35 minutes for Todd Palin and two state administrative employees to appear under subpoena before the state Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Hollis French condemned their refusal to testify and the attorney general’s broken promise that seven other witnesses would testify who were not subpoenaed.

French said the retired prosecutor hired by the Alaska Legislature to investigate Palin, Stephen Branchflower, will conclude his investigation by Oct. 10. Still, that report will not include testimony from the Republican vice presidential nominee, her husband or most of the top aides Branchflower hoped to interview.

Sarah Palin’s allies hoped the investigation would be delayed past the election to spare her any troublesome revelations — or at least the distraction — before voters have made their choice. Palin’s reputation as clean-government advocate who takes on entrenched interests is central to her appeal as Republican John McCain’s running mate, and possibly at risk in the probe.

Palin initially promised to cooperate in the investigation, telling the Legislature to “hold me accountable.” Lawmakers were investigating accusations she dismissed the state’s public safety commissioner because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper. She now opposes the investigation.

Palin spokesman Bill McAllister declined to comment Friday. The McCain campaign said there are concerns about the effect of political influence on the Legislature’s inquiry and Palin will provide any information needed to a separate investigation by the Alaska State Personnel Board.

The committee subpoenaed six people to appear Friday to testify or meet for private interviews with Branchflower. French said three of those six had complied. Todd Palin, special assistant Ivy Frye and Randy Ruaro, who is the governor’s deputy chief of staff, did not.

Todd Palin’s attorney sent French a letter Thursday listing Palin’s objections to the Legislature’s investigation of his wife. Among them, the attorney said, were jurisdiction questions, separation of power issues and an inconvenient travel schedule.

Subpoenas were approved on seven other government employees, but not served because the state attorney general’s office had agreed to cooperate, French said. But Attorney General Talis Colberg earlier this week reversed himself, saying the governor declined to participate and that Palin administration employees would not appear.

French said subpoenas will be issued for those seven people, ordering them to testify on Sept. 26.

Witnesses who refuse to testify can be found in contempt under Alaska law. But the full Legislature must be in session, which won’t happen until January. That means witnesses can stonewall without penalty beyond the Nov. 4 election, lawmakers said.

One of them, Sen. Gene Therriault, opposed the subpoenas. He said Friday the investigation was intended to uncover whether the governor was justified in firing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, and he believes she was.

Palin fired Monegan in July. It later emerged that Palin, her husband and several high-level staffers had contacted Monegan about state trooper Mike Wooten. Palin maintains she fired Monegan over budget disagreements.

Wooten had gone through a nasty divorce from Palin’s sister before Palin became governor. Monegan has said no one from the administration ever told him directly to fire Wooten, but he said their repeated contacts made it clear they wanted Wooten gone.

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Troopergate. It’s a political he-said, she-said that has dogged Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for nearly two months and is likely to do so for another two months leading to the Nov. 4 presidential election.

The little-known vice presidential candidate faces accusations of firing public safety commissioner Walt Monegan in what amounts to a messy Palin family drama dating to her pre-gubernatorial days. Monegan had refused to fire a state trooper who had gone through a messy divorce from Palin’s sister.

The accuser is blogger and rental car executive Andrew Halcro, a Republican-turned-Independent who lost to Palin in the 2006 governor’s race.

The accused is Palin, the rising Republican star with a clean-hands reputation who has the most to lose.

The man in the middle is former commissioner, Monegan, who says Palin never told him to fire the trooper, but he felt pressure to do so from members of her administration.

Then there’s trooper Mike Wooten, who used a Taser on his stepson, Palin’s nephew Payton. Wooten has been reprimanded for violating nearly a dozen laws and departmental policies since December 2001.

It’s now in the hands of a state-hired investigator working for a Republican-dominated legislative committee that hopes to sort out the mess.

Palin steadfastly denies the allegations, and with her signature resolve, said she welcomes the investigation. “Hold me accountable,” she challenge her critics.

With Palin now in the national spotlight as McCain’s choice as running mate, the investigation could get more attention than the federal corruption probes involving Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and others that already is besetting this state.

“With this appointment, you’ve given an obscure investigation more national limelight than any grand jury,” said Democratic consultant Dane Strother. “Think about it, if they come down on her, what is McCain going to do?”

McCain’s campaign says it’s not worried about the investigation. “The bottom line is Governor Palin has a proven record championing transparency in government and we are confident in that record,” said McCain spokeswoman Maria Comella.

Monegan was fired in July, after he declined a transfer to become the director to the state’s alcohol control board.

At the time Palin said she wanted the department to move in a new direction. But later, after Monegan said he felt pressured to fire Wooten, Palin at a news conference said Monegan wasn’t a team player, didn’t do enough to fill trooper vacancies and battle alcohol abuse issues in rural Alaska.

State lawmakers have long said they understand that Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time.

But they want to know if Palin abused her power with the potential motives of this firing being personal rather than work-related.

It began with a July 17 blog posting from Halcro, whose accusations gained momentum when Monegan publicly said he felt pressure from Palin’s administration to fire Wooten.

A few days later, the state approved $100,000 to hire an outside investigator, former Anchorage prosecutor Stephen Branchflower, to look into the firing.

Monegan could not be reached for comment, but he recently told the Anchorage Daily News that he was never directly told by Palin or anyone to fire Wooten. But he maintained that Palin, members of her administration and her husband, Todd Palin, raised the issue about Wooten’s employment numerous times.

A month after Monegan was dismissed, Palin revealed that at least two dozens calls were made from her staff members to Department of Public Safety officials, also questioning Wooten’s employment. But she denied orchestrating the calls.

One of those took place between Frank Bailey, Palin’s director of boards and commissions, and an Alaska state trooper serving as a liaison to the Legislature.

In the recorded conversation, Bailey is heard saying: “Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, why on earth hasn’t, why is this guy still representing the department? He’s a horrible recruiting tool. … You know, I mean from their perspective, everyone’s protecting him.”

Palin has said she had no knowledge of the call, and Bailey told The Associated Press that he made the call without direction from anyone.

This investigation is separate from a higher profile federal probe of corruption of Alaska politics.

Stevens, the longest serving Republican in U.S. Senate history, faces trial later this month for allegedly lying on federal disclosure forms to hide $250,000 in gifts from VECO Corp. The state’s only congressman, Rep. Don Young, also is under investigation. Five former and current state lawmakers have either been sentenced to federal prison or await trial on bribery and conspiracy charges.

This investigation into Monegan’s dismissal has more than its share of subplots as well. The probe into Palin’s involvement if any was ordered by a Republican-dominated state legislative council that includes one of the lawmakers under a federal bribery indictment. And Branchflower, the investigator, is a former Anchorage prosecutor whose wife used to work for Monegan at the Anchorage Police Department.

Wooten did not a return message left Sunday on his cell phone by The Associated Press.

Ramping up their effort to drive a wedge between Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters and Barack Obama, the McCain campaign is to broadcast a new ad starting Monday featuring the Wisconsin Democrat who lost her slot as a convention delegate after saying she’d cast her ballot for McCain instead of Obama here.

The commercial, which will air in this market as the Democratic convention gets underway, is aimed squarely at the hearts of Clinton loyalists and at the notebooks of the thousands of reporters who are sniffing for the scent of discord between the two primary rivals.

“I’m a proud Hillary Clinton Democrat,” says Debra Bartoshevich, a Racine-area nurse, as she looks into the camera. “She had the experience and judgment to be president. Now, in a first for me, I’m supporting a Republican, John McCain.”

Bartoshevich has become something of a minor celebrity in the political world, especially among die-hard Clinton fans. After making her intentions public in June, she was removed as a delegate at the Wisconsin state Democratic convention. McCain paid the lifelong Democrat a visit last month, offering her a ride on the Straight Talk Express during a campaign swing through the state.

In addition to being featured on TV, Bartoshevich has also come out to Denver. Along with other independents and Democrats supporting McCain — including former Rep. Tim Penny (D-Minn.) and Silver Salazar, the brother of Democratic Colorado Rep. John Salazar and Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar — she’ll hold a press conference Monday morning to tout their support for the GOP nominee.

Additionally, McCain’s campaign said that Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who has become among the GOP’s most visible women surrogates, will be in town to meet privately with some Democrats who backed Clinton in the primary and may not yet be fully committed to Obama.

“The Obama campaign is doing their best to paper over the deep divisions in their party among the many Hillary Clinton supporters who do not want Barack Obama to be president,” said McCain senior adviser Matt McDonald. “We want these voters to know that they still have the choice to vote for a president who is ready in this election and John McCain would welcome their support.

“There are a significant number [of Democrats] that want Hillary Clinton,” RNC Chairman Mike Duncan told reporters today during an open house of the temporary war room the GOP has opened up to counter-program the Democrats this week. “Typically when parties are split, the other one wins.”

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll released last week made plain why Republicans are trying to play up divisions. According to the survey, 21 percent of Clinton supporters are supporting McCain and that another 27 percent are still holding out.

Which explains the last line in Bartoshevich’s ad

“A lot of Democrats will vote McCain,” she said. “It’s okay, really!”

UPDATE: Wisconsin state Party State Chair Joe Wineke replied: “The vast majority of Hillary supporters are strongly behind Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party is united for victory in November. The reason is clear: John McCain is out of touch with the struggles of middle class and working families. Hillary supporters know that Barack Obama has a great plan to provide tax relief for 95% of Americans, and turn our economy around for all Americans, while John McCain offers four more years of George W. Bush’s massive giveaways to the wealthy elite and corporate giants.”

Add another book to the pile from this year’s presidential campaign, although this one is an especially quick and easy read.

“My Dad, John McCain,” by the Republican candidate’s 23-year-old daughter Meghan, is heavily illustrated and aimed at readers aged 5 to 10. Coming to bookstores soon from publisher Aladdin, it understandably portrays McCain in heroic terms.

Recounting his refusal to be released from a North Vietnamese prison ahead of his fellow captives, Meghan writes, “I think only a great man would have made that choice.”

When he returned from the war, she writes, “my dad met and married my mom, Cindy.” She notes the birth of herself and her two brothers, and the adoption of her sister Bridget, but does not mention McCain’s first marriage or the daughter it produced.

In what is surely a safe bet, the book projects into the future: “In September 2008, the Republican Party had a big meeting, the Republican National Convention. And on that day, my dad was officially chosen as the Republican candidate for president of the United States.”

Reporters don’t like being beaten on a major political story, especially by a supermarket tabloid. And being beaten up over not reporting one is even less appealing.

But a sexual affair can have just two people who know the truth. Without witnesses, documents, photographs or some form of irrefutable evidence pointing to the truth, news organizations will not endanger their own integrity.

That made it difficult to prove — and to print — the rumors that John Edwards had cheated on his seriously ill wife while running for president. Reporters were left to poke around the edges of a potentially career-ending scandal in search of an opening.

“It’s not like they didn’t know it was there,” said Mark Feldstein, a former investigative reporter who teaches journalism at George Washington University.

“Proof is the biggest issue,” Feldstein said. “The National Enquirer is not well-regarded as a news source by the news media.”

Last year the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Edwards had an extramarital affair. It reported last month that the former senator had fathered a “love child.” Readers of the popular if trashy weekly — perhaps some who only glance at the headlines at the checkout counter — joined the political enemies of the handsome Democrat in asking why other news media were not carrying the story.

So did many of those who live in the blogosphere, where the Enquirer story was taken as fact in spite of its anonymous sources. Where, they asked, were the reports on CNN, in The New York Times, on the news wire of The Associated Press? The AP had a fair number of inquiries by phone and e-mail as to when it would report the Edwards affair.

The answer for the AP and many other news media was simple: When it could be confirmed. And it never was confirmed to the AP’s satisfaction or, apparently, to the satisfaction of others until Edwards himself owned up to the infidelity in an interview with ABC News.

“We began pursuing the story soon after it first appeared. But the standard for proof in this kind of intimate behavior is and should be very high,” said Michael Oreskes, AP’s managing editor for U.S. news. “Better to get it right even if we couldn’t get it first.”

After Edwards dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination, questions about his marital fidelity lost much of their relevance to the presidential race. Yet the affair still made news, even if he timed his confession for a Friday in August on the opening day of the Summer Olympics to soften the impact of a sex scandal.

Efforts had failed to find someone who could reveal the facts or to uncover a document linking Edwards to 42-year-old Rielle Hunter. No father is listed on the birth certificate, which the AP and other news organizations had obtained, and other evidence such as Edwards’ political action committee paying her $100,000 for videos was only circumstantial.

That left little for reporters. The AP had been among those reporting in October 2007 that Edwards flatly stated that the Enquirer’s initial story was false — a lie, he now admits. Still, the opening allowed news organizations to report what they otherwise stayed away from.

The process repeated itself a few weeks ago when the Enquirer reported that Edwards had paid a late-night visit to Hunter and her child. He called the allegation “tabloid trash” when a reporter asked about it on July 23 — not exactly a lie but certainly a description designed to deceive. Again, most news organization were loath to pick up the new Enquirer report, beyond the denial, and those who could have revealed the truth remained silent.

“I think the mainstream news media were responsible for not airing it and not printing it earlier. There really wasn’t anything to report,” Feldstein said. “If the story were false, it would be a tremendously hurtful thing for his family and professionally lethal to him.”

Reporters looked for indirect ways to get at the story. The Raleigh News & Observer and others reported this week that the rumors and Edwards’ silence about them were affecting plans for him to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Within days, Edwards broke his silence, an event sure to burst the dam that held back details about the affair, predictions for Edwards’ future and criticism over how the news media got scooped by a publication they don’t respect.

President Bush hailed a new “degree of durability” in security gains in Iraq Thursday, saying it should permit him to announce further U.S. troop reductions later this year.

With the war in its sixth year and violence substantially decreased in recent weeks, Bush gave a brief and hastily arranged update on the war that focused on several fronts of progress.

He said that violence is at its lowest ebb since the spring of 2004, that forces are in their third consecutive month with lower violence levels holding steady, and that Iraqi forces are becoming increasingly capable of both fighting and securing the country.

“The progress is still reversible,” Bush acknowledged. But he added, “There now appears to be a degree of durability in gains.”

Looking ahead to the next recommendation on troop levels from U.S. generals in Iraq, Bush suggested its reasonable to expect “further reductions in our combat forces, as conditions permit.”

Bush’s four minutes of remarks showed him eager to talk progress. But he attached qualifications at every step, wary of repeating the mistake of his so-called “Mission Accomplished” speech over five years ago, in May 2003.

“We remain a nation at war,” he said. “The terrorists remain dangerous and they are determined to strike our country and our allies again.”

His appearance was timed to Friday’s start of reduced tour lengths for U.S. troops. Starting Aug. 1, Army units heading to Iraq will serve 12-month tours rather than the 15 months that soldiers are currently deployed. That’s a milestone that Bush wanted to spotlight even though it won’t apply to troops now serving.

Bush said this reduction “will relieve the burden on our forces and it will make life easier for our wonderful military families.”

The statement also coincided with a growing acceptance that the mission in Iraq is starting to shift, from mainly combat to mainly training Iraqi forces, securing the Iraqi border with Iran, rebuilding the economy and battling foreign terrorists.

Still, the conflict remains a key issue in the presidential campaign. Republican nominee in waiting Sen. John McCain has repeatedly accused presumed Democratic standardbearer Barack Obama of planning a reckless withdrawal. Obama has countered that the United States never should have gone to war there in the first place.

Increasing numbers of people in this country believe the U.S. troop increase in Iraq has helped improve the situation there. According to a USA Today-Gallup Poll conducted last weekend, 48 percent say the buildup has made things better. That’s up from 40 percent who said so in February and 22 percent in July 2007.

On the other hand, 56 percent say the U.S. erred in invading Iraq in the first place. That figure is down slightly from the spring, but has changed little over the past two years.

About 145,000 troops remain on the ground in Iraq, now that all the combat brigades sent last year as part of the so-called surge have returned home as of this month. But that’s still higher than the roughly 130,000-135,000 who were there before the troop increase.

Offering a concrete example of the gains made, Bush noted that Iraqi forces are taking the lead in a new offensive this week in the Diyala province northeast of the capital of Baghdad, considered one of the last major al-Qaida strongholds in the region.

About 50,000 U.S.-backed Iraqi military and police forces have launched a major operation against al-Qaida insurgents there.

“This operation is Iraqi-led; our forces are playing a supporting role,” Bush said. “In the months ahead, the Iraqis will continue taking the lead in more military operations across the country.”

Bush somewhat improbably claimed progress on negotiations for a long-term agreement with Iraq governing the U.S. troop presence there, including everything from rules of engagement to drivers’ licenses for the military. The White House’s original goal was to have it completed by Thursday — the end of July. The United Nations mandate that now allows the U.S. to be in Iraq expires Dec. 31.

But the difficult talks have spawned many disputes, including over setting timelines for troop withdrawals, and the best hope now seems to be only a stopgap agreement by the end of the year. With only a few months left of the Bush administration, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken a toughened stance on its own demands.

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