Changing the Subject -- Back

"Their opponents, who include aides to Vice President Dick Cheney and some senior Pentagon officials, have argued strongly that the proposed language is vague, would tie the government's hands in combating terrorists and still would not satisfy America's critics, officials said. . . .

"A central player in the fight over the directive is David S. Addington, who was the vice president's counsel until he was named on Monday to succeed I. Lewis Libby Jr. as Mr. Cheney's chief of staff. According to several officials, Mr. Addington verbally assailed a Pentagon aide who was called to brief him and Mr. Libby on the draft, objecting to its use of language drawn from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions."

More About Addington

Douglas Jehl profiles Addington in the New York Times: "Smart, secretive and direct, Mr. Addington is a man very much in Mr. Cheney's image. . . . [H]is admirers and detractors alike say his success is rooted in his mastery of the skills of bureaucratic combat. . . .

"As Mr. Cheney's counsel since 2001, Mr. Addington has been at the center of some of the administration's fiercest fights, advocating expansive presidential powers and limited rights for terror suspects. By most accounts, he has more than held his own, in some cases overshadowing Alberto R. Gonzalez, when Mr. Gonzalez was White House counsel, and shaping the White House view in debates with the Departments of Justice, State and Defense. . . .

"Allies and opponents of Mr. Addington often describe him as a kind of legend within the bureaucracy, a man of formidable intelligence, passionate, conservative views and a frequently eviscerating style toward those who openly disagree with him."

Jehl's story reminded me of a Washington Post story from January by R. Jeffrey Smith and Dan Eggen , in which those reporters touched on Addington's apparent ability to bulldoze Gonzales when he felt like it.

"On at least two of the most controversial policies endorsed by Gonzales, officials familiar with the events say the impetus for action came from Addington -- another reflection of Cheney's outsize influence with the president and the rest of the government. Addington, universally described as outspokenly conservative, interviewed candidates for appointment as Gonzales's deputy, spoke at Gonzales's morning meetings and, in at least one instance, drafted an early version of a legal memorandum circulated to other departments in Gonzales's name, several sources said.

"Conceding that such ghostwriting might seem irregular, even though Gonzales was aware of it, one former White House official said it was simply 'evidence of the closeness of the relationship' between the two men. But another official familiar with the administration's legal policymaking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because such deliberations are supposed to be confidential, said that Gonzales often acquiesced in policymaking by others."

Bush, Flu and Fear

David Brown writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush yesterday asked Congress for $7.1 billion to help prepare the country for a global epidemic of influenza. . . .

"The president's request is similar to a $7.9 billion supplemental appropriation for flu pandemic planning assembled by Democratic leaders and passed last week by the Senate."

Here's the text of his speech.

Mike Allen writes in Time: "In announcing plans today to prepare the nation for combating a future worldwide wave of bird flu, President Bush used vocabulary and tactics that are familiar from his confrontation with global terrorism."

"Flu: Boo!" exclaims the headline atop Al Kamen 's column in The Washington Post today.

Alito Watch

Peter Baker and Charles Babington write in The Washington Post: "With its conservative base now secure, the White House turned its attention yesterday to wooing moderates in both parties as it seeks to build a Senate coalition that will confirm Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court despite the aggressive opposition of liberal Democrats."

Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times: "Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, was deeply involved in the campaign, an administration official said."

"President Pushover" is the headline atop David S. Broder 's Washington Post op-ed column this morning. He writes that "the message that has been sent is that this president is surprisingly easy to roll. . . .

"[A]fter the fiasco of the Harriet Miers nomination and the other reversals of recent days and weeks, the Alito nomination inevitably looks like a defensive move, a lunge for the lifeboat by an embattled president to secure what is left of his political base. Instead of a consistent and principled approach to major decision making, Bush's efforts look like off-balance grabs for whatever policy rationales he can find. The president's opponents are emboldened by this performance, and his fellow partisans must increasingly wonder if they can afford to march to his command."

Jimmy Carter Speaks

The former president is on a book tour, and visited with Matt Lauer on NBC's Today Show this morning.

"In the last five years, there has been a profound and radical change in the basic policies or moral values of our country," Carter said. The existence of secret CIA prisons, as exposed by The Post, "is just one indication of what has been done in this administration to change policies that have persisted all the way through our history," he said.

Laeur asked what advice Carter would give Bush.

"I think tell the American people the truth, would be one major start, about what happened to bring the country into war."

Carter had quite a list of grievances against Bush. The "insistence by our government that the CIA or others have the right to torture prisoners," the doctrine of pre-emptive war, "the abandonment of basic human rights, the derogation of American civil liberties and personal privacy, the vast rewarding in a time of war of extremely rich Americans at the expense of working class people, the abandonment of protecting the American environment -- all of these things, are massive and radical departures from what our country has seen under every president in the past 100 or more years. . . .

"It's this administration vs. every administration that has preceded it."

South America Bound

Julie Mason and John Otis write in the Houston Chronicle: "President Bush heads to South America on Thursday at a time when Washington's long-sought free-trade plan with the region has gone cold, anti-American sentiment has heated to a steady boil and massive street protests seem likely. . . .

"Bush is also hobbled by tricky relationships with several South American leaders he will meet at the summit, notably Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leftist who calls Bush 'Mr. Danger.' "

Empty Pockets?

Nedra Pickler writes for the Associated Press: "Bush revealed the contents of his pockets Tuesday to an Argentine newspaper reporter who was interviewing him in advance of a presidential trip to Latin America later this week. When the reporter from La Nacion asked Bush to show him what he carries, the president stood up, fished in his pockets, then dramatically pulled his hands out holding nothing but a white handkerchief that he waved playfully in the air.

" 'Es todo,' Bush told the Spanish-speaking reporter, meaning the handkerchief was all. 'No dinero, no mas. No wallet.'

"He doesn't need any cash, since his staff takes care of buying anything he might need. He carries no cell phone, either, since he is surrounded by aides who take care of dialing his calls. And why would he need keys since every door is held open for him and his car comes with a driver trained by the Secret Service?"

Bloggers, Where Art Thou?

Joe Strupp writes in Editor and Publisher that the wave of bloggers expected in the White House briefing room in the wake of the Jeff Gannon saga never appeared -- possibly because the briefings are so uninteresting.

"That may be a shame," Strupp writes, "since some bloggers, at least, have particular areas of obsession or expertise that can lead to unusual, and often good, questions."