Two of a Kind?

The Front-Door Campaign

The White House, meanwhile, says there is controlling legal authority allowing Bush to host what certainly seemed like a campaign event on federal property.

Remember how Bill Clinton and Al Gore got in trouble in the 1990s when it came to campaign activities in the White House? Clinton hosted coffees for donors and allowed some to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom. Gore made fundraising calls from his office and declared there was "no controlling legal authority" prohibiting it. The question became: When is the executive mansion a federal office and when is it the president's home?

Bush's team said it consulted with lawyers before inviting McCain to the White House for last week's endorsement. "The president was pleased today to invite Senator John McCain to his home, and invited him in through the front door," Dana Perino said Tuesday. Bush and McCain then had lunch before appearing together in the Rose Garden. "I can tell you that, in checking with the counsel's office, all of these events and activities were thoroughly evaluated and approved," Perino said.

Spies Like Us

The White House continues to reshape the intelligence board that is supposed to give the president independent, nonpartisan advice about the effectiveness of the nation's spy agencies. Bush last week appointed to the panel his former homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend.

The appointment came days after Bush signed a little-noticed executive order reconstituting the 16-member panel. First formed under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, it was renamed the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President John F. Kennedy. Bush renamed it the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and switched around the duties of the Intelligence Oversight Board, a committee of the broader panel.

The White House said the new order was intended to clarify lines of authority by splitting the oversight board's duties with the director of national intelligence, a position created by Congress in 2004 after intelligence failures in Iraq.

Critics say that the new order is intended to gut independent oversight and that Townsend's appointment indicated the president wanted another loyalist on the panel.

Moving On Up

More personnel shuffling at the White House: Tobi Merritt Edwards moves up to associate counsel. Felipe Eduardo Sixto is promoted to special assistant for intergovernmental affairs. And Nancy Theis has been elevated from director of the comment line to director of presidential correspondence.

Quote of the Week

"He said he was having a hot dog, so I had a hot dog."

-- McCain, on his lunch with President Bush

to celebrate his presumptive GOP nomination