The Blair Bush Project

At the OAS

According to his press schedule, Bush had 50 minutes to deliver his speech yesterday to the Organization of American States meeting in Ft. Lauderdale. He wrapped it up in 13.

Michael A. Fletcher and Glenn Kessler write in The Washington Post: "President Bush on Monday urged nations of the Western Hemisphere to strengthen their democracies by embracing free-market economies and cracking down on corruption, while pointedly predicting that Cuba will ultimately be swept up in the tide of liberty that has engulfed other countries in the hemisphere. . . .

"Bush's 13-minute speech also had some thinly veiled words for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Castro who has become a hero in parts of Latin America by casting the United States as an imperialist power and who has stoked U.S. ire by nationalizing some businesses and stifling political dissent.

"Bush said countries of the OAS have a stark choice between two competing visions: one that includes representative government, integration into world markets and a faith in freedom, and another that seeks to roll back democratic progress by 'playing to fear, pitting neighbor against neighbor and blaming others for their own failures to provide for their people.' "

For those of you not keeping up, Fletcher and Kessler explain how "Bush administration policy toward Venezuela has sometimes contradicted its rhetoric on democracy."

Here's the text of Bush's speech.

The Watergate Effect

Peter Wallsten writes in the Los Angeles Times that "far more than Bush has publicly acknowledged, Watergate and its aftermath have exerted a strong influence on the policies and attitudes of the president and others now in the White House -- some of whom had front-row seats for the scandal as members of the Nixon and Ford administrations."

For instance: "Vice President Dick Cheney, who worked in the Nixon White House and served as chief of staff to President Ford, has spoken of using his current position to restore powers of the presidency that he believes were diminished as a result of Watergate and the Vietnam War. By withholding details of his energy task force meetings and advising Bush to aggressively take the reins of power after the contested 2000 election, Cheney has tried to rekindle a broad view of executive authority."

And Wallsten attempts to wring meaning from Bush's at-first-glance neutral response to the Deep Throat story.

"As the revealing of [W. Mark] Felt as Deep Throat became a kind of political Rorschach test -- with some liberals celebrating the FBI's former No. 2 official as a hero for spilling his secrets and some conservatives branding him a villain -- several people noted that President Bush's first public words on the matter drew attention to Felt's relations with the press."

" 'I'm looking forward to reading about it, reading about his relationship with the news media,' Bush said. . . .

"A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, waved off interpretations of the president's mind-set as 'an academic exercise.' He declined to comment further."