The Domesticated President

Here's a preview, from his Arizona speech: "I wish I could just snap my fingers and lower the price of gasoline for you. The markets don't work that way. I'd be snapping if I could do it. (Laughter.) But we've got a strategy and a plan to help you."

About That Medicare Plan

Ron Hutcheson writes for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "Shifting his focus from the war in Iraq to the home front, President Bush on Monday prodded sons and daughters to help their parents sign up for the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit."

Richard Benedetto writes in USA Today: "Bush tried to allay fears among seniors about signing up for the benefit."

Education, Unmentioned

John Harwood writes in the Wall Street Journal that education was a winning issue for Bush, for a while. But no more.

"Today the president's signal education achievement, the No Child Left Behind Act, is mired in controversy across the political spectrum. Democratic-leaning 'blue states' and Republican-leaning 'red states' are both complaining -- the former claiming inadequate funding and the latter resentful of what they consider federal mandates. A senior White House official says Democrats have regained a significant edge in public regard on education."

Johanna Neuman writes in the Los Angeles Times: "In his State of the Union address in January, President Bush hailed the progress of his No Child Left Behind Act in the nation's elementary schools and called on lawmakers to extend the program to high schools."

But that's not going to happen.

" 'The president's idea was dead on arrival,' said Robert Schaeffer, longtime public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. 'Now it is well beyond rigor mortis.' "

Poll Watch

Richard Morin writes on washingtonpost.com: "Slightly more than half of the country says President Bush should meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed last year in Iraq, who is leading a protest against the war outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

"The survey found that 52 percent of the public says Bush should talk to Sheehan, who has repeatedly asked for a meeting with the president, while 46 percent said he should not. Fifty-three percent support what she is doing while 42 percent oppose her actions, according to the poll."

Additional results from the Post-ABC News poll will be available at 5 p.m. today on washingtonpost.com.

The WWII Analogy

Liz Sidoti writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush, facing a public increasingly uncomfortable with his Iraq policies, is commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II while likening that 20th-century conflict to current wars.