Caught on Tape

Bush asks what the locals think, and Capt. David Williams explains that voter registration is up -- and then describes what someone else has heard from the locals, since he himself evidently hasn't spoken to any.

Bush asks how life has changed since the troops first got there, and Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo tells him about the time she met Bush before in New York after 9/11 -- and then answers his earlier question about whether Iraqi troops have improved.

Bush's own delivery was awkward, and his attempts at bonhomie were stymied by the time-lag.

Sense of Foreboding

Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker write in The Washington Post: "A series of scandals involving some of the most powerful Republicans in Washington have converged to disrupt President Bush's agenda, distract aides and allies, and exacerbate political problems for an already weakened administration, according to party strategists and White House advisers.

"With Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove returning to a grand jury as early as today, associates said the architect of Bush's presidency has been preoccupied with his legal troubles, a diversion that some say contributed to the troubled handling of Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court. White House officials are privately bracing for the possibility that Rove or other officials could be indicted in the next two weeks. . . .

"Several Republicans close to Bush said they believe the CIA leak investigation has taken a particular toll, reducing Rove's role in key decisions and prompting Bush to rely on other, less sure-footed advisers. . . .

"Two Republicans close to the White House said officials are nervous that Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, the two most powerful staffers in the federal government, could be indicted by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald within two weeks. While the idea struck many on the Bush team as unfathomable a few months ago, now the common assumption is that both men could be in trouble."

Richard W. Stevenson writes in the New York Times that White House staffers are worried about indictments that have "the potential to upend the professional lives of everyone at the White House for the remainder of Mr. Bush's second term. . . .

"The result, say administration officials and friends and allies on the outside who speak regularly with them, is a mood of intense uncertainty in the White House that veers in some cases into fear of the personal and political consequences and anger at having been caught in the snare of a special prosecutor. . . .

"Mr. Bush joked late last year with Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, about why Mr. Cooper was not yet in jail for fighting a subpoena demanding that he testify about a conversation with a source who later turned out to be Mr. Rove. These days, though, the leak investigation is almost never spoken of openly within the West Wing, and certainly not made light of, administration officials say."

It was a madhouse this morning at the stakeout spot affectionately knows as "Monica Beach," as Rove entered a federal courthouse.

Poll Watch

A Fox News poll "finds 40 percent of Americans today approve and 51 percent disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president. This is a new low for the president's approval rating -- though down only 1 point from last month's low of 41 percent approval.

"As has been the case for much of his presidency, Bush's approval rating shows a huge partisan gap; however, this is the first time of his presidency that approval among Republicans has dropped below 80 percent."

The Pew Research Center reports: "President George W. Bush's poll numbers are going from bad to worse. His job approval rating has fallen to another new low, as has public satisfaction with national conditions, which now stands at just 29%. And for the first time since taking office in 2001, a plurality of Americans believe that George W. Bush will be viewed as an unsuccessful president."

Incidentally, for those of you who read yesterday's column about Bush's two percent approval rating among blacks in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the Pew poll has a larger sample and it finds Bush's approval rating among blacks at 12 percent, down only slightly from 14 in July. Here are those results.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll with Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, told me late yesterday that the 2 percent figure was "a striking finding." He said that 2 percent may be on the most extreme point within the margin of error, but nevertheless reflects that "something significant has happened" to black public opinion since Hurricane Katrina.

McClellan's Very Bad Day

Even by recent standards, yesterday's news briefing was a doozy.

I have neither the time nor space to do it justice.

But first, McClellan tried umbrage as a way to deflect questions about the troop videoconference.

"Q Scott, why did the administration feel it was necessary to coach the soldiers that the President talked to this morning in Iraq?

"MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, I don't know what you're suggesting.

"Q Well, they discussed the questions ahead of time. They were told exactly what the President would ask, and they were coached, in terms of who would answer what question, and how they would pass the microphone.

"MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, are you suggesting that what our troops were saying was not sincere, or what they said was not their own thoughts?"

Then, when Hearst columnist and briefing room elder stateswoman Helen Thomas asked him about Iraq, he accused her of being soft on terror.

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Helen, the President recognizes that we are engaged in a global war on terrorism. And when you're engaged in a war, it's not always pleasant, and it's certainly a last resort. But when you engage in a war, you take the fight to the enemy, you go on the offense. And that's exactly what we are doing. We are fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here. September 11th taught us --

"THOMAS: It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism. The President recognizes this requires a comprehensive strategy, and that this is a broad war, that it is not a law enforcement matter."

McClellan then called on Terry Moran, but Moran jumped to Thomas's defense.

"MORAN: On what basis do you say Helen is opposed to the broader war on terrorism?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, she certainly expressed her concerns about Afghanistan and Iraq and going into those two countries. I think I can go back and pull up her comments over the course of the past couple of years.

"MORAN: And speak for her, which is odd.

"MR. McCLELLAN: No, I said she may be, because certainly if you look at her comments over the course of the past couple of years, she's expressed her concerns -- "

"THOMAS: "I'm opposed to preemptive war, unprovoked preemptive war."

He continued his stonewall on all matters even vaguely related to the CIA leak case.

And after a long and fruitless back-and-forth with CBS News's John Roberts, McClellan criticized Roberts' coverage of the Miers nomination.

At one point, CNN'S Bob Franken shouted out: "Scott, isn't the idea we ask the questions and you provide the answers?"

McClellan responded: "Yes, and I was providing the answer. Can I not say what I want to say? . . . Isn't it my right to talk and say what I want to?"

Miers Watch

The Washington Post's Fred Barbash is blogging the Miers nomination.

More Axes of Evil?

Douglas Jehl writes in the New York Times: "Two months before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush told Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he 'wanted to go beyond Iraq' in dealing with the spread of illicit weapons and mentioned Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on a list of countries posing particular problems, according to notes taken by one of Mr. Blair's advisers cited in a new book. . . .

"The document is revealing in other ways not described in the book. It records a conversation between the leaders a day before they met in Washington, and shows that they discussed whether to seek a second United Nations resolution imposing an ultimatum on Iraq before beginning any military action. . . .

" 'His biggest concern was looking weak,' the British document says, describing Mr. Bush."

Pinter vs. Bush

The Nobel Committee may just have a grudge against President Bush.

First they give the peace prize to administration critic Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Then they give the literature prize to Harold Pinter, who has called British Prime Minister Tony Blair a "deluded idiot" and Bush a "mass murderer."

Pinter's own Web site offers a window into the author's feelings about American militarism. For instance, one poem starts:

"Here they go again,

"The Yanks in their armoured parade

"Chanting their ballads of joy

"As they gallop across the big world

"Praising America's God."