Bush Meets Blacks Behind Closed Doors

"In statements before the war, and without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and other officials repeatedly cited the information provided by Mr. Libi as 'credible' evidence that Iraq was training Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that 'we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.'"

About Victory

Peter Grier writes in the Christian Science Monitor: "If there is one word the White House wants the American public to associate with the war in Iraq, it is probably 'victory.' President Bush said it 11 times Wednesday in his speech on rebuilding Iraq - following victory's 15 mentions in his address on the training of Iraqi forces last week.

"From the administration's point of view, the benefits of this rhetorical approach are obvious. As a theme, victory is positive, even uplifting. It might serve to counter any public impression that the US is stuck in an Iraqi morass. . . .

"But by being so forceful about complete victory the administration may have raised public expectations for a crisp, clear ending to the US experience in Iraq - an ending that may not occur during Bush's presidency, if ever."

Rumsfeld Watch

Will Dunham writes for Reuters: "U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the craftsman of U.S. Iraq war strategy and a magnet for criticism, said on Thursday he had no plans to retire from the post more than 2-1/2 years into the conflict.

" 'Those reports have been flying around since about four months after I assumed my post in 2001,' Rumsfeld, 73, told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about a New York Daily News report that White House officials are telling associates they expect him to quit early next year."

In that New York Daily News story, Thomas M. DeFrank and Kenneth R. Bazinet wrote: "Rumsfeld's deputy, Gordon England, is the inside contender to replace him, but there's also speculation that Sen. Joe Lieberman - a Democrat who ran against Bush-Cheney in the 2000 election - might become top guy at the Pentagon. . . .

"The Daily News has learned that the White House considered Lieberman for the UN ambassador's job last year before giving the post to John Bolton, a Bush adviser said."

Chris Matthews had DeFrank and Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank on his MSNBC show last night:

"MATTHEWS: Is Rumsfeld in trouble?

"MILBANK: Well, he should be by any normal standard, but I think as Tom correctly points out, that this president is not one to push somebody out when he is in a difficult spot, that's why they are just waiting for something to make a little bit of a turn here, whereby he could be eased out."

Bush the Cash Magnet

Jim VandeHei writes in The Washington Post: "Slumping poll numbers and rebellion in Republican ranks have been tormenting President Bush for months. But he is still welcomed with open arms -- and checkbooks -- when he comes to town with a promise to raise campaign cash for GOP candidates."

For instance, Bush can expect a warm embrace from [Rep. Mark Kennedy, a Republican running for the Senate in independent-minded Minnesota] today, when Bush headlines a lunch event at the Hilton Minneapolis Hotel expected to raise $1 million."

But no Bush for you, if you buck his leadership: "A top White House aide, who would not speak on the record while discussing internal strategizing, said it is difficult for Bush to campaign for Republicans such as Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.) who opposed his policies. The White House sent Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. to raise money for Chafee -- but it is unlikely Bush will work for Chafee personally."

CFR Redux

I wrote in my Tuesday column that Bush's upcoming appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations would not include the traditional question and answer session.

Peter Baker wrote in The Washington Post that only a few hundred members of the council showed up Wednesday morning and that "empty chairs were removed from the back of the ballroom before Bush arrived."

Judd Legum writes in the liberal Think Progress blog that the council sent out a desperate plea late Tuesday by e-mail, asking people who were planning on coming to bring a friend.

Legum concludes: "Apparently, most people aren't that excited about being used as a presidential prop. This may explain why Bush has preferred giving his speeches in front of military audiences, who are required to attend."

Mike Wallace's Questions

Suzanne C. Ryan interviews 87-year-old former "60 Minutes" anchor Mike Wallace:

"Q. President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?

"A. What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"

Attack of the Nobel Laureates

President Bush seems to be getting no love from the Nobel crowd. First, literature prize recipient Harold Pinter called for Bush's to be convicted of war crimes. (See yesterday's column .)

Now Mattias Karen writes for the Associated Press: "Two American Nobel Prize winners said yesterday they are worried about President Bush's attitude toward science and accused his administration of ignoring important research findings."

The Straight Dope

So this is how we find out? In a gossip column?

Lloyd Grove writes in the New York Daily News: "The Bush administration seems finally ready to admit that it was wrong about Iraq - privately, anyway.

" 'Syriana' writer-director Stephen Gaghan had an off-the-record lunch yesterday in Washington with White House officials who, he says, acknowledged that the U.S. occupation has gone from bad to worse.

" 'They think we're in a disastrous state of affairs in Iraq and that there was no plan for the aftermath,' the 40-year-old Oscar-winner revealed to Lowdown. 'They're the people who provide the talking points, and they said they were guilty of hubris at the highest level, that kind of stuff.' "

A Day in the Life

Hillary Profita of CBS's Public Eye blog spent Wednesday shadowing White House correspondent John Roberts.

Profita learned all about the daily gaggle: "No one expects the morning gaggle to offer anything new, just some informal agenda setting," she writes. Although: "'Sometimes Scott pulls the pin on a smoke bomb, throws it and starts stonewalling,' said Roberts."

Then it was on to the briefing. "The briefing is 'at times tense and heated depending on the ebb and flow of the day,' he said later. Reporters' relationships with McClellan are typically 'collegial' but 'not friendly,' Roberts said. . . .

"'If Scott actually answered a question' during the briefing, 'I might fall off my chair,' Roberts joked to me afterwards."

Robert's task for the day: "separating the new stuff from the boilerplate" then adding a "reality check."

Here is the the finished product .

Online Humor

The Onion , a satirical publication, writes: "Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

"While journalists and presidential historians had long noted Bush's deep faith and Cheney's powerful influence in the White House, few had drawn a direct correlation between the two until Tuesday, when transcripts of meetings that took place in March and April of 2002 became available."

Media Criticism

The mainstream media's emerging tenacity, it seems, is only emboldening the press critics to pile on the criticism even more, with the White House press corps as the prime target.

Sydney H. Schanberg writes in his Village Voice Press Clips column: "Every time I try to wrap my mind around President Bush's Iraq war and his associated war against the press, I come back to the lies the president and his courtiers have endlessly told. And to how they conned and cowed much of the press into being their early accomplices."

Press critic Jay Rosen returns to blogging after a hiatus with a post titled "Grokking Woodward:" "Watergate wasn't broken by reporters who had entree to the inner corridors of power. It was two guys on the Metro Desk. The experienced White House reporters didn't think much of the story. Nor did they get wind of the extraordinary abuses of power that were going on at the time. . . .

"And so [Woodward] will not be the reporter who uncovers what I see as the untold story in Washington these days. Not the missing weapons of mass destruction, or misleading the country into war, or bungling the job in Iraq, or getting D's and F's in protecting the country from another day like 09/11, but something larger: the retreat from empiricism throughout the government (so that the general who tells you how many troops you'll need is forced into retirement), and the emergence of a President who is not to be questioned (as when Bush spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations this week: no questions permitted.)"

Michael Massing writes in the New York Review of Books that "there is much talk about the need to get back to the basic responsibility of reporters, to expose wrongdoing and the failures of the political system. In recent weeks, journalists have been asking more pointed questions at press conferences, attempting to investigate cronyism and corruption in the White House and Congress, and doing more to document the plight of people without jobs or a place to live."

But he bemoans the "structural problems that keep the press from fulfilling its responsibilities to serve as a witness to injustice and a watchdog over the powerful. To some extent, these problems consist of professional practices and proclivities that inhibit reporting -- a reliance on 'access,' an excessive striving for 'balance,' an uncritical fascination with celebrities. . . . Finally, and most significantly, there's the political climate in which journalists work. Today's political pressures too often breed in journalists a tendency toward self-censorship, toward shying away from the pursuit of truths that might prove unpopular, whether with official authorities or the public."

Massing writes that the "fear of bias, and of appearing unbalanced, acts as a powerful sedative on American journalists -- one whose effect has been magnified by the incessant attacks of conservative bloggers and radio talk-show hosts. One reason journalists performed so poorly in the months before the Iraq war was that there were few Democrats willing to criticize the Bush administration on the record; without such cover, journalists feared they would be branded as hostile to the President and labeled as 'liberal' by conservative commentators."