Bush Unplugged But Unrevealing

A Bit . . . Boring?

Rick Dean, a columnist with the Topeka Capital-Journal, writes: "After joking at the start that he never cared much for lectures during his college days, the president lectured for nearly two hours, a full hour too long. Especially when the overly long Q-and-A session featured more softballs than a weekend slow-pitch tournament."

Dean compared Bush's visit unfavorably with the last time a president came to lecture at Kansas State University -- "in 1970 when Richard Nixon, another president trapped in a war many Americans saw as unwinnable, came to K-State, one of the few campuses in America where he could be received warmly just four months after the shooting death of four students during a war protest at Kent State."

Dean writes that Nixon was heckled during his lecture -- then the crowd rose en masse to shout down the hecklers and gave Nixon several standing ovations. High drama.

But yesterday?

Dean writes: "When it finally ended, there was none of the buzz associated with the Nixon visit. Lecture halls empty with more fanfare. More people were making lunch plans than discussing Bush's explanation for terrorist surveillance. A crowd ready to spend most of the day on its feet had given the president two standing ovations. One when he entered, one when he left."

Live Online

I'll be Live Online tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET. I've missed your questions and comments.

The Abramoff Pictures

Jim VandeHei and Susan Schmidt write in The Washington Post: "Several White House officials have been briefed about pictures of President Bush and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff taken since 2001 but will not release them on grounds that they are not relevant to the ongoing money-for-favors investigation, aides said yesterday.

"'Trying to say there's more to it than the president taking a picture in a photo line is just absurd,' White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. Bush, he said, does not recall meeting Abramoff and did not do any favors for the disgraced lobbyist.

"Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty in the growing bribery and corruption scandal, was with Bush about a dozen times when pictures were taken by the official White House photographer or other participants over the past five years, according to a source familiar with Abramoff's legal situation. Abramoff, this source said, displayed at least five of them on his office desk and has told people the president talked about his children's names as well as personal details about their schooling during one encounter."

The existence of the Bush-Abramoff photos was first reported by Washingtonian magazine, and then Time magazine.

Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times: "These pictures may be worth more than a thousand words."

William Douglas and Maria Recio of Knight Ridder Newspapers quote Democratic political consultant Paul Begala: "I would love to have those pictures. I would use the pictures (in advertisements) and write `Why is this man smiling?' in the cutlines under the pictures. . . . This is a visual age. The story becomes bigger when there are pictures. It puts the scandal in the White House."