An Unhappy Union

"In a mid-morning news conference, Bush told reporters he is skeptical of a proposed law imposing new oversights on his use of the National Security Agency to listen in on electronic communications. He also said that he will block White House aides from testifying about the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and that he will not release official White House photos of himself with former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff."

Bush made it sound like his pictures with Abramoff were purely from assembly-line style receiving lines. But that's not necessarily so. Some of the pictures appear to have been taken at the more intimate sort of events typically reserved to reward political allies.

VandeHei writes that Bush was also "adamant about not allowing top aides to testify about Hurricane Katrina. Bush, who has moved on several fronts over the past five years to strengthen the power of the presidency, said it would be damaging to him and future presidents if aides feared providing candid advice."

But what kind of advice Bush got is not the central point -- it's what kind of information he got, and what did he do with it? Isn't that fair game?

Other Abramoff News

Philip Shenon and Elisabeth Bumiller write in the New York Times: "The investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a surprising new turn on Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush. . . .

"The administration said that the appointment was routine and that it would not affect the investigation, but Democrats swiftly questioned the timing of the move and called for a special prosecutor."

Scrubbing Photos?

Blogger Josh Marshall exposes the scrubbing of Abramoff photos at the Web site of Reflections Photography, a studio that does photo shoots for many Republican political events.

Wiretap Fact Check

In today's Washington Post, Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus go into some detail about "several elements in the NSA spying debate that have been clouded by apparent contradictions and mixed messages from the government since the program was revealed last month. . . .

"Many Democratic lawmakers and legal experts have seized on these and other issues in recent days to argue that the Bush administration has been misleading in its explanations of the NSA program."

For example: "Bush and his top aides have repeatedly stressed that 'Congress' had been briefed on the program over the past four years, but have often neglected to mention that the briefings were limited to the 'Gang of Eight': the speaker and minority leader of the House; the majority and minority leaders of the Senate; and the chairmen and ranking Democrats on the two intelligence committees. And they were barred from taking notes or discussing what they heard with other lawmakers or their staffs. . . .

"Yet Dan Bartlett, counselor to Bush and White House communications director, said Monday that the lawmakers who had been briefed 'believed we are doing the right thing' and that Democratic leaders 'briefed on these programs would be screaming from the mountaintops' if they thought the program was illegally eavesdropping on Americans."

Whopper Watch

James Gordon Meek writes in the New York Daily News: "In speech after speech, President Bush claims that if the National Security Agency could have wiretapped two Al Qaeda operatives living in San Diego, the 9/11 attacks might have been thwarted.