Shoots, Hides and Leaves

"I want to share some thoughts with you before I answer your questions. . . . First of all, I expect this conversation we're about to have to stay in the room. I know that's impossible in Washington.

"You've got to understand something about me. September the 11th changed the way I think. I told the people exactly what I felt at the time, and I still feel it, and that is, we must do everything in our power to protect the country.

"I wake up every morning thinking about a future attack, and therefore, a lot of my thinking, and a lot of the decisions I make are based upon the attack that hurt us.

"So one of the things I like to do, is I like to ask the team around me -- I got a good team. If any of you are ever president, make sure you surround yourself with smart, capable people -- people smarter than you in my case, it wasn't all that hard to find.

"I talked to the people whose job it is to protect the American people, and I said, 'Are we doing everything we can to protect the people?'

"It's a question you want somebody to ask, isn't it? Somebody responsible for doing the job, of providing security for the country. You'd want somebody in my position to call in the people that have got key responsibilities, such as Mike Hayden at NSA.

"And I said Mike, are we doing everything we can to protect the people and if not, come up with a program so I can say to the people we're doing our job.

"The next question I asked, was is it legal? I didn't ask that to Hayden. I asked that to the lawyers. I asked the White House lawyers, and I asked it to the Justice Department lawyers.

"See like you, I take my oath of office seriously. I swear to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. And so we had the program analyzed legally.

"But I recognized that wasn't going to be enough. And so we put constant checks on the program . . . (feed cut)."

Steve Benen writes in the Carpetbagger blog: "Bush has struggled to explain why he has the authority to circumvent the law and conduct domestic warrantless searches, so when reporters were ushered out of the room, only to discover that they could hear Bush give Republican lawmakers his personal take on the controversy, reporters' hearts probably skipped a beat. Finally, they thought, an unvarnished, no-spin take on what the president says behind closed doors when he thinks he's just among like-minded friends.

"But guess what -- that Bush is the same Bush we see all the time. He has his talking points, which he'll repeat no matter who's in the audience, and precious little else to say.

"The amiable-dunce act, unfortunately, is genuine."

Abramoff Photos Unveiled

Philip Shenon and Lowell Bergman write in the New York Times: "After weeks in which the White House has declined to release pictures of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist, the first photograph to be published of the two men shows a small, partly obscured image of Mr. Abramoff looking on from the background as Mr. Bush greets a Texas Indian chief in May 2001."

Adam Zagorin and Matthew Cooper write in Time: "Told about the photograph in January, the White House said it had no record that Abramoff was present at the meeting. Shown the photograph today, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the White House had still found no record of Abramoff's presence but confirmed that it is Abramoff in the picture."

Katrina Watch

Dana Milbank writes in Slate: "The White House is following a strategy of pre-emption in anticipation of a Wednesday House report on Hurricane Katrina that is likely to portray the administration in an unflattering light. On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff and White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend will speak at the National Emergency Management Association's midyear conference and are expected to unveil some of the conclusions of the White House's own internal report on its Katrina response.

"But it will be difficult for the White House to get in front of this tidal surge."

Spencer S. Hsu writes in The Washington Post: "Hurricane Katrina exposed the U.S. government's failure to learn the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as leaders from President Bush down disregarded ample warnings of the threat to New Orleans and did not execute emergency plans or share information that would have saved lives, according to a blistering report by House investigators. . . .

"The 600-plus-page report lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council, according to a 60-page summary of the document obtained by The Washington Post. Regarding Bush, the report found that 'earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response' because he alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance."

On the rebuilding front, Evan Thomas and Holly Bailey write in Newsweek: "A whiter New Orleans could mean a more Republican state.

"White House officials have said they see no merit in re-creating failing schools and flawed public housing in New Orleans. Still, they reject conspiracy theories about racial engineering. ('Just absurd,' says one White House aide.) Bush's advisers acknowledge, however, that the administration has felt little political pressure from voters nationwide to spend more money to rebuild New Orleans."

British Story Crosses the Pond

John Daniszewski writes in the Los Angeles Times: "It was the end of January 2003. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was five days away from giving a critical speech at the U.N. Security Council, laying out the case that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and posed a danger to world peace.

"But huddled with aides at the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were not sure there was enough evidence to convince the Security Council. . . .

"Bush proposed an alternative: paint a U.S. spy plane in United Nations colors and see if that didn't tempt Hussein's forces to shoot at it. In any case, he said, the war was 'penciled in' for March 10 and the United States would go ahead with or without a second U.N. resolution. . . .

"That is the gist of an account of the Jan. 31, 2003, meeting contained in the new edition of 'Lawless World,' a book by British author Philippe Sands."

Radioactive Man

Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times: "What happens if you're a Republican commentator and you write a book critical of President Bush that gets you fired from your job at a conservative think tank? . . .

" 'Nobody will touch me,' said Bruce Bartlett, author of the forthcoming 'Impostor: Why George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.' 'I think I'm just kind of radioactive at the moment.' "

Whitehouse.com Watch

Al Kamen writes in The Washington Post: "Dan Parisi , president of Whitehouse.com , the former porn site that became a financial services site, writes to say he's taking the site in a new direction. . . .

"It seems that people visiting the site 'only care about porn,' Parisi said, 'and I do not want to do porn again.'

" 'So we are going with [a] political site,' he said, with blogs, cartoon contests and such."