Did Bush Blink?

Anand Giridharadas and Hari Kumar write in the New York Times: "For the second day in a row, raucous protests against President Bush's visit erupted across India on Thursday."

Off To Pakistan

David Jackson writes for USA Today: "President Bush may be taking one of the most dangerous trips of his presidency today.

"He is scheduled to fly to Pakistan for an overnight visit in the capital, Islamabad. The trip comes a day after a suicide car bomber killed U.S. diplomat David Foy and three others and wounded 50 in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. . . .

"Bush's trip comes six years after President Clinton visited amid elaborate security: After switching planes in India, Clinton flew to Islamabad aboard an unmarked executive jet, behind another plane disguised as Air Force One.

"And that was a year before 9/11."

Agence France Presse reports: "Pakistan's capital is under security lockdown ahead of a visit by US President George W. Bush and a nationwide strike by Islamists against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed."

Katrina Video Still Making Waves

Peter Baker and Spencer S. Hsu write in The Washington Post: "The release of a pre-storm video showing officials warning Bush during a conference call that the hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast posed a dire threat to the city and its levees has revived a dispute the White House had hoped to put behind it: Was the president misinformed, misspoken or misleading? . . .

"To Bush aides, the seeming conflict between Bush's public statements and the private deliberations captured on tape reflects little more than an inartful statement opponents are exploiting for political purposes. . . .

"Reflecting the sensitivity of the controversy, the White House issued a three-page statement yesterday to 'set the record straight,' defend the president's actions before, during and after the storm, and accuse Democrats of using the new video 'to falsely attack the White House's Hurricane Katrina's response.' "

But Baker writes: "With midterm elections in the fall, such a video could return in the form of campaign commercials attacking Bush, and by extension Republicans, for losing an American city. In the shorter term, Bush advisers worry that it will reopen Katrina wounds and complicate the president's efforts to bring together quarreling parties to focus on reconstructing the city and region."

Marc Sandalow writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "The subject of this particular meeting happened to be a natural disaster, but to many Americans, it might as easily have been Iraq, national security or the economy.

"Critics see a president ignoring warning signs, displaying no inquisitiveness and expressing unfounded confidence in his administration's capabilities, with disastrous consequences.