Signs of Change

"The president did not mean that a strong military presence would . . . remain nearly six years after the US-led invasion, but merely was addressing a theoretical question about when the troops will be withdrawn, McClellan told reporters."

Here's the text of McClellan's gaggle yesterday: "I think some of the coverage also seemed to leave the impression with readers or viewers that the President was saying that there will be large or significant numbers of troops in Iraq after he leaves office, and that's not what the question was. The question was will there be zero -- when will there be zero or no American troops in Iraq. So he was referring to that specific question."

Torture Watch

Eric Schmitt writes in the New York Times: "With the conviction on Tuesday of an Army dog handler, the military has now tried and found guilty another low-ranking soldier in connection with the pattern of abuses that first surfaced two years ago at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"But once again, an attempt by defense lawyers to point a finger of responsibility at higher-ranking officers failed in the latest case to convince a military jury that ultimate responsibility for the abuses lay farther up the chain of command."

The New York Times editorial board writes: "We've seen this sorry pattern for nearly two years now, since the Abu Ghraib horrors first shocked the world: President Bush has clung to the fiction that the abuse of prisoners was just the work of a few rotten apples, despite report after report after report demonstrating that it was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in his administration. . . .

"Mr. Bush has refused to hold himself or any of his top political appointees accountable for those catastrophic errors. Indeed, he has promoted many of them. And this is not an isolated problem. It's just one example, among many, of how this president's men run no risk of being blamed for anything that happens, not matter how egregious."

Jess Bravin writes in the Wall Street Journal: "The Bush administration will bar statements made under torture from its Guantanamo Bay military courts, reversing a White House decision in July that could have allowed such evidence to convict suspected terrorists held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. . . .

"Some policy makers . . . had been urging a ban on the use of evidence from torture. . . .

"Others, including David Addington, then counsel and now chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, and Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II, successfully opposed such a rule, arguing that commission members themselves should be free to decide how to deal with evidence allegedly gained through torture, officials said."

Domestic Spying Watch

Katherine Shrader writes for the Associated Press: "A vocal Republican critic of the Bush administration's eavesdropping program will preside over Senate efforts to write the program into law, but he was pessimistic Wednesday that the White House wanted to listen.

" 'They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it,' Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong.' "

The Philadelphia Daily News editorial board writes: "In an attempt to rein in the Bush administration and its cowboy tactics with the illegal wiretapping of Americans making calls overseas, various Republicans are floating proposed legislation that would make the president's actions legal. . . .

"Rather than trying to fix a law that wasn't broken until Bush decided to break it, Congress should be considering censuring the president. Otherwise the message from Congress to future presidents will be break any law you want."

The Risks of Ownership

Brendan Murray writes for Bloomberg: "President George W. Bush has tried to sell Americans on an 'ownership society' that would create more wealth -- and more Republicans in the process. The stock market hasn't accommodated.

"The Standard & Poor's 500 Index -- the benchmark for American equities -- is down 2.8 percent since Bush took office five years and two months ago. That's the worst performance during the same stage of any two-term administration in the past half century except that of Richard M. Nixon.

"The market's performance is undermining a central goal of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser. Borrowing from Margaret Thatcher's privatization push in the U.K. in the 1980s, Rove's theory is that if more Americans make their own financial decisions and the last vestiges of a welfare state are dismantled, a culture of ownership will spring up. The ranks of Republican voters, the idea goes, will swell along with it.

" 'The ownership society looked very attractive on paper,' said Jacob Hacker, a political science professor at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. 'But once you flesh out the changes, people become very concerned because they are already fearful that their economic security is slipping away.' "

Bush Family Watch

Walter F. Roche Jr. writes in the Los Angeles Times: "As President Bush embarks on a new effort to shore up public support for the war in Iraq, an uncle of the commander in chief is collecting $2.7 million in cash and stock from the recent sale of a company that profited from the war.

"A report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that William H.T. Bush collected just under $1.9 million in cash plus stock valued at more than $800,000 from the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc. to DRS Technologies of New Jersey."

His company experienced record growth as a result of expanded U.S. military contracts, some awarded on a no-bid basis.

Cynthia Leonor Garza writes in the Houston Chronicle: "Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil."

Jean Becker, former president George H.W. Bush's chief of staff, told Garza: "Mrs. Bush is obviously an enthusiastic supporter of her son. She is genuinely supportive of his program" and "honestly felt this would be a great way to help the (evacuee) students."

The Scare

Del Quentin Wilber and Henri E. Cauvin write in The Washington Post: "A French citizen was arrested on disorderly conduct charges yesterday after he threw a bundle of papers over a gate of the White House, forcing police to call in the bomb squad, seal the area and close off Lafayette Square, authorities said."

A Veto Record

Richard Benedetto writes in USA Today: "President Bush today becomes the longest-sitting president since Thomas Jefferson not to exercise his veto, surpassing James Monroe.

"Monroe was in office 1,888 days before he vetoed his first bill on May 4, 1822, a measure to impose a toll on the first federal highway. Jefferson never exercised his veto during two terms in 1801-09.

"Today is Bush's 1,889th day in office, and no veto is in sight. As of Wednesday, Congress had sent him 1,091 bills. He signed them all."

Late Night Anger

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, talking about his censure resolution. Crooks and Liars has the video.

Feingold: "I was taught that it's the Congress that makes the laws and the president is supposed to sign them and he's supposed to enforce them. He's not just supposed to make them up. And on this illegal wiretapping, he apparently just decided that he didn't like things the way there were, and made up his own law. I don't think we can let him get away with that. So I think it's a pretty mild step to say, by resolution, Mr. President, you did the wrong thing. How about admitting it, and maybe apologizing?"

Stewart, in conclusion: "This feels like some attempt at accountability, and that's what I really like about it. Because it seems like the worse you screw up, with these guys, the bigger the trophy they give you."

Froomkin Watch

I'll be off tomorrow. (If you're at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy event at the National Press Club, look for me.) The column will resume on Monday.