Don't Blame Me

Robert Novak writes in his syndicated column that Bolten's "selection becomes understandable as a confirmation of Karl Rove's supremacy in the White House.

"Rove holds the mundane titles of senior adviser to the president and deputy chief of staff, but scarcely anything happens in the Bush administration without his approval. Now he is more influential than ever. Andrew Card, the departing chief of staff, served (as a Cabinet member) under the senior President Bush (as Rove did not). In contrast, Bolten can thank his rise in the second Bush regime to Rove, his nominal subordinate."

Bolten replacing Card "advances Rove's project, which was obvious as early as the mid-'90s, of removing the influence of people close to the elder Bush," Novak writes.

Financial Times commentator Edward Luce writes: "Few American presidents can have received the same advice so consistently from so many different quarters as George W. Bush. And few can so consistently have ignored it. Whether from conservative allies on Capitol Hill and in the Weekly Standard, the neo-con house journal, or from liberal critics in the Democratic party and the opinion columns of the New York Times, it has been strikingly similar: overhaul your tired and discredited administration.

"Given Mr Bush's well-advertised disregard for the opinions of those outside his fiercely loyal inner circle, it is not surprising that the president has ignored such counsel."

South of the Border

Ginger Thompson writes in the New York Times from Cancun: "President Bush arrived here on Wednesday evening for a summit meeting that was intended in part to allay this country's concerns that he will not have sufficient political capital to push through broad-ranging changes in American immigration policy."

Remember Canada!

Although much of the talk today is about immigration and Mexico, Bush is in fact also meeting with the new Canadian prime minister.

North of the border, the big issue is a long-simmering dispute between the United States and Canada regarding softwood lumber. Three years ago, Bush began imposing import duties on Canadian lumber after American producers complained of de facto subsidies by the Canadian government. Arbitrators for the North American Free Trade Agreement decided in Canada's favor last summer. The U.S. stopped collecting duties, but Canada wants the $5 billion collected before that returned to its lumber producers.

CTV , the Canadian television network, reports "that secret high-level meetings took place weeks earlier between the Prime Minister's Office and the White House -- talks which could form the basis of an announcement of the resumption of negotiations in the contentious softwood dispute. . . .

"Sources told CTV's Ottawa bureau chief Robert Fife that Ian Brodie, Harper's chief of staff, and Derek Burney, the head of Harper's transition team and former ambassador to the U.S., traveled to Washington two weeks ago for high-level talks.

"The pair met in the White House with U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Bush's senior political advisor Karl Rove and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card (now resigned). . . .

"Harper's team was then called into the Oval Office for an unprecedented meeting with Bush to discuss the softwood dispute, which has tarnished relations between the two countries for years. 'The president (told) them, "We are going to resolve this issue".' . . .

"While the invite to the Oval Office came from the president, Fife learned the idea stemmed from his father, former president George H.W. Bush.

" 'President Bush Sr. went to Camp David, the presidential retreat, and he told his son: 'Look, Stephen Harper wants to end the mean-spiritedness that has characterized Canada-U.S. relations,' said Fife.

" 'And he said, "George, you are going to have to . . . resolve this softwood dispute with Canadians and then you will see much better relations".' "

James Travers writes in the Toronto Star: "U.S., Mexican and Canadian leaders like to be known as the Three Amigos. But when two presidents meet a new prime minister here today, they will be the Three Ducks. George W. Bush is a lame duck, Vicente Fox is a dead duck and Harper is the duck that didn't die."

Jill Caroll Released

Bush spent a minute with the press this morning, reacting to the release of American journalist Jill Carroll, who had been held hostage in Iraq.

"Q Mr. President, do you have a reaction to Jill Carroll's release?

" THE PRESIDENT: Thank God.

" Q What is your reaction?

" THE PRESIDENT: I'm really grateful she was released and thank those who worked hard for her release, and we're glad she's alive.

"It's good to see you all. And I'd like to make sure you work, more than you play.

" Q Are you optimistic you can resolve the softwood dispute today?

" THE PRESIDENT: I'm always optimistic."

A Different World

The transcript of Vice President Cheney's interview yesterday with the aggressively conservative talk-show host Tony Snow offers a fascinating window into Cheney's worldview, which evidently remains unshaken by the unraveling of the administration's initial case for war.

"Q Today's release by Democrats contains a lot of second-guessing about what led up to the war and the early execution of it, including the notion that it was based on faulty security. Recently a number of documents that had been retrieved from Iraq have been translated, and what we're starting to get is a picture of Saddam Hussein actively involved in training terrorists, and even talking about weapons of mass destruction. Is it possible that we actually underestimated Saddam's involvement in the international terror network?

"THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, some of us didn't. I think there are -- there's been a debate, obviously, and we've got a lot of folks who don't believe that there was any kind of a relationship there between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. I think the record is abundantly clear that Saddam Hussein was, in fact, a prime sponsor of terror. . . .

"Q Including Osama bin Laden?

"THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, we don't know the full scale of it there yet, and I don't want to make a hard and fast prediction here. But there is reporting, obviously, that we've seen over the years that there was some kind of a relationship there between the Iraqis and Osama bin Laden."

Blogger P. O'Neill writes about the transcript that "if you took out the labels for when a question is being asked or answered, it would be impossible to tell which is which." And he finds some other oddities as well.

Cheney the Jokester

Peter Carlson writes in The Washington Post: " 'I feel very comfortable up here,' Dick Cheney said as he stood at the podium at the 62nd annual Radio & Television Correspondents' Association dinner last night at the Hilton Washington.

" 'The lighting could be better, but I can still see the whites of your eyes,' the sometime quail hunter joked.

"The vice president was the featured speaker at the event, and he brought along a comic slideshow. He was pretty funny, and he seemed to be having a good time. Several times he even smiled, sort of. . . .

" 'This picture shows me at my birthday bash, when I felt myself almost losing control,' he said. And, presto, on the screen popped up a picture of a room crowded with revelers and, at the center, Cheney, sitting and poring over a stack of documents.

John Eggerton writes for Broadcasting & Cable that Cheney "said that when White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan advised him to actually show up and deliver the remarks, Cheney replied: 'Why not just post them . . . on the Corpus Christi Caller-Times (the paper given the story about Cheney's hunting accident). . . .

"Cheney ran a humorous slide show lampooning, among other things, the NSA spying flap and talk that he was being frozen out at the White House. Saying he had a picture of his 'senior advisor for wiretapping,' he showed a picture of Henry Kissinger. As he talked about a meeting he was supposed to have with the President, slide after slide showed Cheney alone.

" 'I really spend a lot of time every day with the most powerful man in Washington,' Cheney said, as a slide of Karl Rove appeared to loud laughs. 'So powerful, in fact, that he inserted that line in my remarks,' Cheney added. . . .

"Cheney said McClellan told him to rethink his whole approach to the news media. 'Here's how I've been getting ready for the press corps,' said Cheney, as a slide appeared showing him aiming what looked like a high-powered rifle with a scope."