Meet the 'Real Bush'

"But it also reflects a political reawakening as Republicans follow their own political interests in this midterm election year and as would-be 2008 presidential contenders seek ways to set themselves apart -- from each other and from Bush.

" 'It's open season on him. George Bush has lost trust on too many issues,' said presidential historian Thomas E. Cronin of Colorado College. 'We saw it happen with Johnson, we saw it with Nixon. And now, sadly, we're seeing it with Bush.' "

Censure Watch

David D. Kirkpatrick writes in the New York Times: "The Senate Judiciary Committee opened a bitter if lopsided debate on Friday over whether Congress should censure President Bush for his domestic eavesdropping program. . . .

"Five Republicans at the hearing took turns attacking the idea as a reckless stunt that could embolden terrorists. Just two Democrats showed up to defend it, arguing that Congress needed to rein in the White House's expansive view of presidential power. The Democrats' star witness was John W. Dean, the former counsel to President Richard M. Nixon who divulged many of the details in the Watergate scandal.

"Senator Russell D. Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who proposed the censure motion and is considering a 2008 presidential run, argued that the Bush administration's insistence that it needed no Congressional approval for its wiretapping program implied that 'we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government; we have a monarchy.' . . .

"Several Republicans argued that whatever the legal status of the spying program, it did not deserve punishment because, unlike Nixon, Mr. Bush had acted in good faith."

Z. Byron Wolf reported for ABC News on Friday: "The number of Democrats publicly supporting censure climbed today, with Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, coming out in favor of Feingold's resolution.

" 'I have no hesitation in condemning the president for secretly and systematically violating the laws of the United States of America,' Leahy said today in his opening statement. 'I have no doubt that such a conclusion will be history's verdict. History will evaluate how diligently the Republican-controlled Congress performed the oversight duties envisioned by the founders. As of this moment, history's judgment of the diligence and resolve of the Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to be kind.'

"But with only Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa joining them so far, the list still totals just four."

Gail Russell Chaddock writes for the Christian Science Monitor: "Despite the Senate's cool response to Sen. Russell Feingold's calls to censure the president over his unilateral authorization of domestic surveillance, the issue of executive power worries lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, especially for a war with no end in sight. . . .

"Oversight appears to be the Democrats' leading idea heading into campaign season. 'Because the Republican-controlled Congress has not conducted real oversight, and because the attempts this committee has made at oversight have been stonewalled by the administration, we do not know the extent of the administration's domestic spying activities,' said Senator Leahy at Friday's hearing. . . .

"In one dramatic moment at the hearing, John Dean, former White House counsel in the Nixon administration, called the Bush team's expansion of presidential powers 'even more serious' than that of the Nixon years. 'I can tell you, from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, that [presidents] take note of that when they're not being called to the mat,' he said. 'They push the envelope as far as they can.' "