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Cheney to Face Nats Fans
Far from taking hostile questions, Bush yesterday surrounded himself with preselected, well-rehearsed ringers.
Mark Pazniokas writes in the Hartford Courant: "Bush moderated a panel of five executives and consumers who gave testimonials about health savings accounts, which offer tax deductions to consumers who save for their health expenses. . . .
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"The panelists' byplay was familiar to viewers of late-night infomercials. . . .
"The White House picked the panel, whose members rehearsed Tuesday night."
Suzanne Malveaux told Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday afternoon: "President Bush is trying to use whatever political capital that he has to push forward his domestic agenda. We're seeing that today when it comes to immigration reform, as well as the health savings accounts. . . .
"But the big question here, really, Wolf, is just how relevant, how much political capital does the president have?"
Health Savings Accounts
Here is the transcript of the Bush event in Bridgeport.
In one of his many attempts to explain his proposal in simple terms, Bush himself got tripped up.
"Just to make sure everybody understands -- a health savings account is a combination of a high deductible, catastrophic plan, and the deductible is a cash account that earns interest-free."
I think he meant to say that the money set aside to meet the deductible earns interest tax-free.
Iran Watch
William Arkin writes in his washingtonpost.com blog: "Nuclear diplomacy in Iran is beginning to look a lot like the United Nation's inspection work in Iraq before the 2003 war. The parties are committed to a peaceful outcome but the accumulation of bad blood torpedoes any hope for a peaceful outcome."
This in spite of Dana Priest's Washington Post story on Sunday in which she writes that an attack on Iran would likely backfire, according to U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts who "say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide."
Over at NiemanWatchdog.org , I raise several questions the press should be asking about Iran, based in large part on an article in Foreign Policy and a Council on Foreign Relations interview with Joseph Cirincione, the director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Froomkin Watch
I'm off tomorrow. The column resumes on Monday, and I'll be doing my biweekly Live Online at a special day and time: Monday at 2 p.m.
Then I'll be off again for a week starting Wednesday, April 12.
What the President Really Meant
Mike Allen writes in Time: "Presidents, like spouses, can send clearer messages with what they don't say as what they do."
Allen suggests that Bush's recent underwhelming show of support for Treasury Secretary John Snow "sure sounds like Washington-speak for, as my mother and grandmother say when you're on the way out the door, 'It's been nice knowing you.' "
