Rove, Leaving a Sour Taste

Some Choice

Kathy Kiely writes in USA Today: "A key Republican leader said Wednesday that President Bush is forcing lawmakers to choose between putting National Guard troops on the U.S.-Mexican border and giving the law enforcement officers already there the cars, planes and other equipment they need to do their job."

Off to Yuma

Nedra Pickler writes for the Associated Press: "As the Senate debates a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, Bush is traveling to Yuma, Ariz. . . .

"The president was to take a tour of the border Thursday, then give a speech. . . . He also planned a round of interviews with all the television networks to help sell his ideas, which face tough opposition in Congress."

National Guard Watch

Robert Salladay and Nancy Vogel write in the Los Angeles Times: "California's highest-ranking officials were reacting with displeasure and exasperation Wednesday to President Bush's plan to use thousands of National Guard troops to support border patrols and curb illegal immigration. . . .

"For his part, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was demanding answers -- to a host of questions -- from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who briefed him Wednesday. The governor had spent 45 minutes on the phone with Bush senior advisor Karl Rove on Monday about the plan. But after both conversations, the governor complained about being left in the dark."

Big Bucks for Contractors

Eric Lipton writes in the New York Times: "The quick fix may involve sending in the National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: the nation's giant military contractors."

Cartoon Watch

Cartoonists weigh in on immigration and the National Guard: Tom Toles ; Pat Oliphant ; Mike Luckovich ; Stuart Carlson ; Tony Auth .

My Mistake

It's awfully embarrassing to get my facts wrong while fact-checking, but that's what I did in yesterday's column .

In the column, I catalogued a variety of inconsistencies and sloppiness with facts in Tony Snow's inaugural press briefing on Tuesday, as well as in his morning show appearances on Wednesday.

One of my examples concerned this statement by Snow at the Tuesday briefing : "Again, I would take you back to the USA Today story, simply to give you a little context. Look at the poll that appeared the following day. While there was -- part of it said 51 percent of the American people opposed, if you look at when people said, if there is a roster of phone numbers, do you feel comfortable that -- I'm paraphrasing and I apologize -- but something like 64 percent of the polling was not troubled by it."

I wrote that the "something like 64 percent" figure appeared to be taken from a different, Washington Post/ABC News Poll .

But a reader has called my attention to a post from Stephen Spruiell of National Review's Media Blog, in which he points out a question in the USA Today/Gallup poll that I just plain overlooked.