Rove, Leaving a Sour Taste

Spruiell suggests that Snow was referring to that question, which reads: "If you knew that the federal government had your telephone records, how concerned would you be -- very concerned, somewhat concerned, not too concerned, or not concerned at all?" A total of 64 percent of respondents said either "not too concerned" or "not concerned at all."

He's right, and I was wrong.

'Tar Baby' Watch

I wasn't wrong, however, to call attention to Snow's use of the term -- "tar baby" -- that some consider racist.

Snow was on Hugh Hewitt 's radio show yesterday, and while defending his use of the term as utterly innocent, he said he won't be using it again.

"HH: Now I've got a couple of issues of the day for you. First, the Post this afternoon, on their blog, is blasting you for the use of the term tar baby. Is that just a way of smacking Tony Snow around to welcome him into the game?

"TS: Well, apparently, what's happened is, apparently some people are unfamiliar with the pathways of American culture, and don't realize the old Uncle Remus story where somebody hugs a tar baby.

"HH: Exactly.

"TS: And the point is, I wasn't going to get myself involved in an issue that would be very difficult to extract myself from. So I look upon that -- if that's the worst that happens, that's not so bad.

"HH: Agreed.

"TS: I've decided, though, because it's a classic case of, I think, somebody trying to sort of pick a fight. I'll probably take that out of my toolchest of rhetorical devices, rather than having to explain a hundred and fifty years of American culture."

Hayden Hearings

With a combination of last-minute secret briefings and a continued public stonewall, the White House has gone to great lengths to defang today's Senate confirmation hearings for CIA director-designate Michael Hayden.

Dafna Linzer and Charles Babington write in The Washington Post: "In hearings today on President Bush's choice to head the CIA, senators will face an array of questions, loose ends and seeming contradictions about the administration's domestic surveillance techniques. . . .

"Their questions are driven largely by what appear to be inconsistencies between the scale of the surveillance program and administration assertions about its limits."

Mark Mazzetti and Sheryl Gay Stolberg write in the New York Times: "Classified briefings provided to lawmakers on Wednesday about a controversial domestic eavesdropping program have smoothed what might have been a contentious path toward confirmation for Gen. Michael V. Hayden as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, senators and Congressional officials said."

Andrea Stone writes in USA Today: "The Bush administration briefed select members of Congress 30 times on the National Security Agency's surveillance programs since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a declassified list released Wednesday."

Opinion Watch

USA Today 's editorial board writes: "Congress is supposed to oversee the executive branch's intelligence operations. From all indications, however, that oversight is badly broken.

"Information is dribbled out to a handful of lawmakers. Briefing turns into political cover. Consultation becomes more like inform-and-gag. Republicans act like cheerleaders for the White House. Democrats feign surprise and outrage when dubious programs become public."

The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "The administration needs not only to brief Congress fully about what it is doing under this program, it also needs to come clean with the nation about the broad outlines of the program."

Tax Cut Fact Check

Kevin G. Hall writes for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "When President Bush signed legislation Wednesday to extend lower tax rates for capital gains and dividend income through 2010, he suggested that his tax cuts are behind a surge of new revenue into the Treasury, and implied that it's enough to offset the revenue lost by these reductions. . . .

"That's just not true. A host of studies, some of them written by economists who served in the Bush administration, have concluded that tax reductions mean less money for the Treasury.

"The cuts Bush extended Wednesday will cost the Treasury an estimated $70 billion over five years. They may help spur economic growth, but they still lose more revenue than they generate. And unless they're matched by lower federal spending, they worsen federal budget deficits."

Astonishingly, Hall even managed to wangle a concession from Treasury Secretary John Snow.

Here's the text of Bush's remarks upon signing the bill.

Impeachment (Non) Watch

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), writes in a Washington Post opinion piece today, that if there's a rush for impeachment after the mid-term elections, it'll be a bipartisan one.

"[R]ather than seeking impeachment, I have chosen to propose comprehensive oversight of these alleged abuses. The oversight I have suggested would be performed by a select committee made up equally of Democrats and Republicans and chosen by the House speaker and the minority leader."

Phone Jamming

Jason Szep writes for Reuters: "A senior official in U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election campaign was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Wednesday for his role in suppressing votes in a key U.S. Senate race, a scandal that Democrats charge may involve the White House."

Thomas B. Edsall wrote in The Washington Post yesterday: "Most tantalizingly to Democrats, evidence filed in [Republican National Committee regional political director James] Tobin's trial in December shows 22 phone calls from Tobin to the White House between 11:20 a.m. Election Day, two hours after the phone jamming was shut down, and 2:17 a.m. the next day, four hours after the outcome of the election was announced."

Bupkus for the Press

Ken Herman blogged for the Cox News Service yesterday morning: "Tony Snow opted for Yiddish today in continuing the administration's strategy of not saying anything about top adviser Karl Rove's potential legal problems stemming from a special prosecutor's investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's name.

" 'What I do know is bubkes,' Snow said, using the Yiddish word for nothing.

"And he offered an alibi for why he might not be up to speed on any breaking developments concerning Rove.

" 'As far as I can tell nothing has changed,' he told reporters this morning, 'but I don't want to give you a steer on it because I was standing out there giving TV interviews this morning during senior staff meeting.' "

Snow returned to the theme at the on-camera briefing .

"MR. SNOW: Okay, let's begin. Welcome, one and all. Good afternoon. For those of you who weren't here, we have coined the term 'bupkes list' for items that the Press Secretary may not have had complete and full answers for during the gaggle. . . .

" Q How do you spell 'bupkes'?

" MR. SNOW: Bupkus -- b-u-p-k-u-s.

" Q Yiddish.

" Q E-s.

" MR. SNOW: Thank you, corrected, e-s."

Actually, there is no one accepted spelling of bupkus (Google finds 103,000 mentions of bupkis; 22,400 of bupkiss; 30,900 of bupkus; and 23,100 of bupkes.)

For the Yiddish challenged, it literally means "beans" -- and figuratively means "nothing."

The Mystery of the Abramoff FOIA

Paul Kiel of TPM Muckraker figures out why, when the Secret Service turned over its records of convicted ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's White House visits to Judicial Watch, the records showed only two visits.

It turns out "the Secret Service doesn't have the records - the White House does."

Bushlandia

Blogger Billmon crunches Bush's state-by-state approval numbers, and comes up with a whole new red-state-blue-state map.

Jay Rosen Watch

Media blogger Jay Rosen suggests that the White House hold a full schedule of briefings, from 8 am to 5 pm. If it's true that we're in a global war of ideas, he argues, the White House has to do much more.

And he's Live Online today at noon ET.

Still Working for Fox News?

Here's an excerpt from former Fox Newser Tony Snow's briefing yesterday: "Chuck Hagel, as you may recall, made a fair amount of news over the weekend when he first said that -- let's see -- 'Well, I want to listen to the details and I want to listen to the President,' said Senator Hagel -- he said this on 'This Week' on a competing network."

"This Week," of course, is on ABC.