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The Undoing Begins
Missile Defense Quiz
Former assistant secretary of defense Philip E. Coyle , writing on NiemanWatchdog.org, traces Bush's recent and inconsistent answers about missile defense in the wake of North Korea's rocket launches.
Which is true?
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A) Here's Bush with CNN's Larry King on Thursday: "If it headed to the United States, we've got a missile defense system that will defend our country."
B) Here's Bush at his Chicago press conference on Thursday: "Our missile systems are modest, our anti-ballistic missile systems are modest. They're new. It's new research. We've gotten -- testing them. And so I can't -- it's hard for me to give you a probability of success."
C) And here he is a few moments later at the same press conference: "Yes, I think we had a reasonable chance of shooting it down. At least that's what the military commanders told me."
The answer, Coyle writes, is of course D) "The ground-based system hasn't had a successful flight intercept test in four years. In the two most recent attempts, the interceptor never got off the ground and failed to leave its silo. And in the only other recent attempt, the kill vehicle - the pointy-end of the interceptor - failed to separate from its booster and missed its target."
Rove on a Possible First Veto
John Aloysius Farrell writes in the Denver Post: "President Bush will likely cast the first veto of his presidency if the Senate, as expected, passes legislation to expand federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, White House aide Karl Rove said today.
" 'The president is emphatic about this,' Rove - Bush's top political advisor and architect of his 2000 and 2004 campaigns - said in a meeting with the editorial board of The Denver Post.
"The U.S. House of Representatives voted 238-194 last year to pass the legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. If the Senate approves the bill, it will go to the president's desk."
Deficit Watch
Paul Blustein writes in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration is planning to trumpet today a midyear revision of its budget estimates projecting that a recent surge in tax revenue will help to shrink this year's federal deficit below $300 billion, according to sources familiar with the estimates. . . .
"But the favorable news about the money rolling into the Treasury stems largely from shifts in the economy, including fatter corporate profits, executive bonuses and stock market gains, that reflect growing inequality, the administration's critics contend. And even the White House acknowledges that in the long run, the nation's fiscal outlook remains bleak."
Joel Havemann writes in the Los Angeles Times: "To some skeptics, it's beginning to look like an economic version of the old 'expectations' game.