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An Imminent Threat (to the Constitution)
Pressure From the Saudis
Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright write in The Washington Post: "The Saudi foreign minister personally urged President Bush yesterday to intervene to stop the violence in Lebanon, the most direct sign of mounting frustration among key Arab states with what they see as a hands-off U.S. posture toward Israeli strikes against Hezbollah.
"In an Oval Office meeting yesterday afternoon, Prince Saud al-Faisal said, he delivered a letter to Bush from Saudi King Abdullah asking for U.S. help in arranging an immediate cease-fire, a stance U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected on the grounds that it is premature. U.S. officials would not comment directly on the request, saying only that the two sides discussed the humanitarian situation, reconstruction and how to end the violence."
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While there's no evidence that the visit will have any effect on U.S. policy, it is worth noting that Bush cut short his planned stay in Crawford to meet with the Saudis.
Fiasco
Washington Post reporter Thomas E. Ricks is out with a new book called Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.
On Meet the Press ( transcript ; video ), host Tim Russert read a passage from the book: "This book's subtitle terms the U.S. effort in Iraq an adventure in the critical sense of adventurism -- that is, with the view that the U.S.-led invasion was launched recklessly, with a flawed plan for war and a worse approach to occupation. Spooked by its own false conclusions about the threat, the Bush administration hurried its diplomacy, short-circuited its war planning, and assembled an agonizingly incompetent occupation. None of this was inevitable. It was made possible only through the intellectual acrobatics of simultaneously 'worst-casing' the threat presented by Iraq while 'best-casing' the subsequent cost and difficulty of occupying the country.' "
Russert asked Ricks: "How long do you think we'll be there?"
Ricks: "Ten to 15 years, at least."
The Post ran excerpts today and Sunday that depict indiscriminate arrests and abuse as a widespread phenomenon, clearly the result of policies established at upper echelons.
And Human Rights Watch is out with a report entitled "No Blood, No Foul," in which soldiers describe how detainees were routinely subjected to severe beatings, painful stress positions, severe sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme cold and hot temperatures.
How high does responsibility for all this go? We still don't know. But it may be time for the press to assume that it started at the top, and look for evidence that it didn't -- rather than the other way around.
White House v. NBC
It's not quite open war in the White House press room, but sometimes it comes close. On Friday morning, NBC Today's Show ambushed White House press secretary Tony Snow. Just before Snow began a live interview from the North Lawn, Matt Lauer showed a highly critical segment from David Gregory .
"The Middle East in flames. From Iraq to Lebanon, the region has reached a new boiling point. For the White House another crisis in a corner of the world that has consumed a presidency. . . .