Congress v. Bush

One of the biggest concerns about that pact is that it would unleash a new nuclear arms race in the region. The scenario: Because India could suddenly build vastly more nuclear weapons, Pakistan would decide to build more, India would then definitely build more, and then China would feel obliged to build more. See my March 3 column .

So members of Congress would probably want to know if Pakistan were building a powerful new reactor that could signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race.

But when Joby Warrick reported just that in Monday's Post, it was the first time Congress had heard about it.

In today's Post, Warrick reports that Tony Snow acknowledged yesterday that the White House had "known of these plans for some time."

Warrick writes: "Henry D. Sokolski, the Defense Department's top nonproliferation official during the George H.W. Bush administration, said he was most surprised by the way news of the reactor in Pakistan became known.

" 'What is baffling is that this information -- which was surely information that our own intelligence agencies had -- was kept from Congress,' said Sokolski, now director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. 'We lack imagination if we think that this is no big deal.' "

The Elephant in the Room

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Dana Milbank writes a curious column in The Washington Post about a GOP Senate candidate who has lunch with nine reporters to air his gripes about how the Bush White House is making his job much harder -- but insists on remaining anonymous.

"The source of the candidate's anger -- and his anxiety -- is the Iraq war, which he called 'the single thread that is weaving through every issue,' including high gas prices and the violence in Lebanon. 'People want an honest assessment from the administration, and they want to hear the administration admit we thought this, and it didn't happen that way, and -- guess what -- it didn't work, so we're going to try a Plan B.' He continued: 'Let's call it what it is. We thought this was going to be a different kind of engagement.' "

Bloggers are playing "Guess the candidate."

Kenneth R. Bazinet writes in the New York Daily News: "President Bush's new fundraising appeal suggests he's more than a little worried about the fall congressional elections, warning that a Democratic victory will sink the GOP agenda. . . .

"A top Bush political adviser said yesterday that Republicans remain confident of retaining the Senate in November, but 'the House is definitely in play.' "

Mike Allen writes for Time: "As for Bush himself, he is curtailing his traditional August working vacation at the ranch so that he can barnstorm before the midterm elections. Their outlook thus far seems so ominous for the G.O.P. that one presidential adviser wants Bush to beef up his counsel's office for the tangle of investigations that a Democrat-controlled House might pursue."