Adding Insult to Expulsion

"White House press secretary Tony Snow says Bush is taking a shorter break not because of criticism but because he has other things to do, including campaigning for Republican candidates in the fall elections, pushing for immigration reform and attending a family wedding in Kennebunkport, Maine. He plans to be in Louisiana and Mississippi on the Aug. 29 anniversary of Katrina and might return to Crawford for two days after that.

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be at the ranch, where they will monitor the Middle East, Iraq and the United Nations. 'He's going to be working a lot, and people are going to see it,' Snow says."

Bush the Evangelist

Former Newsday and Knight Ridder White House correspondent Saul Friedman writes on NiemanWatchdog.org: "I believe this to be the first time in modern American history that a president's religion, in this case his Christian fundamentalism, has become a decisive factor in his foreign and domestic policies. It's a factor that has been under-reported, to say the least, and that begs for press attention. . .

"It may help explain George W. Bush's single-mindedness, his oblivious inability to face reality as his war in Iraq, his war against terror and his policies towards Arabs and Israeli have collapsed."

Friedman also castigates Tony Snow for his treatment of Helen Thomas at the July 18 press briefing .

"She pointed out, correctly, that the U.S. was perceived to have endorsed 'collective punishment,' against Lebanon and Palestine. His reply: 'Well thank you for the Hezbollah view.'" Friedman writes.

"Not since the Vietnam war when an American official asked the press, 'Which side are you on,' have I heard a presidential flack insult an impugn a reporter's integrity for asking a legitimate question. Never in my dozen or so years asking tough questions of Larry Speakes, Marlin Fitzwater, Mike McCurry and even Ron Ziegler during Watergate, did I hear such a snide insult."

Iraq Watch

In the wake of the death of a senator's nephew in Iraq, David Stout writes in the New York Times: "A White House aide, who requested anonymity because his information was preliminary, said Wednesday that he knew of no top Bush administration official who had a relative who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Detainee Watch

R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post: "The military's top uniformed lawyers, appearing at a Senate hearing yesterday, criticized key provisions of a proposed new U.S. plan for special military courts, affirming that they did not see eye to eye with the senior Bush administration political appointees who developed the plan and presented it to them last week.

"The lawyers' rare, open disagreement with civilian officials at the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House came during discussions of proposed new rules for the use of evidence derived from hearsay or coercion and the possible exclusion of defendants from the trials in some circumstances."

War Crimes Watch

Kate Zernike writes for the New York Times: "Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales pressed Congress on Wednesday to refine the definition of war crimes prohibited under the Geneva Conventions."

Signing Statements Watch

I wrote in yesterday's column about a whole bunch of smaller newspapers that have editorialized against Bush's use of signing statements to flout the will of Congress.