This Is Diplomacy?

And in his Sunday briefing, Hadley said something about contacts with Syria that may simply be untrue. Hadley said that "we continue to have an embassy there, we continue to have a chargé who does have -- attempt to have conversations with the Syrian government." According to Syrian officials, the U.S. has made absolutely no such overtures. That seems worth following up.

Biking Without Irony

Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland was invited to go biking with Bush on Saturday:

"Confident that a U.N. resolution on southern Lebanon was essentially complete, Bush broke away from his ranchhouse for a spin around his 1,600-acre Texas ranch, across single-track trails that he helped hack out of the dry, dusty environs.

"While some of his Democratic critics have complained he spends too much time on his bike, Bush said the exercise helps him deal with the pressures of the presidency.

"'Riding helps clear my head, helps me deal with the stresses of the job,' a sweat-soaked Bush said after an hour-and-20-minute ride that shot his heart rate up to 177 beats per minute at the top of one climb.

"The president set a brutal pace for his accompanying riders, who included two Secret Service agents, White House spokesman Tony Snow and this reporter, who managed to gasp his way through the 12 1/2-mile ride. . . .

"Bush does not ride quietly, constantly shouting out in his Texas twang the names of trees and geographic features and yelling at himself to pedal faster.

"'Air assault!' he yelled as he started one of two major climbs, up Calichi Hill, which he named for the white limestone rock from which it is formed."

Yes, he actually yelled out "air assault."

Thinking Things Up

Holland also writes: "Bush said he spent the previous evening thinking about the Middle East while sitting on the porch of his ranchhouse waiting on first lady Laura Bush to arrive.

"'I was thinking about the right strategy for the United States in the Middle East. I spent a long time thinking about it, went in and wrote some notes, I then shared my thoughts this morning with some of my inner circle,' Bush said."

Hadley, in his briefing on Sunday, had more to say about Bush's thinking: "He's in the process, obviously, of developing an overall strategy for the Middle East as to sort of what comes next -- which is something that the President is good at and encourages us to do: How does this fit into an overall strategy? We had an opportunity to talk about that at lunch.