Trumping Woodward

"The lobbyists spent almost $25,000 in meals and drinks for the White House officials and provided them with tickets to numerous sporting events and concerts, according to the report, scheduled for release Friday."

What? It wasn't that long ago that Bush was saying, Jack Who?

Slate Editor Jake Weisberg faults both parties for shying away from an honest debate:

"The biggest problem our country faces is the war we are losing in Iraq. The most shocking aspect of the national election we are holding in six weeks is that candidates aren't discussing what to do about it.

"The reasons for ignoring the elephant in the room are apparent. Republicans in tight races can't easily disown Bush's policies, but they may be able to change the subject. Focusing on what to do now highlights the catastrophe the president has created and his lack of any plausible strategy for fixing it. Republican politicians would rather frame the campaign around local issues or the larger question of security, under which Bush and the national party are trying to subsume Iraq.

"Democratic candidates avoid talking about the future in Iraq based on a different calculation. For them, Bush's past deceptions and mistakes are winning issues. But they share a problem with Republicans, which is that they don't have a clue what to do next, either. Some bandy about the term 'redeployment,' the favored euphemism for withdrawal. But for Democrats, any explicit talk about a pullout raises the old specter that they are defeatists, weaklings, and generally squishy on terrorism . . .

"The situation is hopeless. The best that our leading foreign-policy minds have been able to come up with is a grim choice among forms of failure and defeat. In a country of optimists, no politician wants to deliver that message."

Arianna Huffington is also dissatisfied with both sides:

"Washington, DC has turned into the fear capital of America.

"It's an all-out Fear Face-Off, pitting the GOP's fear of reality against the Democrats' fear of perception, with control of Congress riding on the outcome.

"After years of using voter fear as their favorite campaign weapon, Republicans are suddenly the ones running scared -- terrified that the reality contained within the new National Intelligence Estimate will confirm the undeniable: that the war in Iraq has fueled terrorism and made us all less safe.

"And that President Bush has been intentionally misleading us with his insistence that Iraq is the centerpiece of the battle against terrorism, and his assurance that 'America is winning the war on terror.'"