Bush's Downward Slide

Dale McFeatters writes for Scripps Howard News Service: "The White House finally caught a break on scandals. Thanks to the uproar over former GOP Rep. Mark Foley's steamy e-mails, the departure of a top aide to White House political guru Karl Rove passed, as planned, almost unnoticed."

North Korea's Bomb

Michael Abramowitz and Colum Lynch write in The Washington Post: "The White House pushed yesterday for aggressive new sanctions on North Korea, including measures to limit trade in military and luxury items, as Pyongyang's claim that it conducted an underground nuclear test defied the administration's efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction."

Warren Hoge and Sheryl Gay Stolberg write in the New York Times: "At the White House, President Bush called the North Korean test 'a threat to international peace and security' and condemned it as a 'provocative act.' . . .

"Mr. Bush also issued a pointed, albeit carefully worded, warning to the North not to export any nuclear technology it might have."

Here's the text of Bush's statement.

Craig Gordon writes for Newsday: "President George W. Bush called for a swift global response to North Korea's purported nuclear test yesterday, but Bush's options are limited at best and unthinkable at worst, analysts said."

The Bush Legacy

Gideon Rachman writes in the Financial Times: "'The United States of America will not allow the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons.' That ringing proclamation by President George W. Bush lies at the heart of the 'Bush doctrine,' which took America to war in Iraq.It was made in the president's 2002 State of the Union address -- the same speech in which he introduced the world to an 'axis of evil' of three countries: Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

"Almost five years on and the North Koreans' apparently successful test of a nuclear weapon has delivered what may be a final blow to the Bush doctrine."

Glenn Kessler and Peter Baker write in The Washington Post: "Nearly five years after President Bush introduced the concept of an 'axis of evil' comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the administration has reached a crisis point with each nation: North Korea has claimed it conducted its first nuclear test, Iran refuses to halt its uranium-enrichment program and Iraq appears to be tipping into a civil war 3 1/2 years after the U.S.-led invasion.

"Each problem appears to feed on the others, making the stakes higher and requiring Bush and his advisers to make difficult calculations, analysts and U.S. officials said."

Glenn Kessler wrote in The Washington Post on Monday: "North Korea's apparent nuclear test last night may well be regarded as a failure of the Bush administration's nuclear nonproliferation policy.

"Since George W. Bush became president, North Korea has restarted its nuclear reactor and increased its stock of weapons-grade plutonium, so it may now have enough for 10 or 11 weapons, compared with one or two when Bush took office.

"North Korea's test could also unleash a nuclear arms race in Asia, with Japan and South Korea feeling pressure to build nuclear weapons for defensive reasons.

"Yet a number of senior U.S. officials have said privately that they would welcome a North Korean test, regarding it as a clarifying event that would forever end the debate within the Bush administration about whether to solve the problem through diplomacy or through tough actions designed to destabilize North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's grip on power."

What About Talking?

Barbara Demick writes in the Los Angeles Times: "So what went wrong? . . .

"[A]s North Korea plowed ahead with its nuclear program, the Bush administration refused to meet directly with its adversary. Instead, it insisted on a rather clunky diplomatic initiative known as the six-party talks. . . .

"Donald Gregg, a U.S. ambassador to South Korea under Bush's father and now head of the New York-based Korea Society, said the crisis could have been averted if the current Bush administration had talked to the North Koreans directly. He visited Pyongyang in late 2002 and brought back a written offer from the North Koreans to negotiate one-on-one."

Gregg himself writes for the PostGlobal blog: "Why won't the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with NK, as the Brits (and eventually the U.S.) did with Libya? Because the Bush administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country as a reward for that country's good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about an improvement in the behaviour of such entities, and a resolution to the issues that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends -- a huge mistake."

Joseph Cirincione writes for Salon that "despite some internal dissent, hard-liners in the administration have controlled the U.S. approach to North Korea since Bush took office. That approach has brimmed with tough talk and threats, while scorning diplomacy as a badge of weakness. The White House refuses to negotiate directly with North Korea -- but it has no viable plan, military or otherwise, for stopping further tests. North Korea's provocative move is the latest evidence that Bush's strategy for preventing the global spread of nuclear weapons has failed."

The White House View

Writing in Time, Mike Allen presents the White House press office's stance: "If Kim Jong-Il thought he was could take advantage of a president who was down politically, he may be in for a surprise. Osama bin Laden's electronic appearance in the closing week of the 2004 campaign didn't do much for John Kerry either. Republicans, while taking care to express appropriate concern about the possibility of an Asian arms race, said they were relieved to see Bush back in the bully pulpit, wearing his commander-in-chief hat and leading the world in pushing for punitive action by the U.N. Security Council. 'Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond,' Bush said this morning in the Diplomatic Reception Room, where a row of books added gravity. 'This was confirmed this morning in conversations I had with leaders of China, and South Korea, Russia, and Japan.'"

Stop for a moment, though, and consider two unsupported assumptions in those first two sentences: That Kim Jong-Il is rooting for Democrats in November, and that bin Laden was, too.

That may be what the White House would like you to believe, but without any substantiation -- and as regards the latter point, considerable evidence to the contrary. As Ron Suskind wrote in his book, "The One Percent Doctrine," CIA analysts quickly concluded that the bin Laden video was designed to help Bush get reelected -- as Bush's policies were strengthening his position.

Woodward Watch

Sarah Wheaton blogs for the New York Times: "The White House pushback on the Bob Woodward book 'State of Denial' is operating in a bizarro public relations universe where the press staff trumpets the administration's worst data to the media.

"The latest blast comes in response to the Washington Post reporter's appearance on NBC's ' Meet the Press ' with Tim Russert Sunday."

It came in the form of another of the White House's

" Setting the Record Straight " memos.

Cheney's Barnyard Epithet

On that same " Meet the Press ," Woodward had this exchange with Russert:

"MR. RUSSERT: Have you spoken to the president or the vice president since this book came out?

"MR. WOODWARD: The vice president called me I guess as it was coming out, 10 days ago.

"MR. RUSSERT: And?

"MR. WOODWARD: Well, he called to complain that I was quoting him about the meetings with Henry Kissinger that he and the president had. I had interviewed Vice President Cheney last year a couple of times at length about material I'm gathering on the Ford administration, on-the-record interviews, but he volunteered, he said, 'Oh, by the way, Henry Kissinger comes in' and he, Dick Cheney, sits down with him once a month and the president every two or three months. And Cheney was upset I was quoting him. And I said, 'Look, this 'on-the-record' doesn't have anything to do with Ford, you volunteered that.' He then used a word which I can't repeat on the air. And I said, 'Look, on the record is on the record,' and he hung up on me.

"MR. RUSSERT: What, what do you mean, he swore at you?

"MR. WOODWARD: He, he said what I was saying was bull-something."

Russert tried to change the subject, but Woodward was on a roll.

"MR. WOODWARD: No, but he, but he hung up. Now, look, I can, I can see, I went back and looked at the transcript. . . . [Have you] ever had a disagreement about ground rules with someone. Have you?

"MR. RUSSERT: Well, he thought he was talking, he thought he was talking to you for one project and you used it in another project.

"MR. WOODWARD: Well, exactly. But it had nothing to do with it, and it's clearly spelled out that it's an on-the-record interview. And so -- now, what does he do instead of saying, 'Well, okay, I look at it this way, you look at it that way'? It's a metaphor for what's going on: Hang up when somebody has a different point of view or information you don't want to deal with."

Blackened Mood?

Thomas M. DeFrank writes in the New York Daily News: "Suddenly, like the fierce 'blue northers' that sweep across Texas each autumn, the political winds have turned bleaker for Republicans -- and President Bush's private mood has blackened accordingly. . . .

"'He's on scent and he's driving hard,' a longtime political confidant of the president reported early this month. 'He's got the microphone and thinks he's controlling the political debate.' . . .

"Now, however, friends, aides and close political allies tell the Daily News Bush is furious with his own side for helping create a political downdraft that has blunted his momentum and endangered GOP prospects for keeping control of Congress next month.

"Some of his anger is directed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, 'State of Denial.'

"In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.

"'He's ticked off big-time,' said a well-informed source,' even if what they said was the truth.'"

First Comedian

Ken Herman blogs for Cox News Service about Bush's remarks at a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration Friday afternoon.

"'I am proud to be here with Lieutenant Colonel Consuelo Kickbusch. She's the winner of the Hispanic Heritage Award 2006. Interesting name: Kickbusch. Sounds like a political campaign,' Bush said. . . .

"Bush also welcomed 'his royal highness, Prince Felipe de Borbon, the crown prince of the kingdom of Spain.'

"'Please give your best to His Majesty and your mom,' Bush said. 'And I will do the same on behalf of you to my father and Her Majesty, my mother.'"

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