Spinning the Course

David Lightman wrote in Saturday's Hartford Courant that, thanks to Rove, Senator Joe Lieberman has gotten significant financial help from the White House donor network.

Latinos and Blacks

Peter Wallsten writes in the Los Angeles Times: "A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services.

"President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it. . . .

"Complaints among black pastors who had been courted by the White House -- while less pronounced than those of Latino leaders -- have been fueled by a tell-all book by former White House aide David Kuo. The new book says that Bush, referring to pastors from one major African American denomination, once griped: 'Money. All these guys care about is money. They want money.'"

Off the Fence

Wallsten also writes: "The White House now faces a symbolic choice on the border-fence legislation: Does Bush rally the GOP base with a large, pre-election signing ceremony, or does he reject such fanfare in hopes of avoiding long-term damage among Latinos?"

Stephen Dinan and Charles Hurt report in the Washington Times that the decision has been made: Bush will sign it in a ceremony Thursday morning in the Roosevelt Room.

They write: "The decision to have a public ceremony is a reversal for the Bush administration. . . . Although Mr. Bush had committed to signing the bill, aides had said consistently over the past few weeks there would not be a signing ceremony.

"But Republicans in Congress had demanded a public signing, with leaders saying the bill is a major accomplishment that will help their re-election prospects."

Opinion Watch: About That Election

E. J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "President Bush's six-year effort to create an enduring Republican majority based on a right-leaning coalition is on the verge of collapse. The way he tried to create it could have the unintended consequence of opening the way for an alternative majority. . . .

"The strategy pursued by Bush and Karl Rove has frightened most of the political center into the arms of Democrats. Bush and Rove sought victory by building large turnouts among conservatives and cajoling just enough moderates the Republicans' way. But this approach created what may prove to be a fatal political disconnect: Adventurous policies designed to create enthusiasm on the right turned off a large number of less ideological voters.

"The Democrats' lead in the polls can be thus explained by two factors: the energy of a passionate phalanx of voters desperate to use this election to rebuke Bush, and the disenchantment of moderates fed up with the failures of Bush's governing style and ideology, notably in Iraq."

What's particularly fascinating about Dionne's piece is that it posits the Democrats as a moderate -- not equally extreme -- option to radical Bushism.

That's a far cry from, say, fellow Washington Post columnist David S. Broder 's attempt to exalt what he calls the middle: Senators like John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who actually embrace many of the most critical tenets of radical Bushism.

Torture Watch

Bill Dedman writes for MSNBC: "Speaking publicly for the first time, senior U.S. law enforcement investigators say they waged a long but futile battle inside the Pentagon to stop coercive and degrading treatment of detainees by intelligence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

In an accompanying piece , Dedman writes that a high-level delegation from Washington flew into Guantanamo even as the debate was ongoing. They included: Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel and now attorney general; David S. Addington, legal counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, now his chief of staff; and Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel.

Example to the World

Nick Wadhams writes for the Associated Press: "Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in fighting terrorism, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture said Monday.

"Manfred Nowak said that when he criticizes governments for their questionable treatment of detainees, they respond by telling him that if the United States does something, it must be all right."

Vice Watch

In today's Washington Post, Chris Suellentrop reviews "VICE: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency," by Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein.

"With Molly Ivins, Dubose wrote 'Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush,' which was published during Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. 'Vice' is clearly intended as a sequel, but it also comes off as a sort of apology for picking the wrong subject last time.

"As their subtitle indicates, Dubose and Bernstein (the executive editor of the Texas Observer) argue that Cheney is more than merely the Most Powerful Veep Ever. They regard him as the power behind the throne, the regent for Bush's boy president. . . .

"The book's thesis can't be overstated: Dubose and Bernstein think Cheney is a threat to the republic on a scale unseen since the Civil War. (No, really.) They don't quite make the sale for that, partly because to build the case for Cheney's world-historical menace they embrace two contradictory propositions. The first is that his entire political career, dating back to the Ford administration, has involved the single-minded pursuit of one ambition: expanding the institutional power of the executive branch, which Cheney believes was unduly weakened by post-Watergate reforms. . . .

"But Dubose and Bernstein suggest at the same time that 9/11 radicalized Cheney, who was transformed from a sober and moderate conservative into a 'strategic hysteric.' Or perhaps it wasn't 9/11: In one of the book's more distasteful passages, the authors speculate that Cheney's health problems have caused a physiological change in personality. 'It is unknown if Cheney suffered any brain damage from his numerous heart attacks,' they write. They provide no evidence for the supposition."

(Not) Speaking of Cheney

Olivier Knox writes for AFP: "Bush, who used to boast to applause during the 2004 White House race that he had 'picked a fine vice president,' has not mentioned him in a campaign speech in months."

Bush, the 'Money Honey' and 'the Google'

Bush spent some time yesterday afternoon with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo.

Mary Lu Carnevale writes for the Wall Street Journal: "President Bush said he sometimes uses Google's satellite mapping program to transport him back to his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"In a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo, Bush was asked a question on many of our minds: 'I'm curious, have you ever Googled anybody? Do you use Google?'

"According to CNBC's unofficial transcript, he replied: 'Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see that. I forgot the name of the program, but you get the satellite and you can -- like, I kind of like to look at the ranch on Google, reminds me of where I want to be sometimes. Yeah, I do it some.' He added: 'I tend not to email or -- not only tend not to email, I don't email, because of the different record requests that can happen to a president. I don't want to receive emails because, you know, there's no telling what somebody's email may -- it would show up as, you know, a part of some kind of a story, and I wouldn't be able to say, `Well, I didn't read the email.' `But I sent it to your address, how can you say you didn't?' So, in other words, I'm very cautious about emailing.'"

So Bush goes on " the Internets " to use "the Google."

Here , by the way, is the Google Maps satellite view of his place in Crawford.

The Bartiromo interview video is in three parts: one , two and three .

Demian McLean writes for Bloomberg News: "President Bush said he is 'astounded' by the size of some executive pay packages and urged companies to tie salaries to performance, while stopping short of advocating government action."

Said Bush: "I get astounded by the size of the pay packages. Consider me floored, when I see a guy making a billion dollars as the CEO of a company."

And, as Reuters reports, Bush "put Social Security reform on his list of 'big items' to deal with in the final two years of his presidency, possibly including indexing benefits for wealthier Americans."

Towel-Snapping the Press

In his pool report from Bush's visit to the Urban Trust Bank yesterday, Ron Hutcheson of McClatchy Newspapers described Bush standing alongside bank owner Robert L. Johnson.

"'Most of these people here make more money than you and me combined,' Bush told his host. 'They're well paid. . . . The cameramen, they're very well paid.' He singled out NBC's Kelly O'Donnell as a particularly well-paid reporter."

Bush pulls down $400,000 a year; Johnson is a billionaire, and the 374th richest person in America , according to Forbes.

Snow and the Press

Greg Sargent blogs for the American Prospect: "White House press secretary Tony Snow has endorsed this view -- he has now accused CNN of being 'manipulated' by terrorists."

Sargent caught Snow's comments in a podcast conducted by right-wing Powerline blogger John Hinderaker.

And here are a few other exchanges from that interview:

Hinderaker: "How are you holding up after six months of battering by the White House press corps?"

Snow: "It doesn't feel like battering. I'm having a great time. . . . If this is battering, bring me more."

Here's Snow observing what keeps the press corps happy: "[I]f can give them something new that they can report, especially the TV and radio people, they're going to get on air. They're going to be rewarded in that way."

And here's Snow astutely noting the dramatic difference between NBC News reporter David Gregory's tough questions in the briefing room and his on-air reports:

"Part of my job is to communicate as effectively as I can what the policies are . . . so that people at least get it. So that they can do an effective job of laying out our point of view. And this may surprise you, but one of the guys who's actually best on air about doing that is David Gregory. David sometimes can make the press briefings kind of interesting, but on the other hand, he actually does work pretty hard to try to get it right."

53 and Falling

The United States has slipped further down the scale in a global press freedom index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

Nora Boustany writes for The Washington Post: "Although it ranked 17th on the first list, published in 2002, the United States now stands at 53, having fallen nine places since last year.

"'Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of "national security" to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his "war on terrorism," ' the group said.

Late Night Humor

On YouTube , via Wonkette: "Bush" on "Fox News."