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Most Ridiculous Moment?
"This is a little tricky, so pay attention.
"First, 'winning' is closely tied to 'staying the course,' another term seeking definition the past few days. As of this writing, 'staying the course' means 'winning,' which means 'not losing,' but you knew that.
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"And what does 'not losing' mean? According to Bush, it means not leaving. Which no one wants to hear, but there it is. . . .
"At this point, the only real question, said Bush, is whether we can help the Iraqi government succeed. 'Not only can we help them, we must help them,' he said.
"Which means not leaving. Which means not losing. Which means winning, maybe, as currently defined."
More on the Oval Office Interview
Daniel Henninger , another participant in the interview, writes in the Wall Street Journal: "The burden of war . . . has not sapped Mr. Bush physically as it did Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Recalling the deep toll that war and partisanship imposed on their presidencies, I looked closely at Mr. Bush for similar evidence: none. The hair's gone gray, but there is little sign of fatigue in his face or demeanor. I asked how he stays normal: 'Prayer and exercise.' . . .
"Still, it's evident that Baghdad's sectarian violence has sent the U.S mood into a trough. The next day in a similar conversation with Vice President Cheney -- ballast to the energy of his president -- I ask if he senses a nation veering again toward the disillusion of the Vietnam War. He says no. '9/11 changes a lot. It's a watershed event and makes it more difficult for someone to argue that if we just bring the troops home we'll be safe and secure behind our oceans. The threat is there and it's real.'"
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer was also in the Oval Office Wednesday. But apparently, he didn't find what Bush had to say particularly interesting. His column today is about Barack Obama.
Greg Sargent blogs for the American Prospect, calling attention to this quote from the interview:
"My attitude about our -- look, I'm into campaigning out there: People want to know, can you win? That's what they want to know. I mean, there's -- look, there's some 25 percent or so that want us to get out, shouldn't have been out there in the first place -- and that's fine. They're wrong. But you can understand why they feel that way. They just don't believe in war, and -- at any cost. I believe when you get attacked and somebody declares war on you, you fight back. And that's what we're doing."
But as Sargent points out, fully 63 percent of Americans, according to the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll favor a timetable for withdrawal. Polls also consistently show that more than 50 percent of Americans think the war was a mistake.
Blogger Duncan Black adds: "But more than that, we weren't attacked by Iraq."
Scooter Libby Watch
Carol D. Leonnig writes in The Washington Post: "With withering and methodical dispatch, White House nemesis and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday sliced up the first person called to the stand on behalf of the vice president's former chief of staff.
"If I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby was not afraid of the special counsel before, the former Cheney aide, who will face Fitzgerald in a trial beginning Jan. 11, had ample reason to start quaking after yesterday's Ginsu-like legal performance.
"Fitzgerald's target in the witness box was Elizabeth F. Loftus, a professor of criminology and psychology at the University of California at Irvine. For more than an hour of the pretrial hearing, Loftus calmly explained to Judge Reggie B. Walton her three decades of expertise in human memory and witness testimony. Loftus asserted that, after copious scientific research, she has found that many potential jurors do not understand the limits of memory and that Libby should be allowed to call an expert to make that clear to them.
"But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions."
And it gets even better. Read the story.
Fencing With Bush
Michael A. Fletcher and Jonathan Weisman write in The Washington Post: "President Bush signed a measure Thursday authorizing the construction of a fence along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, an action that conflicts with his own stated vision of immigration reform but one championed by many Republicans facing reelection in November...
"Bush portrayed the measure as a key step toward comprehensive immigration reform, but the fence bill passed by the GOP-controlled Congress put him in a tight squeeze with international allies and his own immigration principles on one side, and the electoral needs of his party on the other.
"Bush has said that immigration reform would work only if stepped-up enforcement is accompanied by a guest-worker program that would create a legal path for large numbers of low-skill workers to enter the United States. The president has also endorsed providing the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the United States a chance at citizenship, saying such a humane vision of immigration is in keeping with the nation's history and traditions. . . .
"Democrats dismissed the legislation as pointless. Only a fraction of the billions needed to finance the fence has been appropriated, and much of the construction might not be feasible. In swaths of Arizona, the fence would have to climb steep, desert crags and plunge into deep ravines."
Here's the text of Bush's speech at the signing ceremony.
Gay Marriage
Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "The divisive debate over gay marriage, which played a prominent role in 2004 campaigns but this year largely faded from view, erupted anew on Thursday as President Bush and Republicans across the country tried to use a court ruling in New Jersey to rally dispirited conservatives to the polls. . . .
"President Bush put a spotlight on the issue while campaigning in Iowa, which does not have a proposal on the ballot. With the Republican House candidate, Jeff Lamberti, by his side, Mr. Bush -- who has not been talking about gay marriage in recent weeks -- took pains to insert a reference into his stump speech warning that Democrats would raise taxes and make America less safe.
"'Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage,' Mr. Bush said at a luncheon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds that raised $400,000 for Mr. Lamberti.
"The president drew applause when he reiterated his long-held stance that marriage was 'a union between a man and a woman,' adding, 'I believe it's a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended.'"
Here's the text of his speech.
Whole Lotta Sicness
Lamberti's first name is Jeff. But Bush twice called him Dave.
From the transcript: "No doubt in my mind, with your help, Dave [sic] Lamberti will be the next United States congressman. (Applause.)
"Dave [sic] and I believe a lot of things."
And those weren't the only sic's of the day.
This one might even qualify as a Bushism: "You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. [sic] No President wants to be a war President, but I am one."
Presidential Power
CNN's John King had a special on presidential power last night.
A few of his better lines:
"Justice, on Mr. Bush's terms, would mean challenge after challenge, test after test of the balance of powers laid out in the Constitution. . . .
"The Geneva Conventions govern treatment of wartime prisoners -- not this time. . . .
"Mr. Bush approved more aggressive home-front tactics that were meant to stay secret: a massive domestic eavesdropping program, an unprecedented use of data mining, searching electronic bills and other records, and a secret financial database to track terror supporters. . . .
"Mr. Bush is hardly the first president to test the reach of executive power. President Lincoln, at the height of the Civil War, suspended one of democracy's most fundamental rights: habeas corpus, the right to go to court to challenge imprisonment. During World War II, President Roosevelt ordered the detention of 100,000 Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent.
"But no president has pushed the limits on the scale of this one, overseas at home, from secret CIA prisons and domestic eavesdropping, to what some consider the boldest test of all, launching war in Iraq, absent any direct attack or provocation."
Laura Bush on Bob Woodward
Ed Henry reports on CNN about his interview with Laura Bush. "I pressed her on whether or not she wanted Donald Rumsfeld out as defense secretary," he said.
"LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: And Andy Card also went on television and said that's not true. And let me just say the one thing about that book. Those quotes of mine were in quotes and the author didn't call me and fact check, and it just didn't happen.
"HENRY: You wanted Rumsfeld out.
"BUSH: Are you just trying to continue to give the quotes that I said I didn't say?
"HENRY: OK, well, without any quotes, just in general, the book claims that you wanted to push Rumsfeld.
"BUSH: No, absolutely not. That is absolutely not true."
And another exchange:
"HENRY: Senator Hillary Clinton recently said, quote, 'I'm certain if my husband and his national security team had been given a classified report saying bin Laden determined to strike in the United States, that he would have taken it more seriously than history shows Mr. Bush did.'
"BUSH: Well, she's just trying to defend her husband and that's what I'm trying to do, too, as I go around here. I know what kind of job my husband does and I know it's a great job, and that, of course, what he wants more than anything is for our country to be safe. And I know that.
"HENRY: And did he take that threat seriously enough to answer her question there?
"BUSH: Well, I don't even know exactly what she was talking about."
But that's hard to believe. It's pretty clear to anyone who's been following the news at all for the last several years that Clinton was referring to this memo .
North Korea Watch
Graham Allison , writing in a Washington Post op-ed, looks at Bush's unusually milquetoast response to the prospect of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il selling nukes to Iran or al-Qaeda (see my Oct. 19 column ).
Allison asks: "Say what? If North Korea sells a nuclear weapon to Osama bin Laden or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he should expect the United States to go to the United Nations and negotiate further sanctions? And if al-Qaeda sneaks that bomb into the United States and we awake to the president's nightmare in which a mushroom cloud engulfs Washington or Los Angeles, then what?
"If this formulation stands -- without further specification -- America risks becoming the victim of a catastrophic 'deterrence failure.'"
Vice
From NiemanWatchdog.org: 25 questions for Dick Cheney. "Even after extensively researching their book about Vice President Cheney -- 'Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency' -- Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein found they still had lots of unanswered questions."
Candy Store Visit
Bush made a stop at the Morley Candy Makers in Clinton Township, Mich., yesterday, in between political fundraisers.
Considering that the transcript of his two-minute chat with the pool is headlined "President Discusses Small Business in Michigan," I'm guessing this was another attempt to get the taxpayers to pay for some of his trip.
(As Jennifer Loven recently wrote for the Associated Press: "The rules governing how a campaign reimburses the government for an appearance by Bush or another official dictate that scheduling an official event alongside the political one reduces the share of the president's travel costs that must be funded by the candidate.")
Here's what Bush had to say about small business in Michigan: "They asked me why I came here, and I said, one, I like small businesses, and two, I like sweets."
Pool reporter Michael Fletcher of The Washington Post e-mailed his colleagues: "He then uttered his funniest line of the day (to us print folks, anyway) about the real money being with the press corps and urged us to shop. But there was no time as we in short order loaded up and headed out."
But never fear: Karl Rove made it all better.
Pooler Jim Gerstenzang of the Los Angeles Times described the ride home: "Two minutes into the flight, Rove appeared bearing a tray of chocolate-coated caramels. . . . He was asked for his November 7 report. 'Victory, victory, victory,' he said, flashing a two-finger 'V' sign and smiling. Then he said, 'I'm here as the candyman, not the prognosticator.'"
Pool Follies
Ken Herman blogs for Cox News Service about the trailer temporarily housing the handful of reporters, photographers and TV technicians who have to be on hand for events open only to the pool. (The rest of the press corps is being housed across the street during West Wing renovations.)
"The bathroom in the trailer is, shall we say, overtaxed and balky."
But help is on the way. "White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin has told [White House Correspondent Association] President Steve Scully that pool denizens can use a unisex bathroom in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building when nature calls. The trailer is adjacent to the EEOB. And - the best news of all - poolers will not have to be escorted into the EEOB (as long as they behave).
"'If we abuse the use of the bathroom, if folks begin roaming the halls of EEOB, Joe said he will end this immediately and we're back in the trailer bathroom,' Scully told colleagues."
Froomkin on the Radio
I'll be on Washington Post Radio today around 2:10 p.m. ET.
