Reality's Revenge

Well, apparently Bush has gotten over his misgivings.

Here he is in yesterday's wire-service interview: "It's estimated that our troops and Iraqi troops killed or captured over 1,500 people during this period of time."

New Media Strategy, Part II

Julian E. Barnes writes in the Los Angeles Times: "As concern in the Defense Department mounts over eroding public support for the Iraq war, the Pentagon has launched a rapid-response public relations effort to rebut news stories that officials believe are inaccurate or misleading.

"Although all administrations have been critical of the media, most have avoided regular, ongoing public fights with journalists. But in recent weeks the Bush administration has shown a willingness to fight over facts and reporters' analysis of news events.

"The Defense Department's rapid-response efforts echo an initiative called ' Setting the Record Straight ,' in which the White House identifies what it says are news reports' inaccuracies or quotations out of context. Among the first results of the Pentagon response is a new ' For the Record ' section of the Defense Department's Web site."

New Media Strategy, Part III

And the new official White House policy appears to be: If you oppose the war in Iraq, you hate the troops.

Here's White House press secretary Tony Snow at yesterday's briefing : "You can't say, I support the troops, but I hate the cause, because that's why they signed up. And you've got men and women who are risking their lives for what they consider a noble cause, which is not only defeating al-Qaeda and defeating terrorists abroad, but also creating conditions that are going to allow people in that part of the world to brush aside terror as an unnecessary distraction to building a better life through free and democratic society."

Lickspittle Limbaugh

Can anyone imagine any major media figure asking such sycophantic questions of a Democratic president?

Here's the transcript of Bush's interview yesterday with right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh.

When the subject turned to terrorism, Limbaugh let loose with a tirade -- not against terrorists, but against the media and Democrats. Bush then had this to say:

"I am deeply concerned about a country, the United States, leaving the Middle East. I am worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, obviously creating incredible damage if they do so; that they will topple modern governments, that they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West. People say, 'What do you mean by that?' I say, 'If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies. You couple that with a country that doesn't like us with a nuclear weapon and people will look back at this moment and say, 'What happened to those people in 2006?' and those are the stakes in this war we face.'"

Here is Limbaugh's hard-hitting follow up:

"Well, that is extremely visionary. One of the things, if I may make this personal, one of the many things I've admired about you is that you see down the road 20 or 30 years. You just illustrated that with your comment. What if down the road 20 years we look back to this time and with 20-20 hindsight realize we blew it. You're not, as far as it sounds to me, you're not going to let that happen. You're going to do whatever it takes to secure victory."

Asked about China, Bush test-drove a new talking point. It crashed: "One great opportunity for China, Rush, is to encourage China to develop a society in which there are savers. In other words, a society in which there's a pension plan. Let me rephrase that: a society in which there's consumer because now there's a society of too many savers."

About That Apology

As I noted in my Tuesday column , Bush was asked in a television interview last week about Limbaugh's mocking of actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease.

"Well, I, I, I, I, I recognize that Rush apologized," Bush said. "He apologized, and I think we all ought to accept his apology."

But as Eric Boehlert writes for Media Matters, that was no apology.

Laugh Out Loud Funny

Here's the text of yesterday's briefing.

Although the press corps did play along with the White House -- by asking 31 questions about Kerry -- Snow's disingenuousness on the topic was so extreme that at one point, the reporters in the room burst out laughing.

Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe has the video clip.

Snow: "And again, how hard is this? You say something, it's not what you meant to say, you apologize. You say, I'm sorry. And instead, he's coming out and accusing Republicans of dirty tricks. This is helpful advice. We're trying to help you out. We're throwing you a lifeline, buddy. Just say you're sorry. It's not hard. (Laughter.)

"Q: Lifesaver Tony Snow. . . .

"Q: We believe that. . . .

"Q: Have you thought about sending Senator Kerry a gift basket? [Laughter.]"

Rove Watch

Mark Knoller of CBS News sat down with Karl Rove for an interview yesterday.

Knoller asked: "Does this issue have legs?"

Rove: "John Kerry's name is not on the ballot. It will remind people of why they didn't vote for him. And it may remind them of the tendency of some of the Democratic party to be dismissive of our military, to be less than supportive of our military in a time of war. But, you know, I think it's a sideshow."

Andrew Sullivan Watch

Blogger Andrew Sullivan was on a roll yesterday.

Here he is on Time.com : "While the media is obsessed parsing the ad libs of someone on no ballot this fall, something truly ominous has just happened in Iraq. The commander-in-chief has abandoned an American soldier to the tender mercies of a Shiite militia. . . .

"The U.S. military does not have a tradition of abandoning its own soldiers to foreign militias, or of taking orders from foreign governments. No commander in chief who actually walks the walk, rather than swaggering the swagger, would acquiesce to such a thing. The soldier appears to be of Iraqi descent who is married to an Iraqi woman. Who authorized abandoning him to the enemy? Who is really giving the orders to the U.S. military in Iraq? These are real questions about honor and sacrifice and a war that is now careening out of any control. They are not phony questions drummed up by a partisan media machine to appeal to emotions to maintain power."

And then, as Editor and Publisher reports: "Andrew Sullivan, the conservative writer who was once a key media supporter for the Iraq war, denounced the latest Bush statement on CNN on Wednesday night, stating that the president is so delusional, 'This is not an election anymore, it's an intervention.'

"Sullivan said the president was 'so in denial,' comparing the Rumsfeld endorsement to applauding the job FEMA's Michael Brown did on Katrina: 'It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind. No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that it has been done well. It's a disaster.

"'For him to say it's a fantastic job suggests the president has lost it, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it. . . . These people must be held accountable.'"

Social Security Watch

Bloomberg's Richard Keil with more from that wire-service interview: "Looking past the election, Bush has said he wants to revisit the issue of creating private investment accounts for Social Security as part of a broader effort to restructure entitlement programs including Medicare and Medicaid.

"He said today he would send Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to Capitol Hill to solicit ideas from Democrats and Republicans alike.

"'I am willing to listen to anything,' Bush said. 'But I recognize it's going to take a bipartisan approach.'

"Bush made clear that he believes Social Security can be restructured without increasing taxes, something leading Democrats like former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin have insisted must be part of the equation.

"'Everyone knows my position: I believe we can solve this problem without raising taxes,' Bush said. 'It's going to be important for people, if they are interested in going forward, not to put any preconditions on it.'"

No preconditions?

As Lori Montgomery wrote last week in The Washington Post: "In recent days, Bush has said Social Security remains one of the 'big items' he wants to tackle next year and he continues to 'believe that a worker, at his or her option, ought to be allowed to put some of their own money . . . in a private savings account, an account that they call their own.'

"The statement appeared to represent no substantive change for the White House, and it varied little from the president's previous remarks."

The Cheney Documents

Josh Gerstein writes in the New York Sun: "A new executive privilege battle is looming in Washington as a federal appeals court considers whether to intervene in an election-eve dispute over records of visitors to Vice President Cheney's home at the Naval Observatory, as well as his offices in the White House complex.

"Last month, a federal judge in Washington, Ricardo Urbina, ordered the Secret Service to disclose two years of visitor logs to The Washington Post immediately or explain in detail why the records are exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act.

"The Justice Department has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to block Judge Urbina's order to allow the parties to present more extensive legal arguments about the dispute.

"'Disclosure of the records at issue could reveal an ever-expanding mosaic that would allow observers to chart the course of vice presidential contacts and deliberations in unprecedented fashion,' government attorneys argued in a brief filed yesterday. 'Such an unwarranted intrusion into the most sensitive deliberations of the vice presidency cannot be countenanced.'"

Bush Unbound?

Robert Kagan writes in a Washington Post opinion column that those who hope a Democratic victory in the congressional elections will finally shift the direction of American foreign policy in a more benign direction may be in for a surprise.

"'Bush hobbled' -- is less likely than the alternative: 'Bush unbound.' Neither the president nor his vice president is running for office in 2008. That is what usually prevents high-stakes foreign policy moves in the last two years of a president's term."

Olbermann Watch

The Crooks and Liars blog has the video and transcript of Keith Olbermann on MSBNC last night: "So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans' deliberate distortions.

"Thus the president will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?

Late Night Humor

Crooks and Liars also has video of the Daily Show's look at ways in which Bush is funnier than Kerry.