Nattering Negativity

"If there is one thing the White House can usually count on when President Bush campaigns in small, Republican-dominated cities like this one," says the NYT , "it is friendly wall-to-wall news coverage of his arrival. And his visit here on Thursday did make the front page of the Billings Gazette.

"But news of his impending arrival took second billing in the paper. It ran below the fold and under a package of articles about the return of a local sailor's body from Iraq, accompanied by a large photograph of the flag-draped coffin at Billings Logan International Airport."

President Bush's hardly-surprising announcement that he plans to keep his veep and Pentagon chief really riles Andrew Sullivan , who sees Tuesday's elections as potentially therapeutic:

"George W. Bush just gave the most powerful reason for voting Democratic next Tuesday. He has reiterated unconditional support for the two architects of the chaos in Iraq, Cheney and Rumsfeld. He intends to keep Rumsfeld in his job until 2008! Why not a medal of freedom while he's at it?

"Let me put this kindly: anyone who believes that Donald Rumsfeld has done a 'fantastic job' in Iraq is out of his mind. The fact that such a person is president of the United States is beyond disturbing. But then this is the man who told Michael Brown he was doing a 'heckuva job.' And, yes, our Iraq policy begins to look uncannily like the Katrina response.

"The president, in other words, has just proved that he is utterly unhinged from reality, in a state of denial truly dangerous for the world. He needs an intervention. Think of this election as an intervention against a government in complete denial and capable of driving the West off a cliff."

You've probably noticed by now that Bush is visiting red states almost exclusively in the campaign's final stretch. Which, says Dick Polman , means the White House is worried:

"So while the Bush team can talk all it wants about election day optimism, it is not acting optimistic. In the field, it is playing defense. Bush is not spending time invading the opposition's turf, or traveling to traditionally Republican-leaning congressional districts, such as the suburbs of Philadelphia (where the GOP candidates don't want him around anyway). Rather, all his final week actions signal that the Bush team is back on its heels, preoccupied mostly with staving off disaster. In other words, it's likely that their internal polling numbers mirror the latest non-partisan polling stats.

"The respected Washington analyst Charlie Cook, looking at his own latest figures, stated flatly yesterday that, in the House, 'it would take a miracle for the GOP to hold onto their majority.' He also says, with regards to the Senate, 'the best case scenario' is that the Republicans will barely hold onto the chamber."

If you're an embattled Pennsylvania congressman, this is probably not what you want coming out in the campaign's final week:

"Republican congressman accused of abusing his ex-mistress agreed to pay her about $500,000 in a settlement last year that contained a powerful incentive for her to keep quiet until after Election Day, a person familiar with the terms of the deal told the Associated Press .

"Rep. Don Sherwood is locked in a tight reelection race against a Democratic opponent who has seized on the four-term congressman's relationship with the woman. While Sherwood acknowledged the woman was his mistress, he denied abusing her and said that he had settled her $5.5 million lawsuit on confidential terms."