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Looking Ahead
From Monday's briefing:
"Q: Tony, when you talk about different strategies in Iraq, and listening to the Iraq Study Group, would you change your goal? And I know the goal is to win, or victory -- but can you see yourself changing the definition of what victory might be?
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"MR. SNOW: No."
Snow's MO
Scott Rosenberg interviews Hearst columnist Helen Thomas for Express, The Washington Post Company's free daily newspaper:
"EXPRESS: How is your relationship with White House Press Secretary Tony Snow?
"THOMAS: We're talking to each other. His whole technique when you ask a tough question is a best defense is offense. So he starts attacking you personally. I take it in stride -- what the hell? The question is asked. He should be asked the questions. But he plays 'the best defense is an offense,' so he attacks the reporter, which I think is bad form. Just say, 'No comment' if you don't want to play around with it, but don't start attacking the reporter. We have a right to ask these questions and we would be defaulting on our duty if we didn't.
"I think he's enjoying it, but it's getting tougher because he's got to defend the indefensible."
Too Little, Too Late?
Michael Hirsh writes in his Newsweek column that it's simply too late for anyone to put Iraq back together.
"It is the story of this administration, of course: the inability to adjust prefixed ideas to reality, embodied in an incurious president who is unable to get on top of a problem because he doesn't follow up on details."
And Hirsch makes this point about Rumsfeld's resignation: "It's easy enough to blame the departing Donald Rumsfeld for this, as he leaves town like the biblical goat cast into the wilderness. But let's not forget that Rummy, for all his sins, wanted to pull out of Iraq quickly after the spring 2003 invasion and leave things to the Iraqi Army. It was Bush, with his vague ideas of a deeper transformation communicated just as vaguely to civil administrator Paul L. (Jerry) Bremer III, who opted to dismantle the Iraqi Army and Baath Party. That committed Bush to a long occupation, but he never bothered to check whether his Defense secretary was following through with the troops and resources that were needed (Rummy wasn't). If Barbara Tuchman were alive, she'd be adding another chapter to 'The March of Folly.'"
Detainee Policy
Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "Critics of U.S. detention policies warned yesterday that a brief legal document filed by the Justice Department this week raises the possibility that any of the millions of immigrants living in the United States could be subject to indefinite detention if they are accused of ties to terrorist groups.
"In a six-page motion filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Justice Department lawyers argue that an anti-terrorism law approved by Congress last month allows the government to detain any foreign national declared to be an enemy combatant, even if he is arrested and imprisoned inside the United States."
