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Bush Claims Right to Open Mail
If the former, this begs following up. Is the decision-making process at the White House as profoundly cynical as this would imply?
Opinion Watch
David S. Broder writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "As commander in chief, the president can order more troops into the war zone, but such a step would undoubtedly provoke the most angry domestic debate of his term.
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"The larger point made by the Iraq Study Group in its unanimous bipartisan report is that no policy for Iraq can succeed without broad public and congressional support. . . .
"Sending thousands more American troops into harm's way, when fewer than a fifth of Americans support such a step, is no way to build that support. . . .
"[If Bush] does not bring Congress and both parties into the process, the policy will inevitably fail. He has to face that reality."
Bob Herbert writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): "All of the tortured, twisted rationales for this war -- all of the fatuous intellectual pyrotechnics dreamed up to justify it -- have vaporized, and we're left with just the mad, mindless, meaningless and apparently endless slaughter. . . .
"If there were politicians here at home with some of the courage of the troops in the field, we could begin saving lives rather than watching helplessly as the Bush White House continues to sacrifice them. Three thousand and counting is enough."
Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser for Bush's father, writes in a New York Times op-ed that a precipitous American withdrawal would be a strategic defeat for American interests. But to avoid that, he recommends two approaches unlikely to be part of Bush's plan.
"To avoid these dire consequences, we need to secure the support of the countries of the region themselves," he writes.
"A vigorously renewed effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict could fundamentally change both the dynamics in the region and the strategic calculus of key leaders."
And Roscoe C. Born writes in a Baltimore Sun op-ed: "There is a way for Congress to swiftly stanch the flow of American blood in Iraq without a bitter, partisan debate over the causes or conduct of the war. . . .
"Congress is morally obligated - now - to review its outdated joint resolution authorizing force against Iraq, and to undertake a new joint resolution declaring, in essence, 'Whereas the purposes of the original authorization have been served; whereas the stated reasons justifying the authorization no longer exist; whereas the objectionable Iraqi regime has been removed and the new Iraqi regime poses no military threat to its neighbors or the United States; that, therefore, U.S. military forces are no longer authorized to remain in Iraq.'"
The Hanging
Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "The White House declined Wednesday to criticize the conduct of the execution of Saddam Hussein, even as State Department officials and military leaders in Baghdad raised questions about the timing of the hanging and the way the condemned dictator was taunted by Shiite guards as he stood on the gallows.
"Spokesmen for President Bush said he had not seen the video of the execution, and Mr. Bush himself refused to answer questions about it. Appearing in the Rose Garden with his cabinet to talk about a balanced budget, the president turned his back and walked away when a reporter called out to ask whether he believed that the hanging had been handled appropriately.
"The circumstances surrounding the hanging have prompted public demonstrations among Mr. Hussein's Sunni loyalists in Iraq and outrage around the world. Yet, while Bush administration officials said in quiet background conversations that they agreed that the execution was bungled, the White House insisted in public on Wednesday that the president was concentrating on the future of Iraq and that he was content to leave the investigation to the Iraqis."
From yesterday's briefing:
"Q Do you have qualms?
" MR. SNOW: I think the most important thing to realize is that Saddam Hussein was executed after a long trial, long and public trial that met international standards, an appeal that met international standards. . . . There were some -- the embassy expressed some concerns; the Iraqis listened to those concerns, they've carried it forward. And I think -- it's interesting because there seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein's life and less about the first 69 in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people. That's why he was executed. . . .
" Q Is there anything to the school of thought, following up on this two minutes versus 69 years thing, that it's not so much about Saddam Hussein as it is about the government that we're doing business with right now?
" MR. SNOW: No, I don't think so."
Jim Hoagland disagrees, in his Washington Post opinion column: "The mishandled execution carries a larger message that President Bush must absorb for the decisive address he plans to give on Iraq as early as next week: If Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his aides cannot control a gallows chamber containing 20 people, how can they hope to manage a country that is disintegrating under the weight of religious and ethnic hatreds?"
Still Relevant
Jim Rutenberg writes in the New York Times: "In an article published on a friendly op-ed page, and from the regal confines of the White House, President Bush greeted the incoming Democratic leadership of Congress on Wednesday with a message of bipartisanship.
"But he also sent another message: I'm still the guy with the big plane, the big office (the oval one) and the presidential seal.
With the op-ed, in The Wall Street Journal, and in the Rose Garden appearance, Mr. Bush sought to set the governing agenda one day before Democrats were officially to take control of Congress and alter the balance of power that has favored Mr. Bush's party for nearly his entire presidency. . . .
"In interviews, White House officials did not hesitate to acknowledge that they were taking advantage of the last day before the Democrats take control to assert some presidential power. . . .
"But administration officials disputed Democratic assertions that the president was trying to upstage them before their big day."
Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press: "Weakened by election losses and hemmed in by time, President Bush is using what he's got left - a bully pulpit, a veto threat and a sudden interest in working with Democrats."
Budget Talk
Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush promised yesterday to produce a plan to balance the federal budget in five years and challenged lawmakers to slash their special pet projects in half next year, embracing priorities of the new Democratic leadership that will assume control of Congress today. . . .
"In trying to adopt such ambitions as his own, Bush hopes to regain the initiative after his party lost Congress in November and to counter his reputation as a president who took a budget surplus and turned it into record deficits, analysts said. Bush has never proposed a balanced budget since it went into deficit, never vetoed a spending bill when Republicans controlled Congress and offered little objection to earmarks until the issue gained political traction last year."
Bush and the Democrats remain far apart on how to get to a balanced budget, however, "with Bush insisting yesterday that his tax cuts be made permanent and Democrats laying the groundwork for reversing some of those for the wealthiest taxpayers. Democrats responded to Bush's comments with deep skepticism. 'It's real hard to look at the man's record and take him seriously on these issues,' Kent Conrad (N.D.), the incoming Senate Budget Committee chairman, said in an interview. 'He's got a lot to prove. Talk is cheap.'"
And Deborah Solomon writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "President Bush's pledge to balance the budget by 2012 will be easier to project on paper than to actually achieve. . . .
"[G]etting to a balanced budget by 2012 will require some big assumptions. Among them, the president's budget is unlikely to reflect the full cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the cost of preventing the Alternative Minimum Tax from affecting more middle-class Americans.
"'What we're very likely to see is a budget that's very unrealistic,' said James Horney, senior fellow at the Center on Budget Policies and Priorities, a liberal think tank. 'It's not going to be hard for him to put together a budget that on paper shows a balanced budget, but it is going to include a lot of unlikely assumptions.'"
Joel Havemann writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Bush would concentrate his cuts on giant government benefit programs -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- that constitute more than 40% of federal spending."
Negroponte Switcheroo
Glenn Kessler writes in The Washington Post: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has persuaded John D. Negroponte to leave his post as director of national intelligence and come to the State Department as her deputy, government officials said last night."
Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Negroponte will fill a critical job that has been vacant for months, and he is expected to play a leading role in shaping policy in Iraq. . . .
"But administration officials interviewed on Wednesday would not say whether Mr. Negroponte was moving because the White House saw him as uniquely qualified for the diplomatic post, or because President Bush was dissatisfied with his performance as intelligence chief, or whether it was a combination of the two."
Torture Watch
The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "This week, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, disclosed that the Justice Department had spurned his request for two documents. One is a presidential directive regarding Central Intelligence Agency interrogation methods and detention facilities outside the United States. The other is a 2002 Justice Department memo on the subject to the CIA's top lawyer. . . .
"As Leahy pointed out in his letter to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, 'photographs and reports of prisoner abuse in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere that have emerged during the past two years depict an interrogation and detention system operating contrary to U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.' Such revelations also have been a boon to anti-American propagandists.
"The abuses have stoked suspicions about 'alternative' methods used by the CIA in questioning high-profile suspected terrorists held in foreign prisons before being moved to Guantanamo. While insisting that those techniques didn't amount to torture, the president has suggested that they are vital in eliciting information.
"Yet what those methods might be is anybody's guess. Congress -- and not just its intelligence committees -- has a right to know."
Karl Rove Watch
Paul Bedard writes for U.S. News: "Maybe it was wishful thinking by his foes or insiders looking to move up to a nicer office in the West Wing, but all those rumors that Karl Rove was planning to exit soon appear to be dead, killed by none other than King Karl himself. . . .
"We hear that the top White House political aide, chastened by the huge Republican losses in November, has his spark back and is raring to fight the new majority that takes power in Congress this week. In fact, he's boldly betting that the president will veto any Democratic tax increase."
But just how much is Rove willing to bet? Five bucks.
Cheney's Teeth
Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts write in The Washington Post about "Dick Cheney emerging from an early-bird dental appointment yesterday. For the third time in the past few weeks, the veep's security detail closed down the streets around 19th and N; Cheney emerged by 7:10 a.m., clearing the way for the morning rush. No word from his office on the reasons for the sudden dental diligence."
It reminds me a bit of an Ann Telnaes cartoon from her new Cheney collection, called " Dick". It's the twelfth cartoon on this page.
