Bush Daring Dems on Iraq

Gareth Smyth writes in the Financial Times: "Military action in response to Iran's atomic programme would be 'highly dangerous' with diplomacy still an option, according to a report published on Monday by a group of British non-governmental organisations, think-tanks and trade unions.

"'It cannot be said that the potential for diplomacy has been fully explored while direct talks between Iran and the US have not taken place,' says ' Time to Talk: the Case for Diplomatic Solutions on Iran', from Crisis Action.

"The report warns that US or Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities could lead to civilian deaths, radioactive contamination, heightened conflict in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda attacks stemming from intensified anti-western feeling, higher oil prices and an acceleration of Tehran's nuclear programme."

Gerard Baker writes in the Times of London: "It is important to remember that whatever is being contemplated for Iran in the recesses of the Pentagon is not even close to a rerun of the Iraq war -- which, of course, has gone so swimmingly. No one in his right mind is thinking about an invasion; targeted strikes against nuclear facilities are a different matter, however.

"There have been clear indications of late that the White House plans to bring the issue to a head in the next year or so. The deployment of heavy military hardware to the Gulf, suitable for launching stand-off air strikes, the appointment of an admiral to take over the usually land-based Central Command and the increasingly minatory language the Bush Administration has been using about Tehran's activity in Iraq all clearly suggest something is up."

Baker lists five reasons why some sort of action is more likely than it was a year ago, including this one: "Mr Bush has reached a sort of psychic calm now. He knows he is leaving office a controversial president and he is now almost entirely focused on his legacy, rather than his immediate political prospects. No amount of pleading from Republican pollsters telling him a botched attack on Iran would doom the party for decades is going to shift him if he thinks that the gauntlet has to be laid down."

Iran Opinion Watch

James Fallows writes for The Atlantic: "Deciding what to do next about Iraq is hard -- on the merits, and in the politics. It's hard on the merits because whatever comes next, from 'surge' to 'get out now' and everything in between, will involve suffering, misery, and dishonor. It's just a question of by whom and for how long. On a balance-of-misery basis, my own view changed last year from 'we can't afford to leave' to ' we can't afford to stay.' And the whole issue is hard in its politics because even Democrats too young to remember Vietnam know that future Karl Roves will dog them for decades with accusations of 'cut-and-run' and 'betraying' troops unless they can get Republicans to stand with them on limiting funding and forcing the policy to change.

"By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq. While the Congress flounders about what, exactly, it can do about Iraq, it can do something useful, while it still matters, in making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran."

A USA Today editorial asks: "How best to keep Iranian ambitions in check without incurring a new conflagration?" It recommends containment and dialogue.

Leonard Weiss and Larry Diamond write in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "[W]e need Senate and House hearings now to put the Bush administration on notice that, in the absence of an imminent military attack or a verified terrorist attack on the United States by Iran, Congress will not support a U.S. military strike on that country. Those hearings should aim toward passage of a law preventing the expenditure of any funds for a military attack on Iran unless Congress has either declared war with that country or has otherwise authorized military action under the War Powers Act.

"The law should be attached to an appropriations bill, making it difficult for the president to veto. If he simply claims that he is not bound by the restriction even if he signs it into law, and then orders an attack on Iran without congressional authorization for it, Congress should file a lawsuit and begin impeachment proceedings."

Former CIA official Paul R. Pillar writes in a Washington Post op-ed that the "accelerating debate about Iran and its nuclear program shows signs of the same dangerous reductionism" that afflicted the debate on Iraq.

"Avoiding the next military folly in the Middle East requires that the agenda for analysis and debate not be so severely and tendentiously truncated as before Iraq. Not only must proponents of military action not be allowed to manipulate the answers, they also should not be allowed to define the questions."

Some of the questions Pillar raises: "How would Tehran respond to an act of war? What terrorism might it launch against the United States? How would it exploit U.S. vulnerabilities next door in Iraq, where it has barely begun to exploit the influence it has assiduously been cultivating? What other military action might it take, with the risk of a wider war in the Persian Gulf? . . .

"How much would the direct assertion of U.S. hostility strengthen Iranian hard-liners, whose policies are partly premised on such hostility? How much would it add to all Iranians' list of historical grievances against the United States and adversely affect relations with future governments?"

And over at NiemanWatchdog.org, you can read my take on some of the lessons the press should have learned from Iraq that are relevant again as Bush ratchets up the rhetoric on Iran.

Scooter Libby Watch

Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein write in The Washington Post: "I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby told a grand jury in 2004 that Vice President Cheney did not encourage him to provide information about an undercover CIA officer to the media, but Libby also said he did not believe that the information was secret and had to be safeguarded, according to audiotapes of Libby's testimony played in court yesterday.

"Testifying to the grand jury in the probe that eventually led to criminal charges against him, Libby, Cheney's then-chief of staff, said he remembered Cheney telling him in June 2003 that the wife of a prominent war critic worked at the CIA. Libby said that it was the first time he had heard that, but that Cheney said it in 'sort of an offhand manner, as a curiosity.' . . .

"On the tapes, Libby said that Cheney did not tell him Plame's CIA identity was 'super-super-secret' and that he used a 'curious' tone unlike his regular voice, which 'was much more matter-of-fact and straight.'"

Those tapes, by the way, should be available on the Internet later today.

Leonnig and Goldstein also write: "Late last night, Libby's defense began laying the groundwork to keep him from having to testify. Walton had warned that Libby would have to take the stand in order for the court to allow his lawyers to assert his misstatements to investigators were caused by a faulty or overtaxed memory."

Blogger Jeralyn Merritt web-publishes and analyzes the defense team's latest brief: "They say that making him testify in order to present his memory defense would force him to choose between his 5th Amendment right to remain silent and his 6th Amendment right to counsel."

Matt Apuzzo writes for the Associated Press: "Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, in tapes played Monday in the CIA leak trial, pressed Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff on whether Cheney had directed him to leak the identity of a CIA operative to reporters.

"The audiotapes showed that Fitzgerald, just a month into his leak investigation, was asking pointed questions about the highest levels of government."

Kristof's Questions

Nicholas D. Kristof (whose May 6, 2003 column kicked off this whole episode) writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): "Mr. Vice President, did you push Mr. Libby to dig into Joe Wilson's background and discredit him? Mr. Libby made such a major effort to gather materials from the C.I.A. and State Department about Mr. Wilson -- both before and after you told him on June 12, 2003, that his wife worked at the C.I.A. -- that it seems likely that you commanded the effort. True?

"What did you mean when you wrote, in a note to Scott McClellan that has been entered into evidence, 'not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy the Pres. that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others.'

"First, you wrote that it was 'the Pres.' who had asked Mr. Libby to do this, and then you crossed out those two words. Did President Bush indeed ask that Mr. Libby take charge of the effort to discredit Ambassador Wilson? And is it true, as was hinted at in the trial, that the White House tried to block the release of this document? . . .

"Mr. Cheney . . . did you specifically tell Mr. Libby to leak to reporters the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A.? . . .

"During the leak investigation, were you aware that Mr. Libby was telling the F.B.I. apparently false information? . . .

"Were you trying to cover up your own reliance on misinformation about Iraqi W.M.D. by blaming the C.I.A. and anybody else within range, like Mr. Wilson?"

Kristof concludes: "If you continue to stonewall, then you don't belong in office and you should resign."

Budget Watch

Michael Abramowitz and Lori Montgomery write in The Washington Post: "With the $2.9 trillion budget he submitted to Congress, Bush signaled he would attempt to squeeze spending on health care, education, housing and other domestic programs important to the Democratic majority for the duration of his term. Overall domestic spending would be held below the rate of inflation in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and frozen thereafter.

"The new Bush budget would also seek to reduce the rapid rate of growth in Medicare and Medicaid, trimming $101 billion from the two programs over the next five years by reducing payments to health-care providers and forcing wealthier seniors to pay more for physician services and prescription drug coverage. And it would provide additional funds for the Children's Health Insurance Program, but not enough to maintain the same enrollment over the next five years, according to independent analysts.

"Bush said his plan would bolster national security while 'keeping the economy strong with low taxes and keeping spending under control.' But Democratic leaders, who will control the budget process for the first time since Bush took office, immediately denounced the plan as an irresponsible attempt to make costly tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and to finance the war by shortchanging children, the elderly and the nation's long-term fiscal health."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "The budget, in four volumes and 2,500 pages of text, charts and tables, made few concessions to the political realities facing Mr. Bush.

"For a president less than two years from the end of his second term, and with his poll numbers low, it was a defiant statement of the principles he has championed for years: the power of tax cuts to drive the economy, the need to spend what it takes to succeed in Iraq and in the broader struggle against terrorism and the necessity of reining in spending on much of the rest of what government does."

But Steven R. Weisman writes in the New York Times that "while Democratic critics may wish to challenge the administration's blueprint, political and fiscal constraints will make it hard for them to assert their own priorities.

"In theory, the budget presents the Democrats their first real opportunity to rewrite the administration's policies, especially on tax cuts, that they have been attacking for six years.

"But in practice, Democrats know that the only way they can find the revenue to restore the administration's proposed spending cuts would be to cut back on military spending, delay their stated intentions to balance the budget or rescind the Bush tax cuts in future years. They are not especially eager to do any of these."

Here is the full text of the budget, and a lot of supporting information from the White House. Here is the transcript of yesterday's briefing by Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman.

And here is an analysis by Robert Greenstein of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

From a Washington Post editorial this morning: "He squeezes social programs while his tax cuts remain untouchable. An administration serious about fiscal prudence would have acknowledged that political and fiscal reality -- a new Democratic Congress, the ever-mounting costs of war -- demand reconsideration of some of the tax cuts."

And a New York Times editorial encourages pushback on those parts of the proposed Pentagon budget not going to troops under fire.

Waxman Watch

Philip Shenon writes in the New York Times: "Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is promising the sort of oversight that the Bush administration has not experienced before.

"'There has been no cop on the beat,' said Mr. Waxman, who accuses Congressional Republicans of having abdicated their responsibility for oversight in recent years. 'And when there is no cop on the beat, criminals are more willing to engage in crimes.'"

Poll Watch

Jeffrey M. Jones writes for Gallup: "A new Gallup Poll finds George W. Bush with a 32% approval rating. That is down slightly from his readings in January, and is within one point of the low rating of his entire administration. . . .

"The new approval rating nearly matches the low for his administration, 31% in May 2006, and the 65% disapproval rating ties his highest negative rating, from that same May poll.

"Bush has not had an approval rating above 40% since last September, and has not been above 50% in any Gallup Poll in nearly two full years (March 2005). . . .

"Bush's approval rating among Democrats has been below 10% in every Gallup Poll since mid-October 2006. By comparison, Gallup never recorded a sub-10% approval rating for Bill Clinton among Republicans. His lowest support among the opposition party's supporters was 13% during the late summer and fall of 1994."

Always Time for Taunting

Ken Herman blogs for Cox News Service: "President Bush found a moment today to lob a good-natured barb or two at David Gregory, NBC's White House correspondent and sometime substitute 'Today' show host."

Said Bush, fresh from taking a few questions after his Cabinet meeting: "You're a big shot. You're trying to get in the big time. You're leaving us. Leave no administration behind. Let us know when you get to be like the 'Today' show thing and all that. That way we can say we knew you when, we knew him when.'"

Cartoon Watch

John Sherffius on Molly Ivins; Ted Rall on the Derider; Mike Luckovich exposes Plan B.