Bush's Ambiguous Compromise

Is President Bush finally willing to compromise on an Iraq war-funding bill, under growing pressure even from within his own party? Or is he hoodwinking everyone with a meaningless concession while privately raging at those Republicans who went public about their confrontational meeting with him earlier this week?

CBS News was among those building a dramatic narrative of presidential reversal based on one ambiguous paragraph from Bush's remarks at the Pentagon yesterday. "In the standoff between Congress and the president over paying for the war in Iraq, the president blinked today, and it was members of his own party who forced him to do it," Katie Couric said at the top of the evening news last night. "The president would still veto a funding bill that included a deadline for troop withdrawal, but he now says he's willing to accept a bill that sets benchmarks for the Iraqis."

But here, from Bush's comments at the Pentagon, is all he said about compromise yesterday: "One message I have heard from people from both parties is that the idea of benchmarks makes sense. And I agree. It makes sense to have benchmarks as a part of our discussion on how to go forward. And so I've empowered [White House Chief of Staff] Josh Bolten to find common ground on benchmarks, and he will continue to have dialogue with both Republicans and Democrats."

What's new about that isn't clear. Maybe nothing. Bush has been talking about benchmarks ever since he first announced, in a prime-time address in January, his controversial plans for a troop surge in Baghdad: "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced," Bush said, and described those benchmarks in some detail.

Democrats insist that the Iraqis face consequences if those benchmarks are not met, while Bush has been opposed to anything that smacks of timetables. Yet White House officials, offered the chance yesterday to expand on Bush's comments, notably declined.

Vice President Cheney, in a Fox News interview, was skeptical of the whole notion of "consequences."

"Well, we're interested in having benchmarks that we want to see the Iraqis meet," he said. "The president has talked about this previously. That's not a new concept or anything that one of the Democrats came up with. It's also not - I'm always a little puzzled when we talk about consequences. . . .

Iraqis, he said, "have put up with a lot. . . . So when we talk to them about consequences in some kind of bureaucratic sense or threatening them with a cutoff of funds, for example, if they don't do A, B and C, it strikes me as, you know, that's Washington talk but it may not have all that relevance on the ground out there."

Bubble Repair

As for that contentious meeting with moderate House Republicans so widely reported yesterday (see yesterday's column, Bush's Bubble Breached), signs are that Bush and his aides were furious, rather than chastened, by the brutal reality check -- and by the fact that it was made public.

Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post: "White House political adviser Karl Rove, furious that Republican moderates had divulged a confrontational meeting they had on Tuesday with Bush on the war, started yesterday with an angry conversation with the meeting's organizer, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), according to several GOP lawmakers. Dan Meyer, the White House's chief lobbyist, called the other participants to express the administration's unhappiness."

Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois was one of the most widely quoted participants, telling CNN, for example, "I don't know if he's gotten that kind of opinion before in such a frank and no holds barred way."

Jonathan E. Kaplan writes in The Hill: "LaHood and Meyer got into a shouting match as emotions ran high and voices were raised yesterday morning in the White House while lawmakers were waiting to meet with first lady Laura Bush, according to two legislators who witnessed the exchange. LaHood and five other GOP lawmakers met with Mrs. Bush in the Yellow Oval in the White House residence to chat about the No Child Left Behind law.