Cheney: Neither Here Nor There?

"'What is the point of sticking around in an administration that isn't going to accomplish anything significant?' said a former official. Meanwhile, the administration faces a growing cacophony of congressional hearings into its handling of the Iraq war, into its alleged politicisation of the Justice department and into its handling of military tribunals to try alleged terrorist detainees."

David Ignatius asks in his Washington Post opinion column: "[H]ow do Bush and his senior aides hope to keep momentum going for the ship of state in such a difficult period? I put that question to several senior administration officials during the past week, and their answers surprised me -- not because they have a clear plan of action, but because they don't see the Bush presidency in as dire straits as many outsiders do. . . .

"One way to describe the current White House mind-set might be 'muddling through.' Certainly, that seems a fair description of Iraq policy. 'In Bush's view, we are not on the edge of failure or of blindingly visible success,' says [one senior official who sees Bush almost every day.] . . .

"One of Bush's top aides muses on the defining paradox of this presidency: How did a man who promised a change of tone in Washington preside over one of the most partisan and divisive periods in the country's history? Bush doesn't conduct feuds or hold personal grudges, this adviser insists. 'The president is polarizing, even though he isn't polar.' Here's where I find a disconnect: Bush's aides seem not to understand how Bush and Cheney's statements have poisoned the water."

Sidney Blumenthal writes for Salon: "In private, Bush administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal 'war paradigm' acknowledge that their efforts to create a system for detainees separate from due process, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed. One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. If he were to speak up, given his seminal role in formulating the policy and his stature among the Federalist Society cadres that run it, his rejection would have a shattering impact. . . .

"Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration's policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, 'Not everything we've done has been illegal.' He adds, 'Not everything has been ultra vires' -- a legal term referring to actions beyond the law."

Salon has published an excerpt from blogger Glenn Greenwald's new book: "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency," coming out next week.

Greenwald writes: "[T]he great and tragic irony of the Bush presidency is that its morally convicted foundations have yielded some of the most morally grotesque acts and radical departures from American values in our country's history. The president who insists that he is driven by a clear and compelling moral framework, in which the forces of Good and Evil battle toward a decisive resolution, has done more than almost any American in history to make the world question on which side of that battle this country is fighting. The more convinced President Bush and his followers become of the unchallengeable righteousness of their cause, the fewer limits they recognize. And America's moral standing in the world, and our national character, continue to erode to previously unthinkable depths."

Iraq Watch

John Ward Anderson and Howard Schneider report for The Washington Post today: "Fourteen U.S. soldiers have died in scattered attacks in Iraq over the last two days, including five killed Thursday by a roadside bomb in a northeastern Baghdad neighborhood, the military said in a series of statements."

Mike Drummond and Laith Hammoudi write for McClatchy Newspapers: "Inside a fortified conference room and through the prism of U.S. and Iraqi military officials, a security plan to pacify the country was working on Wednesday. Outside, extremists blew up mosques, lobbed mortars into Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone and generated a steady drumbeat of violence."

Joshua Partlow and Robin Wright write in The Washington Post about the deepening frustration inside Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's own government.

Glenn Kessler writes in The Washington Post about the possibility that the State Department will soon be forced to order its employees to serve in Iraq.