Bush's Osama Problem

Politicization Watch

Neil A. Lewis writes in the New York Times: "The White House political affairs office directed the nation's chief antidrug official and his deputies to appear at about 20 political events with vulnerable Republican members of Congress before the 2006 elections, a leading House Democrat charged Tuesday.

"The lawmaker, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, said the episode was further evidence of what Democrats have described as White House efforts at improperly politicizing federal agencies. Mr. Waxman said the pre-election appearances, by officials of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is obliged by law to be nonpolitical, were often accompanied by announcements of federal grants.

"The congressman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said administration documents obtained by the committee suggested that Sara M. Taylor, then the White House political affairs director, and Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, had helped direct the campaign-season travel plans of officials from the drug office, including its director, John P. Walters."

Michael A. Fletcher writes in The Washington Post: "In a letter to Taylor, Waxman also pointed to an e-mail by an official in the drug policy office describing [Rove] as being pleased that the office, along with the Commerce, Transportation and Agriculture departments, went 'above and beyond' the call of duty in arranging appearances by Cabinet members at campaign events.

"'This recognition is not something we hear every day and we should feel confident that our hard work is noticed,' said the e-mail, written by Douglas Simon, the drug policy office's White House liaison. 'The director and the deputies deserve the most recognition because they actually had to give up time with their families for the god awful places we sent them.'"

Cheney's Secrets Exposed!

Remember Vice President Cheney's secret energy task force, and all its secret meetings?

Michael Abramowitz and Steven Mufson write in The Washington Post: "A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides .. held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. . . .

"In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. . . .

"One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; a week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings. On March 5, some of the country's biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff. . . .

"The list of participants' names and when they met with administration officials provides a clearer picture of the task force's priorities and bolsters previous reports that the review leaned heavily on oil and gas companies and on trade groups -- many of them big contributors to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party. But while it clears up much of the lingering uncertainty about who was granted access to present energy policy views to Cheney's staff, it does not entirely explain why the Bush administration fought so hard to keep it and other as-yet-unreleased internal memos secret."

Fielding Watch

Michael A. Fletcher writes in The Washington Post: "Fred F. Fielding took over as White House counsel in January, prompting the widespread expectation that he would help usher a new pragmatism into the West Wing, one that could defuse the inevitable tension between the White House and the newly empowered Democrats in Congress. . . .

"But, so far, he hasn't."

U.S. Attorney Watch

Jesse J. Holland writes for the Associated Press: "Former White House aide Harriet Miers will continue to refuse to appear before a House committee, her lawyer said Tuesday despite Democrats' threats to hold her in contempt. . . .

"The House Judiciary Committee had given Miers, President Bush's former legal counsel who defied a subpoena to appear before the committee, until Tuesday to change her mind about testifying. Lawmakers have been investigating whether the White House was involved in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors.

"'Her failure to comply with our subpoena is a serious affront to this committee and our constitutional system of checks and balances,' House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said. 'We are carefully planning our next steps.'"

Wiretapping Watch

James Risen writes in the New York Times: "The Bush administration has asked for more time to respond to subpoenas from the Senate Judiciary Committee related to the National Security Agency's program of wiretapping without warrants, and the panel has agreed, said a committee spokeswoman, Tracy Schmaler. Today was to have been the deadline for the administration to respond to the subpoenas issued by the Senate committee late last month to the White House, the National Security Council, Vice President Cheney's office and the Justice Department."

Thomas Ferraro writes for Reuters: "Attorneys for the White House and Cheney's office wrote Leahy on Tuesday and said the administration needed more time to respond.

"'We have been working diligently to assess your requests,' wrote White House counsel Fred Fielding. 'However, it has become clear that we will not be able to come close to completing our review process by the July 18 return date.'"

As I wrote in my June 28 column, asserting a vaguely plausible executive privilege claim in rejecting these subpoenas would be much harder even than asserting privilege related to last year's firings of U.S. attorneys.

Middle East Watch

Steven Erlanger writes in the New York Times about the problems associated with Bush's attempt to pitch the battle between Palestinian political groups Fatah and Hamas as one between good and evil.

"By conflating Hamas with jihadist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Mr. Bush presented a picture that most Palestinians do not recognize. Their internal divisions -- even with Hamas having routed Fatah in Gaza last month and Fatah running the West Bank -- are much more complex that the one posited by Mr. Bush.

"Palestinians elected Hamas in January 2006 to rule them, after all, and even many Palestinians who voted for Fatah say the United States-led boycott of Hamas has meant it has never been given a chance to govern.

"They also know that Fatah has hardly been spotless, which is why they voted against it, and that Fatah has done very little to reform itself since.

"Nor is it clear that Mr. Bush's vision is shared by other American allies or other members of the so-called quartet -- Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- trying to encourage Middle East peace."

Richard Boudreaux writes in the Los Angeles Times: "President Bush's declared intention to refocus on the Middle East by sponsoring a peace conference this fall won cautious endorsement Tuesday from Israeli, Palestinian and other regional leaders who will be invited. But many in the region voiced skepticism about what it could achieve. . . .

"[O]fficials and analysts immersed in the 6-decade-old conflict said the initiative faces many obstacles: an untenable split among the Palestinians, weak leadership in the Israeli and Palestinian camps, widely differing expectations for the conference, and a sense that Bush is acting too late."

Meanwhile, Terence Hunt writes for the Associated Press: "The White House said Tuesday the international meeting on the Middle East proposed by President Bush should not be viewed as 'a big peace conference.' . . .

"After many years of disappointments and setbacks in the search for peace in the Middle East, the administration appears intent on preventing expectations from rising too high."

See yesterday's column, Bush's Middle Eastern Folly.

Of Dead Elephants and Sinking Ships

Ronald Brownstein writes in his Los Angeles Times opinion column: "Amid all the frenetic early maneuvering in the 2008 GOP presidential race, Republicans may be missing the elephant in the room: namely that the head of the herd is bleeding to death on the carpet.

"That would be President Bush, whose approval rating scraped new lows last week. Bush won't be on the ballot in 2008, of course, but throughout American history, outgoing presidents have cast a long shadow over the campaign to succeed them. And when a departing president has been as unpopular as Bush is now, his party has usually lost the White House in the next election. . . .

"One senior GOP strategist says Bush could most help the party by redirecting the American mission in Iraq away from front-line combat operations toward training and counter-terrorism. But even if Bush dropped his opposition to that idea, such a change might be too little, too late to rebuild his public standing. Whatever Bush does in Iraq, Republicans next year will probably need to paddle away from him much more energetically than they have so far. It also means that no matter how hard they swim, they could still be swamped if Bush can't stabilize his sinking ship."

The Red Lawn

Al Kamen writes in The Washington Post that "old-timers covering the White House often compare its vaunted secrecy to that of the Kremlin in Soviet days, when reporters would try to figure out who was in or who was gulag-bound by noting how far each official stood from the top guy on the podium at Moscow's annual May Day parade.

"So President Bush's failure to acknowledge the presence of his attorney general at Sunday's White House Tee Ball game had reporters buzzing."

Different Universe Watch

Julie Mason blogs for the Houston Chronicle about Bush's "oddly remote, parallel existence." She writes that "sometimes -- like this week -- it seems like Bush is governing some other place -- where a round table on health care, which will include no new proposals, no new rhetoric and a few warm moments with some carefully chosen supporters -- is a worthwhile use of his time and our attention."

Rebuttal Watch

On Sunday, The Washington Post published a William Kristol opinion piece titled: "Why Bush Will Be a Winner." Now David Corn responds with a piece titled: "Why Bush Is a Loser."

Corn reviews Kristol's miserable record as a prognosticator and concludes that his "Bush boosterism -- an act of self-justification -- would be amusing were it not for all the damage he has helped Bush to cause."

Late Night Humor

Jon Stewart notes the abysmal grades on the Iraqi benchmarks announced last week, and points out: "That's the report card the Bush administration themselves submitted. Why didn't they cherry pick the results?

"They did."

Cartoon Watch

John Sherffius on the NIE.