Cheney's Secret Escalation Plan?

"'Whether it is privatizing Social Security, giving massive tax breaks to oil companies while consumers pay more at the pump or letting Osama bin Laden roam free while we keep our troops mired in an open-ended Iraqi civil war, America has had just about enough of President Bush's misguided priorities,' Mr. Reid said.

"The exchange between Mr. Bush and the Democrats augurs more fighting when they return from their vacations and when they will likely wrangle over Iraq and the d increase in troop levels as part of a 'surge' strategy."

Kathy Kiely points out in USA Today that in opposing a gas tax hike, Bush was actually "spurning the suggestion of a senior congressman from his own party.

"Rep. Don Young, the former House transportation committee chairman, raised the possibility of a gas tax after saying there are 500 bridges across the country similar to the one that collapsed in Minneapolis last week."

Trashing Michael Gerson

Ana Marie Cox blogs for Time: "Some of the buzz in the air in Washington today stems from this essay in The Atlantic by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, in which he unloads a powerful round of behind-the-scenes anecdotage to cut the ground out from underneath his WH colleague, Michael Gerson. Scully neatly deconstructs Gerson's manipulation of the press and of office politics in the service of building his own reputation and exaggerating his accomplishments."

It's a fascinating, if disturbingly vengeful piece. It's also behind a subscription firewall.

Gerson stepped down as Bush's chief speechwriter and policy adviser last year. He now writes a column for The Washington Post.

Writes Scully: "The narrative that Mike Gerson presented to the world is a story of extravagant falsehood. He has been held up for us in six years' worth of coddling profiles as the great, inspiring, and idealistic exception of the Bush White House. In reality, Mike's conduct is just the most familiar and depressing of Washington stories -- a history of self-seeking and media manipulation that is only more distasteful for being cast in such lofty terms. . . .

"People have a way of disappearing in Mike's stories. The artful shaping of narrative and editing out of inconvenient detail was never confined to the speechwriting. (The phrase pulling a Gerson, as I recently heard it used around the West Wing, does not refer to graceful writing.)"

Scully mocks any number of reporters who have written gushing stories about Gerson. "Harder to explain than one man's foolish vanity is the gullibility of those who indulged him," Scully writes.

One of the more disturbing anecdotes: "Education speeches in particular -- with their endlessly complicated programs and slightly puffed-up theories, none of which we could ever explain quite to the satisfaction of our policy people -- were always good for a laugh. As John observed in late 2003, around draft 20 in the typically chaotic revising of an education speech, 'We've taken the country to war with less hassle than this.'"

One of the funniest: "When White House staff secretary Harriet Miers decreed in 2003 that we were using too many contractions in speeches -- getting just a little too informal and 'unpresidential' -- Mike forwarded the e-mail to John McConnell and me with a note saying that if we ever again quoted Todd Beamer, one of the heroes of Flight 93, be sure to make it: 'Let us roll.'"

Scully was always a bit of a fish out of water at the White House. As Shankar Vedantam wrote in a Washington Post profile of Scully in May 2004: "He wants increased government regulations of corporations that mass-produce animals for slaughter. He is against 'free-market' techniques of conservation, in which some animals are killed or captured in order to raise money to protect others. He wants the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Safari Club, a powerful hunting advocacy group.

"Scully may sound like a liberal, but he is a conservative with impeccable credentials: He works in the White House as a speechwriter for President Bush.

"He has also emerged as a potent voice for animal welfare in what is widely regarded as a red-meat White House. Groups fighting animal cruelty consider him a powerful advocate, and Scully is helping to advance their issues."

Not long after that piece ran, Scully and the White House parted ways. (He later wrote a book about the treatment of animals.) Nevertheless, in February 2005, Scully wrote a New York Times op-ed that only subtly made the point that Gerson alone wasn't responsible for Bush's words. "Mike Gerson and another senior writer, John McConnell, have together given us some of the most memorable words of the Bush presidency, including their recent collaboration on the second inaugural address," he wrote. "In the case of the State of the Union, Mike Gerson could always be counted on to go off into the wilderness, and return with some intricate outline to vary the structure, and a fresh batch of big themes to carry us forward. Thanks in part to these visions, the president's major addresses present a running argument, each carrying forward the themes of the last."

FISA Watch

Joseph Galloway writes in his McClatchy opinion column: "Why . . . would the ruling Democrats join the usual Republican suspects on Capitol Hill in approving such a breathtaking expansion of the government's right to spy on its own citizens without court approval? The answer, in a word, is fear, which may be the last tool left in President Bush's box.

"Congressional leaders have been thoroughly briefed on supposed indications of a pending terrorist attack on American targets, a la 9/11 -- increased 'chatter' on terror networks.

"Put simply, our courageous representatives on the Hill were afraid to leave town without passing the extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on the off chance that the administration's drum-beating might actually be correct and not merely another example of fear-mongering for political purposes."

E. J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage. . . .

"The Democrats got trapped, and they punted. The Republicans have never met a national security issue they're not willing to politicize. This is no way to run a superpower."

Law professor/blogger Orin Kerr describes his interview with a "senior White House official" who denied that the new legislation will result in the government keeping tabs on people in the U.S. so long as they are talking to people abroad.

Fellow law professor/blogger Marty Lederman isn't satisfied and asks: "Why the anonymity? More than likely so that they can't be held to anything they say."

Iraq Watch

The USA Today editorial board writes: "Iraq is descending into a civil war that pits different sects and tribes against one another, and against the United States.

"To listen to President Bush, however, it's easy to come away with the impression that the major source of anti-U.S. violence in Iraq is al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11. . . .

"The reality is that Iraq is a patchwork of rival groups and tribes. The Shiites divide in many ways: secular and religious, pro- and anti-Iranian. That poses dangers and opportunities. As with Sunnis in Anbar province, U.S. alliances might work with some. But forging them requires a recognition that U.S. forces are not just fighting al-Qaeda but are in the midst of complex sectarian warfare.

"How to prevent a full-blown civil war is not obvious. It might not be possible. Even so, Americans deserve a more honest picture than the 'us against the terrorists' one drawn by the White House."

(For the real story, read Sudarsan Raghavan's gripping article in The Washington Post: "On the unruly outer fringes of the Sunni area south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death, American soldiers navigate more than a dozen battle zones straddling the fault lines of sect and tribe. Al-Qaeda in Iraq -- identified by President Bush and his generals as the main U.S. enemy -- is just one of myriad armed groups competing here for influence and authority. This arid region nourished by the Euphrates River is a microcosm of the many often-overlapping conflicts that have erupted across the new Iraq.")

Eugene Robinson writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "You might have thought that now isn't the most opportune time for the elected leaders of both the United States and Iraq to pack up and head to the beach, ranch or villa for a nice long vacation. Silly you. . . .

"What you failed to take into account is that none of this really matters, because the war in Iraq is on autopilot.

"If you listened to Bush at his news conference yesterday, you heard a man who's not about to let something as petty as objective reality change his mind -- and who's not going to pay attention to what the Iraqi government or even his own government might say or do. . . .

"At least now maybe people will understand what I've been saying for months, which is that Bush doesn't care what anybody else thinks. He doesn't care that the Iraqi government has failed to meet its political benchmarks. He doesn't care that Maliki is getting so cozy with the mullahs in Tehran. He doesn't care that Republicans in Washington are getting so nervous about having to face an election with the war still raging and no end in sight."

Immigration Watch

Robert Pear writes in the New York Times: "The Bush administration plans to announce numerous steps on Friday to secure the border with Mexico, speed the expulsion of illegal immigrants and step up enforcement of immigration laws, administration officials say.

"The effort stems, in part, from White House frustration with the failure of Congress to approve President Bush's proposals to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and grant legal status to most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. In debate on that legislation, many Republicans said Mr. Bush should first enforce existing laws more aggressively."

The New York Times editorial board writes: "The path the country has set on since the defeat of immigration reform in the Senate in June enshrines enforcement and punishment above all else. It is narrow, shortsighted, disruptive and self-defeating. On top of that, it won't work.

"What it will do is unleash a flood of misery upon millions of illegal immigrants. For the ideologues who have pushed the nation into this position, that is more than enough reason to plunge ahead. . . .

"The American people cherish lawfulness but resist cruelty, and have supported reform that includes a reasonable path to earned citizenship. Their leaders have given them immigration reform as pest control."

Cheney's Surprise

Amanda H. Miller writes in the Jackson Hole News and Guide: "A group planning to protest the Iraq war and Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday will have some surprises in store.

"Jim Stanford, one of the event organizers, said there will be a special piece of artwork unveiled in Cheney's honor at the protest. All he would say about the work is that it's not a phallus, as has been rumored, and it's in a 'secure, undisclosed location.'"

Late Night Humor

Jon Stewart presents: "President Bush in His Own Words." Stewart in particular seems to resent Bush's use the phrase "in other words" to, as Stewart puts it, "bring the complexities of higher thought down to the masses. . . what with all of us being so dumb."

But Stewart explains: "The look on our faces isn't confusion. It's disbelief."