The AG Bush Needs

Q: "What are you going to do to reach out to those on the right who have expressed some misgivings about Judge Mukasey?"

Senior administration official: "The White House representatives and the Judge, himself, have met with those people already . . . and that will be continuing as we go forward. . . . The Judge met with, I believe, six people on Sunday. . . . We had promised them that we would not release their names. But obviously if one would seek them out, I'm sure that they would acknowledge one way or the other, if they cared to."

In her inaugural briefing as press secretary, Dana Perino got questions about that outreach:

Q: "Do you make him available to left-wing groups, as you did to conservatives?"

Perino: "That hasn't happened yet and I wouldn't anticipate it."

The one report from the meet-and-greets I've seen came from William Kristol, on the Weekly Standard Web site Sunday night. So what did the two men talk about? Mukasey "will, I believe, come to judgments similar to Olson's on key issues of executive power and the war on terror," Kristol wrote.

And: "Mukasey testifying on behalf of Bush's FISA legislation will be like Petraeus testifying on the surge. He'll be an able public spokesman because he can't be caricatured as a partisan apologist, and the Democrats won't be able to lay a glove on him."

At least one conservative is peeved, however. Richard A. Viguerie, the "funding father of the conservative movement" and author of Conservatives Betrayed, issued a statement yesterday saying: "This nomination is an invitation to liberal Democrats to run rough-shod over the remainder of Bush's politically weakened presidency."

Opinion Watch

The New York Times editorial board writes: "Mr. Mukasey is clearly better than some of the 'loyal Bushies' whose names had been floated, but that should not decide the matter. The Senate needs to question him closely about troubling aspects of his record, and make sure he is willing to take the tough steps necessary to repair a very damaged Justice Department. . .

"As a judge, he was too deferential to the government. . . .

"Mr. Mukasey also needs to be asked, in detail, how he intends to fix the Justice Department. There is strong evidence that federal prosecutors brought cases to help Republicans win elections. Mr. Mukasey needs to promise that he will get to the bottom of these matters, and that he will make available the critical documents and witnesses that the administration has withheld.

"Mr. Mukasey also needs to explain how he plans to remove the partisan political operatives put in nonpartisan positions under Mr. Gonzales and, more broadly, how he plans to restore the department's integrity."

The USA Today editorial board writes: "He's nearly certain to be seen as an improvement over his predecessor. Whether he's enough of an improvement -- particularly in putting the law above political loyalty -- is the question that should decide whether he is confirmed."

The Los Angeles Times writes: "Mukasey has questions to answer, but if he can rise above the administration's ambivalence about the rule of law, he might ably serve as attorney general."

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, writes in a USA Today op-ed: "The stakes are too high to settle for anything less than a pledge under oath to take specific steps to put the Justice Department on the right side of the law, and bring some accountability."

Cheney Reappears

The Vice President has suddenly been out and about again -- but only in front of screened audiences, of course.

Here's the transcripts of his remarks at a Florida Air Force base and the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Michigan on Friday.

Tabassum Zakaria writes for Reuters: "Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday accused critics of the administration's war strategy of ignoring the bloodshed and chaos he said would follow a premature U.S. troop withdrawal."

The Washington Post's Michael A. Fletcher nominates this, from Cheney's speech at the Ford museum, as quote of the week: "I'm told researchers like to come and dig through my files, to see if anything interesting turns up. I want to wish them luck -- but the files are pretty thin. I learned early on that if you don't want your memos to get you in trouble some day, just don't write any." Think Progress has a video clip.

Yesterday, Cheney spoke at a Republican fundraiser in Kansas City: "While the President and I won't be on the ballot next year, we'll be active in elections because they matter a great deal to the country," he said.

Cheney also weighed in on the Moveon.org ad that asked: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?"

Said Cheney: "Like most Americans, I admire the integrity and the candor that General Petraeus showed in his hearings before Congress. And the attacks on him by MoveOn.org in ad space provided at subsidized rates in The New York Times last week were an outrage."

According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken shortly before Petraeus's testimony, only 39 percent of Americans said they expected his report to "honestly reflect the situation in Iraq;" 53 percent expected him to "try to make things look better than they really are."

And the Times did not offer Moveon.org any kind of special deal.

Poll Watch

CBS reports: "Most Americans continue to want troops to start coming home from Iraq, and most say the plan President Bush announced last week for troop reductions doesn't go far enough, according to a CBS News poll released Monday.

"While the president spoke of a long-term commitment to Iraq in his nationally televised address, a time frame longer than two years is not acceptable to most Americans. . . .

"The poll also found that despite optimistic assessments of the U.S. troop surge by Mr. Bush and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Americans are unconvinced that the surge is working.

"Only about one in three (31 percent) said the surge has made things in Iraq better, while more than half (51 percent) say it's had no impact. Eleven percent say it's made things worse."

Iran Watch

Ann Scott Tyson writes in The Washington Post: "Despite the report of continued Iranian involvement in Iraq, a former top U.S. Middle East commander, retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, emphasized in a speech yesterday the need to 'contain' the Iranian regime -- even if it becomes a nuclear-armed state -- and stressed that war with Iran should be considered a last resort.

"'I believe that we can contain Iran,' Abizaid said in a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said the United States and other countries must vigorously press Tehran to 'cease and desist' from obtaining nuclear weapons.

"Still, he said, 'There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran,' adding: 'Iran is not a suicide nation. . . . I don't believe the Iranians intend to attack us with nuclear weapons. We have the power to deter Iran should it become nuclear.'"

George Jahn writes for the Associated Press: "The chief U.N. nuclear inspector urged Iran's harshest critics Monday to learn from the Iraq invasion and refrain from 'hype' about a possible military attack, calling force an option of last resort."

Said Mohamed ElBaradei: "I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."

Rove Watch

Karl Rove continues his Hillary-bashing ( but to what end?) in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today: "As the latest government-heavy plan announced by Hillary Clinton yesterday once again shows, the answers politicians offer on health care highlight the deep differences between liberals and conservatives. This is a debate Republicans cannot avoid. But it is one we can win--if we offer a bold plan. Conservatives must put forward reforms aimed at putting the patient in charge. . . .

"Mrs. Clinton may think Americans want to trade freedom and innovation for the illusory security of government regulation and surrender control of their health decisions to government bureaucrats. My bet is 2008 will teach us something different if Republicans make health care a centerpiece issue."

Bush: Because I'm Right

Here's columnist Kathleen Parker on the Chris Matthews Show on Sept. 9 about a recent encounter she had with Bush: "I actually had a moment of one on one with him, and I asked him just straight out. I said, 'How do you keep going, given the unpopularity of the war and just the general assault on his policies?' And he just -- he unflinchingly says, 'Because I know I'm right.'"

From a speech by Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha yesterday: "A week ago on a Sunday talk show, a reporter expounded on a personal moment with the President in the White House when she asked him, 'Mr. President, how do you continue to press forward when the war is so unpopular and things seem to be going so wrong in Iraq?' The President responded, 'Because I am right.'

"Right about what Mr. President?

"Right about weapons of mass destruction?

"Right about Saddam's involvement in 9-11?

"Right about mission accomplished?

"Right about thinking he could fight this war on the cheap?

"Right at the ease at which Iraq could be transformed into a pillar of democracy?"

Et Tu, Amigo?

Paul Bedard writes for U.S. News: "At the White House, the president has got to be muttering 'some friend' when he pores over the new autobio from his old buddy Vicente Fox, Mexico's former leader. That's because Fox raps his border pal as stubborn and 'the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life.'... He blames Bush's stubbornness on Iraq for bad international relations, calls his Spanish 'grade-school level,' and admits he didn't think Bush would ever become president."

Milbloggers Redux

I wrote about Bush's visit with milbloggers in yesterday's column.

Paul McLeary writes for the Columbia Journalism Review that "initial reports are embarrassingly thin, reading like warmed over Pravda dispatches from a quivering party hack. In the end though, this is exactly what the White House was counting on when it set up this little pow-wow. The invited blogs have reasonably large audiences, and even if their readers have already taken a big slurp of the Bush Kool-Aid, it can't hurt to rally the troops now and then. Adding a bit of presidential hero-worship to the bigger PR push following last week's testimony by Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus creates enough noise to keep the 'thirty percenters' (the president's approval rating for the better part of two years) happy."

Grrrlpower

Julie Mason blogs for the Houston Chronicle: "It was so retro: The first lady's office invited 22 female White House correspondents for lunch and conversation with the first lady today. . . .

"There was all kinds of skirmishing beforehand because initially, the event was billed as 'on background.' It's difficult to invite 22 journalists to anything (let alone grrrlpower with the first lady) and declare the whole thing not-for-attribution. Problems, problems. So after negotiation, part of the discussion was put on the record and questions were permitted, and lunch was off the record. . . .

"Mostly, they wanted to talk about No Child Left Behind, which is up for reauthorization and facing all kinds of political and other hurdles. No good scoop on Jenna's wedding, unfortunately. . . .

"Anyway -- some men of the press corps are pouting and harumphing about this exclusionary lunch, demanding with hands on hips how we'd feel if the president had a guys-only lunch. Whatevs, dudes."

Slapstick Presidency

James Wolcott writes in Vanity Fair that from the slapstick genius of his China trip to his spitball contests with the press, Bush has the makings of a major reality-TV star.

Cartoon Watch

Ann Telnaes and Rex Babin on Mukasey.