Bush the Fiscal Conservative?

Ironically, Newton-Small writes, "even dedicated fiscal conservatives think Bush's threatened veto of the bipartisan plan to increase SCHIP is misguided. 'I don't think I would do it if I were President,' Weyrich said. 'It's not worthwhile in terms of political gain.'"

Incidentally, when it comes to looking back at Bush's failure to address the growth of entitlements, Newton-Small writes: "A former White House official blames the loss on Social Security on congressional Republicans. 'Among our least courageous friends on this were our ostensible allies on the Hill who continually said: "Please don't take this on, please don't take this on," including the most conservative members of Congress,' the official said. 'I have to say that one of the things that shocked me was the lack of courage on entitlement reform.'"

'Stop the Madness'

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

Here's White House press secretary Dana Perino on Bush's expected veto yesterday: "In a time when [Democrats] think that they want to increase funding for children's health care, they're actually wanting to pay for it with a cigarette tax, which includes -- people who smoke are usually -- the majority are in the low-income bracket. And so they're raising taxes on something to pay for a middle-class entitlement. It's just completely irresponsible. Stop the madness on Capitol Hill."

Why All the Secrecy?

What's been behind the Bush administration's unprecedented secrecy in its pursuit of terrorists?

Has the goal been to keep critical national security information away from those who would do the country harm? Or to hide conduct that is basically indefensible?

Senators yesterday heard directly from a former senior Justice Department official about how, in the case of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, the White House obsession with secrecy had nothing at all to do with keeping al Qaeda in the dark -- and everything to do with not letting anyone argue or get in the way.

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "No more than four Justice Department officials had access to details of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program when the department deemed portions of it illegal, following a pattern of poor consultation that helped create a 'legal mess,' a former Justice official told Congress yesterday.

"Jack L. Goldsmith, former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the White House so tightly restricted access to the National Security Agency's program that even the attorney general and the NSA's general counsel were partly in the dark.

"When the Justice Department began a formal review of the program's legal underpinnings in late 2003, the White House initially resisted allowing then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey to be briefed on it, Goldsmith said.

"Goldsmith's testimony provided further details about the fierce legal debate and intense secrecy surrounding the NSA surveillance program within the Bush administration in early 2004. The fight culminated in a threat by Goldsmith, Comey and others to resign en masse if the program were allowed to continue without changes."

This kind of unprecedented "compartmentalization" didn't just happen by accident -- it was the signature tactic of Vice President Cheney and his top legal enforcer, David S. Addington. (See my September 5 column, What Addington Wrought.)