Cheney Beats the Drums of War

"One of the reasons we were successful from a military perspective was because we had very clear-cut military objectives. . . . And as soon as we had achieved those objectives, we stopped hostilities, on the grounds that we had in fact fulfilled our objective. . . .

"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

"What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

"I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

Valerie Plame Watch

Valerie Plame Wilson started her book tour with an interview on "60 Minutes" with Katie Couric yesterday. CBS News reports: "Eighteen years of meticulously crafted cover were gone in an instant.

"'I can tell you all the intelligence services in the world that morning were running my name through their databases to see, did anyone by this name come in the country? When? Do we know anything about it? Where did she stay? Who did she see?' Plame Wilson says.

"Asked what the ramifications of that would be, Plame Wilson tells Couric, 'Well, it's very serious. It puts in danger, if not shuts down, the operations that I had worked on.'

"'Did you ever hear about anything that happened to anyone with whom you had contact as a result of the leak?' Couric asks.

"'Yes I have, that's all I can say.' . . .

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"Asked if she thinks the president was in on this, Plame Wilson tells Couric, 'I don't know about that. But I, like most other Americans, saw President Bush say on TV that he would fire anyone from his administration found to be involved in leaking my name. It turns out the president is not a man of his word.'"

In an interview with USA Today's Richard Willing Plame complains that reporters who sought to keep the names of Karl Rove and other sources confidential were "spoon-fed" by White House officials who used anonymity to "just lie and shoot off propaganda."

The Reviews Are In

Tim Rutten writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Readers in search of sensational revelations or new information on the substance of the Plame affair -- which ultimately resulted in the indictment of former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby and his conviction for perjury -- will be disappointed. . . .

"In 'Fair Game,' Plame accuses the Bush administration of 'arrogance and intolerance' and alleges that the orchestrated attack on her husband was a 'dress rehearsal' for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign to discredit Sen. John Kerry's war record during the 2004 presidential campaign.

"'It was classic Karl Rove: go after your enemy's strong point,' Plame contends, charging that the president's chief political advisor engineered both smears. 'In Joe's case [his strength] was that he told the truth; in Kerry's case, it was his exemplary military service.' (Rove did provide Plame with her book title, when he told a journalist that her husband's activities had made her 'fair game.')

"Plame also has harsh things to say about the reporters who were on the receiving end of the White House leaks and, later, resisted identifying their sources before a federal grand jury. She still is unable to understand why 'well-meaning but self-righteous talking heads' criticized Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald for subpoenaing and jailing reporters. 'It was the Pentagon Papers or Watergate turned on its head,' she argues. 'These reporters were allowing themselves to be exploited by the administration and were obstructing the investigation. It didn't make much ethical sense to me.'"

Janet Maslin writes in the New York Times: "Citing the dismay voiced by Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, that such loose talk about an undercover agent might actually be criminal, she writes angrily: 'If he was so surprised that his actions might have adverse national security implications, then he's not smart enough to work in the White House. That goes for all the officials who thought that using my name as catnip was just playing the Washington game as usual.'"

Chuck Leddy writes in the Boston Globe: "Plame describes pervasive efforts to shut her and her husband up. . . . 'Their tactics would have made Joseph McCarthy proud: fearmongering, defamation of character, shameless disregard for the truth, and distortions of reality.'"

Gone Fishing

Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush spent a crisp fall Saturday gingerly balancing a tiny screech owl on a gloved hand at a wildlife refuge and casting for rockfish on the Chesapeake Bay. . . .

"It was all part of an effort to burnish his conservation credentials while announcing new initiatives that he said would protect migrating birds and two fish species, red drum and striped bass, prized by anglers."

Bush went fishing with Chris and Melissa Fischer, two of the hosts of " Offshore Adventures" on ESPN.

Loven writes: "As Bush mimed catching a big fish for the cameras, Melissa Fischer reeled one in from the bay's choppy waters." Bush caught nothing.

Here is the text of Bush's remarks. Here is the executive order he signed.

John Heilprin reported for the Associated Press that state officials said the order "has little to no practical effect and likely will inflame tensions between recreational anglers and commercial fishermen, by siding with the sports fishermen who don't fish for a living."

After signing the order, Bush went to visit the Cheneys at their weekend getaway on the Eastern Shore.

Before that, Bush mangled a joke at Cheney's expense. Said Bush: "I love to fish. And the good news there's a lot of good fishing here is because the Secret Service won't let me go hunting with him." (Cheney, of course, accidentally shot a companion while hunting quail last year.)

Jon Stewart Watch

Jon Stewart channels Bush on "World War III": "You either agree with my position, or you're looking to have a thermonuclear reaction bake your shadow instantly into the sidewalk."

Cartoon Watch

Steve Sack on Bush the lame duck; Dan Wasserman on Bush and the Dalai Lama; Mike Luckovich on Halloween at the White House; Paul Combs on Bush's relationship with the press; and Garry Trudeau kicks off a week in the White House briefing room.