Bush's Brazen Request

"'It's amazing to me that the president expects to be taken seriously when he says we cannot afford $20 billion in investments in education, health, law enforcement and science, which will make this country stronger over the long term,' Mr. Obey said in a statement.

"'But he doesn't blink an eye at asking to borrow $200 billion for a policy in Iraq that leaves us six months from now exactly where we were six months ago.'"

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "The latest spending proposal brings the total current fiscal year request for Iraq, Afghanistan and counterterrorism operations to $196.4 billion, by far the largest annual tally since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. If approved by Congress in its entirety, it would bring the total appropriated since then to more than $800 billion. At their current rate, war appropriations could reach $1 trillion by the time Bush leaves office. . . .

"The most powerful means in the hands of Congress is the power of the purse, but so far Democrats have been unwilling to refuse the president any money for the war. When they attached a U.S. troop withdrawal timetable to the war funding bill in the spring, Bush vetoed it and Congress ended up sending him the money without major conditions."

Baker raises the possibility that Bush might not emerge entirely victorious this time -- but reaching that outcome requires a fair amount of imagination. "A senior Democratic leadership aide predicted that even Bush's party would not support the full $196.4 billon. 'You're not gonna find very many Republicans willing to go to the mat over this,' the aide said by e-mail. 'In the end, the president is not going to get everything that he wants.'"

On the Side

The ostensibly inviolate, support-the-troops emergency supplemental also includes a $500 million package to help Mexico fight drug cartels -- the largest international anti-drug effort by the United States in nearly a decade -- along with an additional $50 million in proposed aid for Central American nations.

Manuel Roig-Franzia writes in The Washington Post: "U.S. and Mexican negotiators reached the agreement in secrecy. Some in Mexico worried that an aid package would infringe upon its sovereignty, and concerns surfaced in the United States about costs and strategy in light of the oft-criticized effort to combat drugs in Colombia."

Hector Tobar writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Democrats on Capitol Hill complained that the Bush administration drafted the proposal without consulting Congress.

"'With "Plan Mexico," the devil will be in the details, and to this point, details are scarce,' Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a statement. 'Dropping a $1.4-billion plan on our doorstep without much forewarning makes it harder to build a consensus and develop sound policy.'"

Fighting Words

In this morning's speech at National Defense University, Bush unfurled a vicious rhetorical campaign against opponents of the harsh CIA interrogation techniques he approved for use on suspected terrorists

"This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us stop a number of attacks -- including a plot to strike the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, California, or a plot to fly passenger planes into Heathrow Airport and buildings into downtown London," Bush said.

"Despite the record of success, and despite the fact that our professionals use lawful techniques, the CIA program has come under renewed criticism in recent weeks. Those who oppose this vital tool in the war on terror need to answer a simple question: Which of the attacks I have just described would they prefer we had not stopped?"