Star Wars, the Sequel

Question: "I'm not sure what you're saying here. Will the President be calling for Cubans to take arms against their government, to overthrow it?"

Senior administration official: "No. The President is not calling for armed rebellion. The President is reminding Cubans -- and I say this -- or putting out his view that they have, literally, as he puts it, the power to shape their destiny, and that they can bring about a future that is a different Cuba."

Thompson writes in the New York Times: "Phil Peters, an expert on Cuba at the non-partisan Lexington Institute, said he saw Mr. Bush's speech as an attempt to reorient a policy that had fallen behind the times. American policy, he said, had been centered around the idea that the Communist government would fall once Mr. Castro left power, and that Mr. Castro, 81, would be forced out of power only by death. Instead, Mr. Peters said, Ra¿l Castro's rise caught the administration off guard."

Will Weissert writes in the Associated Press about Fidel Castro's attempt at pre-emptive PR, charging yesterday that Bush is threatening the world with nuclear war and famine.

Budget Watch

Andrew Taylor writes for the Associated Press: "Senate Democrats on Tuesday reversed President Bush's cuts to education, health research and grants to local communities as they gird for Bush's first-ever veto of a regular appropriations bill.

"By a 75-19 vote, the Senate gave bipartisan approval to a huge health and education spending bill that will likely be the first of the fiscal 2008 spending bills Democrats will ship to the White House to start a veto battle involving the budget for almost every domestic agency."

Dana Perino fired back: "In passing this bill, Democrats in Congress will say that the President doesn't care about children or education or health research. We've all heard these tired old lines before. The facts demonstrate the President's strong and consistent commitment to children, education, and health research -- and the American people are smart enough to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

"The Democratic Congress is reverting to form -- failing to identify priorities, increasing spending, and avoiding the hard choices. If the President is presented with this bill in its current form, he will veto it."

The Cost of the War

Ken Dilanian writes for USA Today: "The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate scheduled for release Wednesday.

"A previous CBO estimate put the wars' costs at more than $1.6 trillion. This one adds $705 billion in interest, taking into account that the conflicts are being funded with borrowed money."

Big Spender

David Lightman writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, he's arguably an even bigger spender than LBJ. . . .

"Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors."

Abuse of Power Watch

Georgetown law professor David Cole writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "Nearly six years ago, the U.S. government shut down the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, froze its assets and made it a crime for anyone to engage in transactions with it. The administration claimed that the foundation, the largest Muslim charity in the United States, was financing terrorism.

"The government never publicly produced evidence to support that charge. Under an executive order that President Bush issued shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the government did not have to. It closed the charity without a hearing or trial or even a statement of reasons. When the foundation sued, a federal court in the District of Columbia refused to consider any evidence that the foundation submitted in its defense, relied on secret evidence that the government presented behind closed doors and rejected the foundation's assertion that taking its property on the basis of evidence that the charity had no opportunity to see or rebut was a violation of due process.

"Monday brought a different result. In a criminal trial in Dallas in which federal prosecutors accused the Holy Land Foundation and its directors of 197 criminal violations related to funding terrorism, a jury issued not a single conviction. It acquitted one defendant on all but one charge and failed to reach a unanimous verdict on any of the other counts. The difference in outcomes could not have been more stark. In the first, one-sided proceeding, the government, not surprisingly, prevailed. In the second, when required to share its evidence and convince a jury, the government could not do so....

"We've seen this kind of regime before. In the McCarthy era, the government, working behind closed doors, created lists of 'subversive organizations' and then held individuals responsible for any association with such groups, often using secret evidence to support its charges. Such actions invited abuse, harmed innocents and infringed on the very rights the government claimed to be protecting. As the Supreme Court said in a 1967 decision belatedly declaring unconstitutional the 'guilt by association' tactics of the McCarthy period: 'It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties -- the freedom of association -- which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.' The administration seems to have forgotten that lesson; American juries, thankfully, still remember."

Another Veto Threat

Henry J. Pulizzi writes for Dow Jones Newswires: "President George W. Bush's advisers would urge him to veto a House bill prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation, the White House said Tuesday.

"The measure, sponsored by Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin, D- Wis., cleared the House Education and Labor Committee last week. It would ban job discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Language protecting transgender people was removed out of concern it could doom the legislation.

"The White House, voicing its opposition in a statement of administration policy, said it has constitutional and policy concerns."

Poll Watch

Zachary Coile writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Former President Richard Nixon still holds the lowest approval rating of any president in California in the era of modern polling, but President Bush is setting his own record: the longest streak of abysmal approval ratings ever registered in the state.

"A Field Poll released Wednesday bears out the trend: Bush is now at 27 percent approval among California voters, meaning he's hovered in the high-20s or low-30s for nearly two years. . . .

"Nixon hit the lowest of the lows - 24 percent - in August 1974, just before he resigned."

But "'Nixon was only at that number for a very short time before he resigned,' DiCamillo said. 'Here we have a president who continues in office for years having this kind of rating.'"

Democrats Held Hostage?

Chris Matthews asks on his MSNBC show: "Are the Democrats being held hostage by the president?"

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explains: "They're afraid to take on Bush, even though this is a massively unpopular war, because they're afraid that it will somehow, you know, backfire on them. . . . They're basically trying to keep possession of the ball, and they're afraid to do anything that might upset things. They're afraid that, one last time, Bush will pull the national security thing on them. . . . It's unforgivable, I would say."

Over Editing

H. Josef Hebert writes for the Associated Press: "Testimony that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to give yesterday to a Senate committee about the impact of climate change on health was significantly edited by the White House, according to two sources familiar with the documents.

"Specific scientific references to potential health risks were removed after Julie L. Gerberding submitted a draft of her prepared remarks to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. . . .

"A CDC official familiar with both versions said Gerberding's draft 'was eviscerated,' cut from 14 pages to four. The version presented to the Senate committee consisted of six pages.

"The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process, said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly 'heavy-handed.'"

Dowd on Cheney

Maureen Dowd writes in her New York Times opinion column: "Dick Cheney's craziness used to influence foreign policy.

"Now it is foreign policy."

Cartoon Watch

Garry Trudeau on the White House plan to become competent; Ben Sargent on the emperor's new makeover; Stuart Carlson on Bush's Iranian drum-beat; Ann Telnaes on Bush the drunken sailor.