Going It Alone on Iran

"'It makes a significant difference when you have someone in the statehouse who's willing to lead,' Bush said."

Blanco issued the following statement in response: "'I was the only game in town, leading for nearly a week without the president's help.... Of all the lessons learned from Katrina now being put into place in California, I would hope the one he would remember is that politics has no place in any disaster. While the promise of help from Washington is being extended, Gov. Schwarzenegger will have to work hard to make it a reality. In the meantime, Louisiana stands by ready to help with anything they may need."

Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press that some of Bush's declarations eerily paralleled to what he once told Hurricane Katrina victims. . . .

"For instance, Thursday's 'we're not going to forget you' promise echoed what Bush said in New Orleans as he ended his first day in the hurricane zone on Sept. 2, 2005: 'I'm not going to forget what I've seen,' he said then. And Bush's 'better day ahead' consolation in California recalled lofty words from his speech in New Orleans' Jackson Square on Sept. 15, 2005."

Sonya Geis and William Branigin write in The Washington Post that, during one part of his tour, "Bush said he would leave it to historians to compare the government's performance in responding to the California fires with that of its response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. 'There's all kinds of time for historians to compare this response or that response,' he said."

Sheldon Alberts writes in Canada's National Post: "If there is a lasting image of presidential detachment that has haunted George W. Bush since Hurricane Katrina, it is the picture of him gazing out the window of Air Force One as he flew over the Gulf Coast en route from his Texas ranch to the White House. . . .

"From that moment of inaction, the widespread perception of him as the go-to guy in times of crisis evaporated. . . .

"So it's no wonder that Bush -- with a year left in his second term and a legacy to consider --has been eager to show things have changed."

Bush and the Terminator

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Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times that "it took an inferno in Southern California to thaw the ice between President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger."

This is Helping?

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Here's Bush talking to first responders: "You know, one of the things I like to do is look in the eyes -- make sure you're getting rest, and I know you're not. (Laughter.) I hope there's enough reinforcements coming to make sure that you get your shifts so you can get some sleep, because a citizen is going to count on you for you a while."

Matthew T. Hall writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune: "President Bush arrived in San Diego Thursday to offer words of hope and encouragement to victims, volunteers, police, firefighters and other emergency workers as fires menaced Southern California for a fifth straight day.

"It was a comfort to some but also extended the misery for others.

"People finally returning to Rancho Bernardo homes after days of displacement were stuck in traffic for hours so Bush's motorcade could pass, and delays left firefighters longing for food and showers."

Playing Small Ball

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David K. Li and Melissa Jane Kronfeld write in the New York Post about Bush's stop at a burned-out home to comfort one couple: "In a private moment, Jay Jeffcoat told Bush he was saddened to lose a lifetime of mementos. Chief among them was an autographed baseball from Nolan Ryan, signed to Jeffcoat's son Ryan, who was named after the Hall of Fame pitcher.

"'[Bush] said, 'I'm going to fix that as soon as I get on to Air Force One. I'm going to call Nolan and get you that ball,' ' Jeffcoat told The Post."

FEMA Watch

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Al Kamen writes in The Washington Post about the farce that was FEMA's 1 p.m. news briefing yesterday. All the "reporters" were apparently FEMA employees.

SCHIP Watch

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David Espo writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush accused Democratic lawmakers on Friday of wasting time by passing legislation to expand children's health coverage, knowing that he would veto it again. . . .

"Bush made his comments to reporters in the Roosevelt Room a day after the House passed new legislation to expand children's health coverage. Bush vetoed an earlier version, and Republicans argued the latest bill was little changed from the earlier measure. The bill -- approved with less than the two-thirds majority needed to overturn another veto -- now goes to the Senate. . . .

"Democrats said Republicans were making a mistake in opposing the children's health bill.

"'They won't take yes for an answer,' Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., said of Republicans.

"He said that in the week since they failed to override Bush's first veto, Democrats had systematically addressed earlier complaints that the bill failed to place a priority on low-income children, did not effectively bar illegal immigrants from qualifying for benefits and was overly generous to adults.

"A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, mocked the suggestion that Democrats -- and Emanuel in particular -- were acting on principle. 'I think the last principal Rahm Emanuel knew was in high school.'"

The New York Times editorial board writes: "The health of millions of children who lack insurance cannot be held hostage to the president's visceral distaste for government and its essential role to protect the weak, or his desire to protect the tobacco industry."

FISA Watch

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Scott Shane writes in the New York Times: "The White House on Thursday offered to share secret documents on the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program with the Senate Judiciary Committee, a step toward possible compromise on eavesdropping legislation."

Mukasey Watch

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Laurie Kellman writes for the Associated Press: "Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination for attorney general ran into trouble Thursday when two top Senate Democrats said their votes hinge on whether he will say on the record that an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is torture. . . .

"[A] Democrat familiar with the panel's deliberations said Mukasey may not get the 10 committee votes his nomination needs to be reported to the Senate floor with a favorable recommendation unless he says, in effect, that waterboarding is torture."

Contempt Watch

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John Bresnahan writes in the Politico: "House Democratic leaders have begun privately surveying their members to determine their support for a criminal contempt resolution against White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers for shunning congressional subpoenas in the U.S. attorney investigation.

"House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said the contempt motion could be brought to the House floor 'as early as next week,' but Democratic leadership aides cautioned that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not yet made any final decision on a vote. And one House aide close to the situation said a vote was 'more likely' in two weeks.

"If a criminal contempt resolution were approved against Miers and Bolten, it would represent a dramatic escalation in the battle between the White House and Congress over the extent of executive privilege and the president's right to shield senior aides from Congress."

The Question is Who Leaked It

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Glenn Kessler writes in The Washington Post: "J. Thomas Schieffer, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, sent President Bush an unusual private cable this week warning that the pending nuclear deal with North Korea could harm relations with Japan. He also complained that the U.S. Embassy had been left in the dark while the deal -- which could include North Korea's removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism -- was negotiated by top State Department officials."

The really interesting question is: Who leaked it? Are there White House officials actively trying to derail the North Korea agreement from the inside?

About World War IV

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New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani reviews "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism," by Norman Podhoretz.

"Mr. Podhoretz, who last summer called upon President Bush to use military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal, writes in these pages of all the 'progress' that is being made in neighboring Iraq, embraces the Bush administration's aggressive policy of pre-emption and asserts that George W. Bush will one day be recognized 'as a great president,' an heir not just to Truman but to Lincoln as well."

Kakutani calls Podhoretz's work "a hectoring, often illogical screed based on cherry-picked facts and blustering assertions (often made without any supporting evidence), a book that furiously hurls accusations of cowardice, anti-Americanism and sheer venality at any and all opponents of the Bush doctrine, be they on the right or the left."

Countdown Clocks

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William Douglas writes for McClatchy Newspapers on the incredible popularity of key chain-sized clocks that count down the remaining days, hours, minutes and seconds until the end of the Bush administration.

And "clocks are just one item in a booming anti-Bush paraphernalia industry that seems to grow as Bush's time in office shrinks," he writes.

"'It's a cottage industry,' said Bryan Coonerty, the Democratic vice mayor of Santa Cruz, Calif., and vice president of Bookshop Santa Cruz, which sells anti-Bush items on nationalnightmare.com. 'It's the cornerstone of our business. We've sold between 35,000 to 40,000 clocks.' . . .

"Coonerty said 01-20-09 will be a mixed blessing for him and his business.

"'Personally, I'll be ecstatic not having Bush in the White House, but our business will fall off a bit,' he said. 'It's a price I'm willing to pay.'"

Cheney's Nap

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ABC News showed video of Vice President Cheney apparently nodding off during Bush's remarks at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The Think Progress commenters are cruel.

Cheney's Hunting Trip

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John Ferro writes in the Poughkeepsie Journal: "Vice President Dick Cheney is coming to Dutchess County again to go hunting, according to two sources familiar with his plans. Cheney will arrive Sunday night and head to a hunting club in Dutchess Monday morning."

Poll Watch, Halloween Edition

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Alan Fram and Trevor Thompson write for the Associated Press: "34 percent of people who say they believe in ghosts, according to a pre-Halloween poll by The Associated Press and Ipsos. That's the same proportion who believe in unidentified flying objects. . . .

"To put the roughly one-third who believe in ghosts and UFOs in perspective, it's about the same as, in recent AP-Ipsos polls, the 36 percent who said they are baseball fans; the 37 percent who said the U.S. made the right decision to invade Iraq; and the 31 percent who approve of the job President Bush is doing."

Andrew Sullivan on Torture and Imaginationland

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Andrew Sullivan blogs for the Atlantic: "The longer this war goes on and the more we find out, the following scenario seems to me to be the best provisional explanation for a lot of what our secret, unaccountable, extra-legal war-government has been doing - and the countless mistakes which have been laid bare. On 9/11, Cheney immediately thought of the worst possible scenario: What if this had been done with WMDs? It has haunted him ever since - for good and even noble reasons. This panic led him immediately to think of Saddam. But it also led him to realize that our intelligence was so crappy that we simply didn't know what might be coming. That's why the decision to use torture was the first - and most significant - decision this administration made. . . .

"Bush, putty in Cheney's hands, never wanted torture, but was so cowardly and lazy he never asked the hard questions of what was actually being done. He knows, of course, somewhere in his crippled fundamentalist psyche. But this is a man with clinical - Christianist and dry-drunk - levels of reality-denial, whose interaction with reality can only operate on the crudest levels of Manichean analysis. . . . Even when they were totally busted at Abu Ghraib, his incuriosity and denial held firm. After all, what if he were to find out something he didn't want to know? His world might collapse.

"But torture gives false information. And the worst scenarios that tortured detainees coughed up - many of them completely innocent, remember - may well have come to fuel US national security policy. And of course they also fueled more torture. Because once you hear of the existential plots confessed by one tortured prisoner, you need to torture more prisoners to get at the real truth. . . . It may well have led to the president being informed of any number of plots that never existed, and any number of threats that are pure imagination. And once torture has entered the system, you can never find out the real truth. You are lost in a vortex of lies and fears."

Cartoon Watch

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Stuart Carlson and David Horsey on White House editing; Jeff Danziger on the Bush legacy; Steve Sack and Rex Babin on Arnold's risky photo op; Dwane Powell on Bush's idea of putting out fires; Mike Luckovich on Bush's idea of helping.