The Stench of Torture

The Bush Legacy

Richard Cohen writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "When George W. Bush surveys his presidency, he will see two wars commenced and none concluded, Osama bin Laden still on the loose, American prestige at record lows throughout the world, a military both broken and abused, and a country that in large part thinks its government is a liar."

Expanding on that latter point, Cohen writes that "years of Bush exaggerations, of Cheney lies, of dots that somehow failed to connect and intelligence that was false or misleading, of wars that go nowhere, of overblown and juvenile rhetoric -- 'Bring 'em on' -- have made cynics of us all. That is the new realism."

As a result, "a good piece of America thinks that Bush is its prime enemy -- and Iran just another bee in his bonnet. This is the lamentable legacy of George W. Bush -- an abuse of trust that has weakened the country he swore to protect."

The Cheney Factor

Timothy Noah writes in Slate: "The President Bush portrayed in Michael Abramowitz's Oct. 29 Washington Post story 'U.S. Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions' is almost unrecognizable. According to Abramowitz, Bush is so absorbed by the details of the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, which he's repeatedly labeled 'genocide,' that some in the White House refer to the president as the 'Sudan desk officer.' . . . Yet nothing seems to happen.

"This is quite different from the President Bush we've come to know in the context of Iraq -- blustery, messianic, quick on the trigger, and unafraid to express boredom with the fine print."

Noah thinks he knows why Bush isn't actually taking action on Darfur: "I'll wager that President Bush hasn't done anything about Darfur not because he has acquired humility about the projection of American power, and not because his sissy White House aides won't give him a plan with cojones, and not because the Darfur portfolio keeps passing from one desk to another, and not because the Pentagon and the State Department are dragging their feet. Rather, I would guess that Bush hasn't done anything about Darfur because the vice president won't let him."

Cheney Goes 'Hunting'

Joe Gould and Dave Goldiner write in the New York Daily News: "Nobody got shot, but Vice President Cheney still fired up controversy Monday when he went hunting at a private club that hangs the Confederate flag.

"A Daily News photographer captured the 3-by-5 foot Dixie flag affixed to a door in the garage of the Clove Valley Gun and Rod Club in upstate Union Vale, N.Y.

"'It's appalling for the VP to be at a private club displaying the flag of lynching, hate and murder,' said the Rev. Al Sharpton. 'It's the epitome of an insult.' . . .

"Club officials threatened a reporter with arrest when he sought comment. . . .

"Cheney spokeswoman Lee Anne McBride said Cheney did not know anything about the controversy.

"'The VP did not see the flag and neither did anyone on staff,' said McBride."

Gould and Goldiner also point out that what Cheney was doing isn't really hunting. It's shooting: "Farm-bred pheasants were released on the preserve 24 hours before Cheney arrived, making them easy targets for the hunting party.

"'The way they hunt, I'm not fond of,' said Linda Smith, 52, who runs a local preschool. 'It's not what I would call a real sportsmanlike activity.'"

Fernanda Santos writes in the New York Times about the hunting club, where "70-odd members are said to pay as much as $100,000 a year for the privilege of hunting ducks and pheasants on 4,000 acres of land. . . .

"'We're sort of used to the high rollers coming by,' said Dan Roth, 69, a member of the Mid-County Rod and Gun Club, a more modest establishment on the east side of Clove Mountain, where the membership dues average about $2,000 a year.

"'Dick Cheney gets people talking, though,' Mr. Roth said. 'People wonder if he's going to shoot something. Or someone.' . . .

"A White House spokeswoman said she could not provide any details about Mr. Cheney's day," Santos writes, adding: "The ambulance that accompanied the vice president's motorcade when he left the gun club for a nearby airport was carrying no passengers -- an encouraging sign."

Ford on Cheney

Steve Holland writes for Reuters with some nuggets from the secret interviews with President Gerald Ford that Thomas DeFrank is divulging in his new book. Among them: "DeFrank said Ford thought it might have been best if President George W. Bush dumped Dick Cheney as his vice presidential running mate in 2004 because of his muscular views on the Iraq war.

"'Dick has not been the asset I expected on the ticket,' he said of his one-time White House chief of staff."

Tony Snow, Media Critic

Jeff Bercovici writes for Portfolio.com about former White House press secretary Tony Snow's speech at the American Magazine Conference.

Strangely enough, I totally agree with Snow's media criticism here. Said Snow: "The newspapers have to realize that they are a niche market and the one thing they can do better than anyone else is analysis. As a guy who spent the majority of his career in print media and loves writing, it scares me that newspapers are in the state they're in. . . .

"There are structural problems right now that make it very difficult to cover the White House the way it should be covered. . . . People are trying to keep up with the electronic media. So what happens is you end up thinking, what can I do quickly and what can I do that people are going to watch? . . . If you're doing it in real time, you can get real stupid."

But here's where Snow and I part ways: "You don't see it but there's a process where everything gets discussed, and there are some raging arguments," Snow said. "It's not the case that something is always handed in a neat little bundle to the leader of the free world. He's gotta make some choices. . . . When people look back at this White House, they're gonna find it's one that had a lot of intellectual vigor."

Late Night Humor

Via U.S. News, David Letterman: "FEMA faked a press conference and earlier today President Bush strongly condemned it at his own fake press conference."

And Jay Leno: "Vice President Dick Cheney went out hunting again today. God, I didn't even know it was lawyer season. . . . No, actually, Cheney said he was in upstate New York to hunt peasants. Pheasants, I'm sorry."

Cartoon Watch

Mike Luckovich and Pat Oliphant on Cheney's drumbeat; Bob Gorrell on Bush's change in policy; Steve Sack on Cheney's change in pumpkins.

Live Online

Join me tomorrow for a special Halloween edition of my Live Online discussion at 1 p.m. ET. And Valerie Plame Wilson is on today at 1.