Humoring Condi

Operation Enduring Relationship

Here's a White House photo of Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (via videoconference) signing a new "U.S.-Iraq Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation" this morning. Here's a White House " fact sheet" on the agreement which states that "Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq."

The Associated Press reports that Iraq's government, "seeking protection against foreign threats and internal coups" is offering the U.S. "a long-term troop presence in Iraq in return for U.S. security guarantees as part of a strategic partnership."

From this morning's briefing by "war czar" Doug Lute:

Question: "Will there be a long-term military presence, and how large of a military presence will there be?"

Lute: "So shape and size of any long-term, or longer than 2008, U.S. presence in Iraq will be a key matter for negotiation between the two parties, Iraq and the United States. So it's too soon to tell what shape and size that commitment will take. But you can be sure that that will be a key part of the negotiations that are framed in today's document."

Question: "And permanent bases?"

Lute: "Likewise. That's another dimension of continuing U.S. support to the government of Iraq, and will certainly be a key item for negotiation next year."

Afghanistan Watch

Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan has concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as U.S. and NATO forces have scored significant combat successes against resurgent Taliban fighters, according to U.S. officials. . . .

"[O]ne senior intelligence official, who like others interviewed was not authorized to discuss Afghanistan on the record, said [the military] gains are fleeting. 'One can point to a lot of indicators that are positive . . . where we go out there and achieve our objectives and kill bad guys,' the official said. But the extremists, he added, seem to have little trouble finding replacements. . . .

"Senior White House officials privately express pessimism about Afghanistan. There is anxiety over the current upheaval in neighboring Pakistan, where both the Taliban and al-Qaeda maintain headquarters, logistical support and training camps along the Afghan border."

Pakistan Watch

Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright write in The Washington Post that Bush last week "offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general 'hasn't crossed the line' and 'truly is somebody who believes in democracy.' . . .

"The comments, delivered in an interview with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, contrasted with previous administration statements -- including by Bush himself -- expressing grave concern over Musharraf's actions. . . .

"Several outside analysts and a key Democratic lawmaker expressed incredulity over Bush's comments and called them a sign of how personally invested the president has become in the U.S. relationship with Musharraf.

"'What exactly would it take for the president to conclude Musharraf has crossed the line? Suspend the constitution? Impose emergency law? Beat and jail his political opponents and human rights activists?' asked Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate. 'He's already done all that. If the president sees Musharraf as a democrat, he must be wearing the same glasses he had on when he looked in Vladimir Putin's soul.'"

Bush Loses Another Ally

Rohan Sullivan writes for the Associated Press: "Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq.

"Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush's staunchest allies."

Raymond Bonner writes in the New York Times: "The defeat of John Howard, Australia's prime minister, in Saturday's election deprived President Bush of one of his most steadfast allies and will bring changes in Australia's foreign policy that will be felt in Washington.

"During recent years, Mr. Howard was unabashedly in the American corner at times when other world leaders were keeping their studied distance, and his loss is likely to be particularly acute for Mr. Bush, who puts great stock in personal relations in the conduct of foreign relations."

The Boston Globe has a slide show of Bush's vanishing allies on Iraq.

Playing Small Ball

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "As President Bush looks toward his final year in office, with Democrats controlling Congress and his major domestic initiatives dead on Capitol Hill, he is shifting his agenda to what aides call 'kitchen table issues' -- small ideas that affect ordinary people's lives and do not take an act of Congress to put in place.

"Over the past few months, Mr. Bush has sounded more like the national Mr. Fix-It than the man who began his second term with a sweeping domestic policy agenda of overhauling Social Security, remaking the tax code and revamping immigration law."

Budget Watch

And yet as long as he maintains Congressional Republican support, Bush can still obstruct like a champ.

Carolyn Lochhead writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "President Bush seems to have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a full nelson.

"Just a year after Democrats charged into power on Capitol Hill against a Republican president with bottom-scraping poll numbers and a soured war, it's the Democrats who are crying uncle in the biggest budget confrontation since the 1995 government shutdown. . . .

"Pelosi and Reid have already begun backing down. The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and the Senate leader from Nevada wrote the White House this month asking for negotiations. Last week, Reid offered to 'split the difference' with Bush on the spending bills. The White House refused. . . .

"With a narrow House majority and a one-vote margin in the Senate, Democrats face an almost-impossible task trying to muster the two-thirds majorities needed to override Bush vetoes. If House Republicans continue to support the White House and if Democrats want to avoid a government shutdown, Democrats may find themselves with little choice but to cave in to Bush's demands."

Cheney and the Economy

Nina Easton writes in Fortune: "President Bush's economic legacy is emerging as a central debate point in the 2008 presidential campaign. But it's important to remember that this is also a Cheney legacy - one that gets less attention than his record as a chief salesman of the unpopular Iraq war and zealous advocate of executive authority, but will have trillion-dollar consequences for America's well-being.

"The fact is, Cheney plays a surprisingly major role in shaping the administration's economic policy. . . .

"In the coming months, as the administration struggles with the threat of recession, White House insiders say the staunchly free-market Vice President can be expected to resist any impulse to soften the blow with government action.

"'The fact is, the markets work, and they are working,' said Cheney in an interview in his White House office."

Easton writes that "if there's anything about the economy that keeps Dick Cheney up at night, it's the prospect of sabotage aimed at disrupting the oil market. . . .

"So when President Bush's 2008 budget was coming together, with the goal of balancing the budget in five years, Cheney nevertheless insisted on a $947 million line item: a speedup of the flow of crude into the Texas and Louisiana salt caverns housing the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

"The budget guys pushed back: Can't we wait until crude prices level off? No, the word came back from Cheney, this was urgent. That was all it took. 'He doesn't weigh in on a ton of issues,' said a person close to those negotiations. 'But when he does. . . . '

"'He's an extremely effective bureaucratic operator,' says Peter Wehner, formerly Bush's director of strategic initiatives."

Easton writes that "the Vice President's role is both formal and informal. 'I sit in on virtually all the economic policy sessions,' Cheney says, including the regular Wednesday luncheon of economic principals. And he stands out as the one economic policy advisor with routine private access to Bush."

And Cheney talked, I believe for the first time, to Easton about one of his more legendary quotes. During internal debates over proposed tax cuts in 2002, Cheney reportedly told a skeptical Paul O'Neill, who was then Treasury secretary, that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

Easton writes: "So do they? 'They do,' Cheney answers with his trademark terseness. 'The [deficit] conversation, as I recall, was in a political context.'"

Bush Tells Interviewer Nothing New

Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker writes up her interview with Bush last week: "George W. Bush has accepted that he won't live long enough to witness his legacy, though he still hopes to capture Osama bin Laden before leaving office in just over a year.

"These were among his thoughts during an in-flight interview on Monday following a Thanksgiving address in Virginia."

But Parker also levels with her readers that "Bush offers few new insights these days. . . .

"I asked the president if he found comfort in the possibility that, assuming democracy ultimately flourishes in the Middle East, history will vindicate him.

"No, he said. Bush finds comfort in knowing that he didn't betray principle for popularity, that 'I didn't sacrifice my soul for politics.'"

Bush v. Gore

David Jackson blogs for USA Today: "The White House is playing down expectations today for three big meetings with the prime minister of Israel, the president of the Palestinian Authority -- and Al Gore.

"Gore is coming to the White House as part of a ceremony to honor the American recipients of various Nobel Prizes. He shared the Nobel Peace prize for his work on global warming.

"Bush will meet privately with Gore in the Oval Office before the photo opportunity with the other Nobel winners, said press secretary Dana Perino.

"'The president is very pleased' that both Gore and wife Tipper will be at the White House, Perino said. Bush personally called Gore to invite him."

Cartoon Watch

Tom Toles on the changing White House Iraq policy; Mike Luckovich on Bush, Musharraf and Putin; John Sherffius on Bushgiving.