Neck-Snapping Spin From the President

Fitzgerald Watch

Yesterday's column led with a development that was big news, at least to me.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman yesterday divulged that the White House had blocked special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald from turning over to Congress key documents from his investigation into the Valerie Plame leak. And Waxman asked the newly installed attorney general to intervene.

But there was almost no mainstream media coverage -- in any of the major newspapers, on the Reuters wire or from Bloomberg news service.

The only major media outlet story I found came from the Associated Press, about nine hours after the Waxman press release went out. Pete Yost wrote: "A House committee chairman looking into the leak of a CIA operative's identity asked for Attorney General Michael Mukasey's help in getting transcripts of investigators' interviews with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and five White House aides.

"Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the White House is blocking Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald from providing the transcripts, which are among the material the congressman wants from the criminal investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity."

The Hill's Klaus Marre also weighed in.

But the absence of media attention leaves many important questions unanswered, among them: How exactly did the White House block Fitzgerald from turning over the documents? Who did it?

Congress Watch

Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post: "With his approval ratings stubbornly low, President Bush is trying to gain political traction by spoiling for fights with an institution the public appears to hold in even lower esteem: Congress.

"Bush held his 18th event of the year yesterday focused on his disputes with Capitol Hill, blasting Democratic lawmakers for not completing annual spending bills, or sending him war funding legislation, or finalizing a measure that would permanently legalize his administration's warrantless wiretapping program. . . .

"But Bush's confrontational approach is already fraying some nerves in his party, and the White House's actions yesterday appeared to bolster Democratic assertions that the problems in Washington lie with the president's intransigence, not Congress's work ethic."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David Herszenhorn write in the New York Times: "With Congress back at work after a two-week recess, Mr. Bush and the Democrats spent the day lobbing verbal grenades at one another. Mr. Bush appeared in the Rose Garden to chide lawmakers for failing to finish their work, and his aides said he would do so again at a news conference on Tuesday -- a rare departure for a White House that typically keeps its news conferences a secret until an hour before they occur. . . .

"'It's a huge game of chicken and I'm certain the president is not planning to back down,' said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to the White House. Mr. Bush, Mr. Black said, has 'the zest for this combat.'

"But Democrats have a zest for combat as well, and are calculating that the public will be paying more attention to issues like the mortgage crisis than to Mr. Bush's attacks on them."

Matthew Hay Brown blogs for the Tribune News Service: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, thrown on the defensive by President Bush's increasingly dire warnings about the consequences of not funding troops in Iraq, said Monday that the commander-in-chief 'is not leveling with the American people.'

"'Let me just say this: People know how I feel about his credibility, OK? I've been more explicit on previous occasions,' Reid told reporters at the Capitol. 'Let me just say that the president is not leveling with the American people.'"

David Shuster, filling in for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC last night, had an entirely appropriate take on Bush's remarks yesterday: "Imagine if this newscast began the same way, night after night. It would be easy for us, but probably not the best journalism or television," Shuster said. "Imagine if President Bush kept giving the same speech over and over again, his regular attacks on Congress for failing to rubber stamp his agenda strangely similar."

Remember Iraq?

Bob Herbert writes in his New York Times opinion column: "Most of the time we pretend it's not there: The staggering financial cost of the war in Iraq, which continues to soar, unchecked, like a rocket headed toward the moon and beyond. . . .

"Priorities don't get much more twisted. A country that can't find the money to provide health coverage for its children, or to rebuild the city of New Orleans, or to create a first-class public school system, is flushing whole generations worth of cash into the bottomless pit of a failed and endless war."

By contrast, the White House press office is sending everyone this op-ed by Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman in the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader: "For Congress to fail to provide the funds needed by our soldiers in the field is inexcusable under any circumstances -- but it is especially disappointing right now, coming at the very moment when Gen. David Petraeus and his troops are achieving the kind of progress in Iraq that few would have dared imagine possible just a few months ago."

Defunding the Commissars

Brian Faler writes for Bloomberg: "It is a single sentence, on page 147 of the annual appropriations bill funding the White House, listed under the title 'Additional General Provisions.'

"The 18-word clause eliminates the money to pay for political appointees in each federal agency whose jobs are to approve any new regulations. By cutting the money for the positions, Congress would effectively repeal President George W. Bush's 11-month old initiative."

Here is Bush's Executive Order from January, and a Robert Pear story in the New York Times explaining how it "gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy" by establishing a "gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president's priorities."

Alternate Reality Watch

Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write on Politico.com: "President Bush plans to use the next two weeks to defuse fights with Congress over the economy, laying the groundwork for a 2008 strategy aimed at assisting GOP candidates early on and improving his image at home and overseas, according to two senior White House officials. . . .

"Humbled by decisive defeats on immigration and Social Security earlier in the second term, the Bush team instead is looking for other areas of possible agreement, such as incremental changes to health care and new incentives for energy production.

"'Our hope is that if we are proactive in pushing for good policy initiatives that are based on past successes, people will be reminded of earlier successes and any 'legacy' implications will be a byproduct,' one of the officials said. 'We are looking forward, not back.' . . .

"Bush aides predict that his poll numbers will rise before the '08 election. . . .

"As a centerpiece of next year's international agenda, White House officials hold out hope that, sometime in the next year, the new agreement will turn into concrete steps toward peace that will put Annapolis in the history books alongside the Israel-Egypt Camp David Accords signed following secret negotiations brokered by President Jimmy Carter."

Karl Rove Watch, Part One

Joseph Curl writes in the Washington Times: "President Bush, down and all but counted out by friend and foe alike just three months ago, is rising like a bloodied but unbowed prizefighter, and Karl Rove predicts peril for Republicans and their presidential nominee if they shun the lame-duck president on the campaign trail. . . .

"'Nobody can risk looking disrespectful to the president without paying a price, and they need to understand that,' said Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush's former top political adviser. . . .

"[S]ome Democratic presidential candidates, most notably Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have continued to run against Mr. Bush. But that strategy will likely miss the mark, Mr. Rove told The Washington Times yesterday.

"'If the Democrats make this about, as they seem to be inclined to do, 'I'm not Bush, and I'll do everything different than Bush did,' the American people understand that Bush is not on the ballot,' he said."

With Rove, it's often hard to tell if he's being straight or engaging in a colossal head fake. But this latest assertion is pure disingenuousness.

Rove knows full well that if the 2008 election is a referendum on Bush, Republicans will lose badly. His only hope -- and I believe his new mission in life -- is to bloody the eventual Democratic candidate as badly as possible and try to make the election a referendum on him or her -- just like Rove did with John Kerry in 2004.

Karl Rove Watch, Part Two

Rob Christensen writes in the Raleigh News and Observer: "Karl Rove, the former White House strategist, said New York Sen. Hillary Clinton might have a more difficult time getting elected president than many people realize.

"Appearing before a raucous Duke University audience, Rove said public opinion polls suggest that if Clinton captures the Democratic nomination, she will have a difficult time defeating the Republican nominee, even though she is far better known.

"If voters want change, Rove said, Clinton may not be the best spokeswoman.

"'For Senator Clinton, it's difficult to make the argument for change when she wants to go back to the '90s,' Rove told more than 1,000 students at Page Auditorium. . . .

"Most students were polite, but Rove was frequently interrupted by members of the audience who shouted 'liar' or who accused the administration of sanctioning terror. He also was applauded at times, especially when he discussed the sacrifices of those serving in Iraq.

"Rove seemed unrattled through the evening, although he dismissed one hostile questioner as a 'kook.'

"'You're a murderer,' someone shouted.

"'I don't like to be slandered,' Rove shot back."

Cartoon Watch

Bill Mitchell on why Bush and Cheney get it wrong.