Is Anyone Listening?

"In 2005, he advocated an overhaul of Social Security, saying the program was 'headed toward bankruptcy.' It went nowhere in Congress. For three years running, from 2004 to 2006, he appealed to lawmakers to approve a guest worker program as part of a major changes in immigration laws. Members of his own party sabotaged the plan. . . .

"Sometimes, the State of the Union is as much about what a president does not say.

"In 2006, two paragraphs of Bush's address highlighted rebuilding work on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, which struck in the summer of 2005. Last year, he was criticized for not saying a word about the region that is still reeling from the storm."

Opinion Watch

James Carroll writes in his Boston Globe opinion column: "You and everyone you love are riding on a large bus. The bus driver, unskilled and careless, drives too fast, ignores traffic signals, and barrels off the road occasionally. Because the bus is huge, other vehicles swerve to get out of its way, with cars crashing repeatedly. But your driver just keeps going, leaving carnage in his wake. Naturally, you are terrified - but your reactions are irrelevant.

"Finally, the bus itself crashes, killing many. Miraculously, you and your loved ones climb out of the wreckage. A second bus is standing by, and you gratefully scramble aboard. The engine starts up, but then the bus lurches dangerously onto the road, going too fast. Only then do you see that this new bus has the same driver, and he has learned nothing. Welcome to the United States of America. And welcome to the annual State of the Union address."

Carroll sees last year's announcement of the surge as the equivalent of Bush "[leaping] to safety just as the bus goes off the cliff. We are a nation in free fall. The final insult is that, one more time, the driver gets to lecture us."

In a New York Times op-ed, Jacob Weisberg looks back at Bush's repeated assertions of compassion: "So often with Mr. Bush, compassionate government began and ended with the heartfelt public avowal. He was too distracted by war and foreign policy, and too bored by the processes of government to know if the people working for him were following through on his proposals. . . .

"The Compassionate Conservative will surely pay us a final visit tonight. He remains an appealing character, but a largely fictional one. I wonder how the last seven years might have turned out if he had actually existed. In the final year of a failed presidency, I bet Mr. Bush does too."

A Warm Embrace

When all else is lost, there is still Fred Barnes. The sympathetic Bush biographer and editor of the Weekly Standard scores yet another interview with the president, this one about how he decided on the surge.

"For an unpopular president facing a Democratic Congress ferociously opposed to the war in Iraq, it was a risky and defiant decision. Now, a year later, it's clear the surge has been a success. Violence is down, Baghdad mostly pacified, many Sunni leaders have abandoned their insurgency, and Al Qaeda in Iraq has been crushed (though not eliminated).

"The war is not over, nor have the Iraqi government's steps toward sectarian reconciliation between Shia and Sunnis amounted to much. But should progress continue to the point that American troops begin coming home in large numbers and Iraq emerge as a reasonably secure democracy, a possibility arises: that because of his surge decision, Bush not only won the war in Iraq but saved his presidency."

Barnes concludes that Bush had made up his mind about he surge by early November of 2006 -- more than two months before he went public.

"Though Bush had all but decided on a surge before the formal 'interagency review' began looking at new options on Iraq, the process wasn't a charade," Barnes writes. "It forced the president to consider alternatives. And it also involved agencies besides the White House--the Defense and State departments, the CIA, the Joint Chiefs. 'At a very minimum,' the president said, it made them 'feel they had a say in the development of a strategy.' In this case, a small say. . . .

"He was never alarmed, Bush said, by the opposition to a surge from nearly everyone in the political community, the media, and the foreign policy establishment--everyone, he pointed out, 'except for the people inside the White House I trust. We've been in this foxhole now for seven years, and we're battle-tested, hardened veterans of dealing with the elite opinion in Washington, D.C.'"

Trophy Watch

Time magazine reported in 2004 that Bush likes to show off the pistol Saddam Hussein was clutching when he was captured. It's mounted and on display in the small study off the Oval Office.

Now Barnes reports that Cheney has on display at his residence a piece of the house where Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, was killed.

NSA Watch

Ellen Nakashima writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush signed a directive this month that expands the intelligence community's role in monitoring Internet traffic to protect against a rising number of attacks on federal agencies' computer systems.

"The directive, whose content is classified, authorizes the intelligence agencies, in particular the National Security Agency, to monitor the computer networks of all federal agencies -- including ones they have not previously monitored. . . .

"The NSA has particular expertise in monitoring a vast, complex array of communications systems -- traditionally overseas. The prospect of aiming that power at domestic networks is raising concerns, just as the NSA's role in the government's warrantless domestic-surveillance program has been controversial.

"'Agencies designed to gather intelligence on foreign entities should not be in charge of monitoring our computer systems here at home,' said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Lawmakers with oversight of homeland security and intelligence matters say they have pressed the administration for months for details."

FISA Watch

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "The White House warned Democratic leaders yesterday that President Bush would veto a proposal to extend an expiring surveillance law by 30 days, saying that Congress should quickly approve a Senate bill favored by the Bush administration."

Mike Allen writes for the Politico: "'The president would veto a 30-day extension,' a senior administration official said. 'They're just kicking the can down the road. They need the heat of the current law lapsing to get this done.'"

Glenn Greenwald blogs for Salon: "This veto threat is one of the President's most brazen acts ever, so nakedly exposing the fun and games he routinely plays with National Security Threats. After sending Mike McConnell out last August to warn that we will all die without the [Protect America Act], Bush now says that he would rather let it expire than give Congress another 30 days. He just comes right out and announces, then, that he will leave us all vulnerable to a Terrorist Attack unless he not only gets everything he wants from Congress -- all his new warrantless eavesdropping powers made permanent plus full immunity for his lawbreaking telecom partners -- but also gets it exactly when he wants it (i.e., now -- not 30 days from now). . . .

"The veto threat from the President is so unbelievably corrupt and manipulative that if our national press had even the smallest amount of critical faculties and understanding of the issues, that veto threat would be a major story. After all, how can the President possibly threaten the country that he will veto a law that he himself has claimed for months is indispensable for Protecting Us All?"

Liz Cheney Watch

While neither Bush nor Cheney have made public their views about the Republican presidential race, there is widespread suspicion that they both dread the possibility of either John McCain or Mike Huckabee becoming the nominee. The behavior of Cheney's daughter Liz -- often seen as a political clone of her father -- supports that contention.

Cheney first signed up with former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee -- but he dropped out of the race last week. Now she's joined Mitt Romney's campaign.

"Governor Romney is the only candidate who has outlined a comprehensive strategy for defeating the global Jihadist threat," she said in a statement released by the campaign.

Bush on Fox News

Fox News's Brett Baier describes his access to Bush for a documentary that aired last night: "We visited the president's ranch multiple times. With our cameras rolling, he drove me around for more than an hour, giving me a guided tour of landscape while he shared his thoughts on the war, the presidential race, immigration, family and faith. We started with a long interview outside of his office on the ranch and thought that might be all we would get. But, the president asked us to hop in his pickup truck and proceeded to drive me and one cameraman all over his 1,600 acre ranch.

"He also took me on the same rugged hike that he walks with world leaders when he's looking for a diplomatic breakthrough. It winds through the woods -- over a few streams -- until it reveals a huge dramatic canyon carved out of the limestone. The amazing thing is how quiet it is there. The president told me he's had some of his most poignant moments -- alone and with various world leaders in that very spot."

Among the top headlines: "President Bush conceded to me that he failed in his goal to be a 'uniter and not a divider.' The president told me, 'I'd say that I worked to be a uniter and it didn't work.'"

And: "In a series of revealing and personal interviews, President Bush told me that as he enters his final year in office, the past President he thinks about most is Abraham Lincoln. And while the president says he doesn't want people to think that he believes he's 'another Lincoln' he does likens his liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq to Lincoln's emancipation of America's slaves during the Civil War."

U.S. News has some more quotes from the interviews. Among them: "I tell people I want my Administration to have written a hopeful and strong first chapter in this ideological struggle that will play out over the course of your child's lifetime. And the best legacy a president can leave behind is to say to a dad, 'Your young son is more likely to live in peace as a result of the policies I've put forward.'"

Alfalfa Club Watch

Marissa Newhall writes in The Washington Post: "The annual dinner of the Alfalfa Club, an exclusive fold of about 200 rich and influential people, is an odd yet entrenched Washington affair."

At Saturday night's dinner, the members "came not only to schmooze but also to hear President Bush, who came with plenty of family members and delivered remarks to the club one last time as commander in chief. . . .

"'It was a moving evening with the president saying farewell,' said Landon Parvin, a longtime Alfalfan.

"Though Bush has eschewed many Washington social institutions, the Alfalfa is one that his entire family has always warmly embraced. Bush first spoke to the Alfalfa 10 years ago, when he was the governor of Texas, and has not missed a dinner since moving into the White House."

Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts write in The Washington Post with one of his jokes: "Earlier today, my sister Doro had a wedding shower for Jenna, who got lots of great stuff. Mom gave her a toaster. Karen Hughes gave her a Cuisinart. Dick [Cheney] here sent over a gift I could tell he'd picked out personally . . . a paper shredder."

Cartoon Watch

Ann Telnaes and John Sherffius on the stimulus package; Tom Toles on what else can go wrong.