Bush's Awkward Embrace

"'We'll start over, play it like it never happened,' Bush joked to reporters.

"Then, he turned on his heel and walked back into the White House."

Here's a video compilation from Thinkprogress.org, and a photo montage from AFP.

Beyond the Red Carpet

Reuters reports: "President George W. Bush may have given presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain the royal treatment at the White House on Wednesday, but the two men did not exactly have a meal fit for a king.

"McCain, an Arizona senator, picked up the president's endorsement for his candidacy while dining on something simple: a hot dog."

Poll Watch

In my Feb. 26 column, Bush: Clueless and Happy, I wondered whether the president has any idea what a drag he'll be on the Republican ticket.

Perhaps he has a better idea now, if he read the morning paper.

Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta write in The Washington Post: "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) kicks off his general-election campaign trailing both potential Democratic nominees in hypothetical matchups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. . . .

"Both Democrats are buoyed by moderates and independents when going head to head with McCain and benefit from sustained negative public assessments of President Bush and the war in Iraq.

"About two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job and think the war was not worth fighting, and most hold those positions 'strongly.' A slim majority also doubt that the United States is making progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq, even as McCain and others extol recent successes there.

"These views are closely related to voters' choices: McCain does poorly against Clinton and Obama among those who disapprove of the president and those opposing the war."

'The Man Between War and Peace'

Thomas P.M. Barnett writes in Esquire: "If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it'll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it'll come down to the same man. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him 'Fox,' which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago. Forty years into a military career that has seen this admiral rule over America's two most important combatant commands, Pacific Command and now United States Central Command, it's impossible to make this guy--as he likes to say--'nervous in the service.' . . .

"[W]hile Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century's Hitler (a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect), it's left to Fallon--and apparently Fallon alone--to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: 'This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions.'

"What America needs, Fallon says, is a 'combination of strength and willingness to engage.'

"Those are fighting words to your average neocon--not to mention your average supporter of Israel, a good many of whom in Washington seem never to have served a minute in uniform. But utter those words for print and you can easily find yourself defending your indifference to 'nuclear holocaust.' . . .

"Just as Fallon took over Centcom last spring, the White House was putting itself on a war footing with Iran. Almost instantly, Fallon began to calmly push back against what he saw as an ill-advised action. Over the course of 2007, Fallon's statements in the press grew increasingly dismissive of the possibility of war, creating serious friction with the White House. . . .

"How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?

"The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough."

Thomas E. Ricks writes in The Washington Post: "Asked about the article yesterday, Fallon called it 'poison pen stuff' that is 'really disrespectful and ugly.' He did not cite specific objections. . . .

"The White House declined to comment, but administration insiders said the article was being discussed there yesterday."

The Daily Jaw-Dropper

Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration yesterday advanced a new argument for why it does not require congressional approval to strike a long-term security agreement with Iraq, stating that Congress had already endorsed such an initiative through its 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein.

"The 2002 measure, along with the congressional resolution passed one week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorizing military action'to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States,' permits indefinite combat operations in Iraq, according to a statement by the State Department's Bureau of Legislative Affairs. . . .

"Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), whose questions at a House hearing Tuesday elicited the administration statement, described it as an 'open-ended, never-ending authority for the administration to be at war in Iraq forever with no limitations.' The conditions of 2002 no longer exist, he said.

"'I don't think anybody argues today that Saddam Hussein is a threat,' he said. 'Is it the government of Iraq that's a threat?'

"The proposed agreement has become a contentious issue in the presidential campaign. Democratic candidates and their allies on Capitol Hill have charged that the administration is trying to lock in a U.S. military presence in Iraq before the next president takes office.

"According to yesterday's statement, the administration's interpretation of the 2002 resolution is that 'Congress expressly authorized the use of force to 'defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.' '

"In a letter to Ackerman, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey T. Bergner said that authority exists with or without a U.N. mandate. In addition to the resolutions, he wrote, 'Congress has repeatedly provided funding for the Iraq war.'"

Here's the text of the letter.

Contempt Watch

The Boston Globe editorial board writes: "When the history of the Bush administration is written, one of the most disturbing chapters will be the 2006 purge of US attorneys - all Bush appointees - who failed to toe the White House line by aggressively prosecuting Democratic officeholders or winking at possible misdeeds by Republicans.

"The attorney general at the time, Alberto Gonzales, was so incapable of giving a straight explanation about the dismissals that he finally had to resign. Still unanswered, though, is whether someone in the White House orchestrated the firings. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is justified in pulling out all the legal stops to get at the truth."

Trust Us

The next time the government asks for unchecked authority to demand information that would normally require a warrant -- and then says it should be trusted not to abuse that authority -- remember this story.

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told senators yesterday that agents improperly used a type of administrative subpoena to obtain personal data about Americans until internal reforms were enacted last year.

"Mueller said a forthcoming report from the Justice Department's inspector general will find that abuses recurred in the agency's use of national security letters in 2006, echoing similar problems to those identified in earlier audits.

"Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reported a year ago that the FBI used such letters -- which are not subject to a court's review -- to improperly obtain telephone logs, banking records and other personal records of thousands of Americans from 2003 to 2005. An internal FBI audit also found that the bureau potentially violated laws or agency rules more than 1,000 times in such cases.

"Mueller testified that a follow-up report from Fine's office, due to be released this month, will 'identify issues similar to those in the report issued last March.' . . .

"Michael German, a former FBI agent who is national security policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that 'it's becoming more and more obvious that outside oversight is essential since the Bureau's learning curve is sadly unimpressive.'

"'Instituting judicial oversight would guarantee that someone would be looking over the shoulder of agents using a tool as invasive as an NSL,' German said. The ACLU and other civil liberties groups say the government's use of security letters should be significantly narrowed or brought under court supervision."

Oil Watch

Jad Mouawad writes in the New York Times: "OPEC on Wednesday rebuffed calls from President Bush to increase oil output, instead citing 'mismanagement' of the American economy as a major factor driving prices up.

"Record prices are suddenly creating the sharpest tensions in years between the oil cartel and the United States, the world's largest oil consumer. Two days after the president called for more oil on the global market, OPEC members, meeting in Vienna, chose to leave their production levels unchanged, declaring that the market has plenty of oil already.

"The cartel's president blamed financial speculators and American economic problems, which have helped lower the value of the dollar, for the high oil prices. After the meeting, oil prices settled above $104 a barrel, a record. . . .

"'OPEC is angry that President Bush wants them to increase production while the dollar is sinking and the administration is doing nothing about that,' said Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Company in New York. 'It's really not surprising that they have ignored him.'"

Just In From East Anglia

Breaking Air Force One news out of Norfolk, England. Emily Dennis writes in the Eastern Daily Press: "They are known for being the most security conscious country in the world. But United States Air Force officials were left red-faced today after it emerged that a Suffolk factory worker had been sent hundreds of emails outlining highly classified information, including documents detailing the proposed flight path of a visit to the region by President Bush.

"The website Gary Sinnott had set up to promote the town of Mildenhall on the internet also received emails about military tactics and passwords intended for personnel at the neighbouring US airbase.

"It meant that top secret messages that terrorists would have given their eye teeth for were being sent to his private computer - and he found it impossible to stop them.

"What began as a slow trickle of mundane messages soon escalated and hundreds of classified emails were sent from around the world to Mr Sinnott's website after people mistook www.mildenhall.com for the military website www.mildenhall.af.mil."

Cartoon Watch

Mike Luckovich and Jimmy Margulies on the passing of the torch; Sandy Huffaker and Jack Ohman on the 3 a.m. phone call; Joel Pett on having a beer with the president.