Another Bleak Milestone

WorldPublicOpinion.org reports on its new online poll: "Eighty-one percent say when making 'an important decision' government leaders 'should pay attention to public opinion polls because this will help them get a sense of the public's views.' Only 18 percent said 'they should not pay attention to public opinion polls because this will distract them from deciding what they think is right.' . . .

"Americans also roundly reject the position put forward by White House spokeswoman Dana Perino in an effort to explain Cheney's comments. Asked whether the public should have 'input,' she replied, 'You had your input. The American people have input every four years, and that's the way our system is set up.'

"When Americans are asked whether they think that 'elections are the only time when the views of the people should have influence, or that also between elections leaders should consider the views of the people as they make decisions,' an extraordinary 94 percent say that government leaders should pay attention to the views of the public between elections."

Russia Watch

Just how much of their foreign policy can Bush and Cheney lock in before they leave office? Perhaps quite a lot.

Stephen Fidler, Daniel Dombey and Neil Buckley write in the Financial Times: "The Bush administration is seeking to persuade President Vladimir Putin of Russia to sign up to a long-term agreement on Moscow-Washington relations, arguing that it will be harder for Russia to agree such a deal with the next occupant of the White House.

"US officials argue that John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - all of whom have criticised Russia strongly in their campaigns for the US presidency - could be more uncomfortable negotiating partners for Moscow than President George W. Bush is.

"Mr Bush made his appeal to Mr Putin in a letter delivered by Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates, the US secretaries of state and defence, in a trip to Moscow last week. . . .

"The US proposal is intended to provide a framework for various areas of US-Russian co-operation after several years in which the relationship between the two countries has become strained. The most controversial element concerns US plans for missile defence."

Star Wars' 25th Anniversary

Mark Thompson writes in Time that "the more than $120 billion spent over 25 years to build the 'Star Wars' missile shield has not left the U.S. less vulnerable to attack -- some would argue that it has done exactly the opposite, by diverting resources away from dealing with more urgent and plausible threats."

White House E-mail Watch

Pete Yost writes for the Associated Press: "Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.

"The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.

"'When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired . . . the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction,' the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.

"It has been the goal of a White House Office of Administration 'refresh program' to replace one-third of its workstations every year in the Executive Office of the President, according to the declaration.

"Some, but not necessarily all, of the data on old hard drives is moved to new computer hard drives, the declaration added."

Cheney in the Middle East

Tabassum Zakaria writes for Reuters: "Vice President Dick Cheney and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah shared some common views about factors in the oil market that have pushed prices to record highs, a senior U.S. official said on Saturday. . . .

"'There was I think a lot of commonality in their assessment about the structural problems confronted by the global energy market now and some discussion of probably the way forward, how we work together to try and stabilize the market,' the U.S. official told reporters traveling with Cheney."

John D. McKinnon writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "With negotiations on a new Palestinian state mired in stalemate, Vice President Dick Cheney took a tough stance toward outside threats to the Mideast peace process Sunday, saying extremist groups that attack Israel must be defeated. . . .

"The vice president's tough talk reflected that negotiations are making very little headway. . . .

"More broadly, Mr. Cheney 'was never a strong supporter of . . . any diplomatic initiative regarding the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict,' said Steven Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. 'It's clear that [Mr. Cheney] prefers a kind of hard-nosed approach based on security guarantees.'"

Deb Riechmann writes for the Associated Press: "Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Hamas, with support from Syria and Iran, is trying to 'torpedo' peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel."

Isabel Kershner writes in the New York Times: "Israeli officials seemed more interested in seeking Mr. Cheney's help with broader regional issues, chief among them the perceived threat from Iran, while Palestinian officials expressed deep pessimism about the peace process and prospects of success. . . .

"Although Mr. Cheney has less than 10 months left in office, an Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the visit, said he was seen in Jerusalem as 'a significant player' who could influence 'serious issues that cannot wait.'"

Bush's America

Michael A. Fletcher writes in The Washington Post: "Recent history has not been kind to working-class Americans, who were down on the economy long before the word recession was uttered.

"The main reason: spiraling health-care costs have been whacking away at their wages. Even though workers are producing more, inflation-adjusted median family income has dipped 2.6 percent -- or nearly $1,000 annually since 2000."

Juliet Eilperin writes in The Washington Post: "With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act."

Pincus on the Press Corps

Huffington Post's Tom Edsall interviews his former Washington Post colleague Walter Pincus about his critique of White House coverage. (See Pincus's July 2006 essay for Nieman Reports, Fighting back against the PR presidency, and Jay Rosen's recent blog post.)

Pincus: "Courage to me is not printing what the President says when he has been saying the same thing day after day. And he's saying it so it will be printed, not because it's news. It's not news that the President thinks we're winning in Iraq, but the fact that you're printing it every day makes the public at large really sort of believe the President and begin to think maybe we are."

Edsall: "So at that juncture, when the president is simply repeating himself, what is the function of a newspaper?"

Pincus: "I guess you don't print it."

Edsall: "What do you do instead?"

Pincus: "You ought to have your own agenda. We had no problem printing Walter Reed[the prize-winning Washington Post expose of substandard conditions for wounded Iraq war veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington] because it was something so outrageous. Walter Reed is a metaphor. Walter Reed is a metaphor to show this administration talks about how important the war is, et cetera, et cetera, but here's an illustration, at Walter Reed they don't take care of the people that got hurt. I mean, I've got a story going now about refugees. There are four and a half million refugees and the President doesn't talk about it because it undermines the idea that we've freed this country."

Overall, Pincus says: "[W]hat administrations have learned -- and this one is just the most sophisticated -- [is] how to keep journalists in general busy covering statements and press conferences, and how to sell their story. And they know there's more news than any paper can cover -- 35 hearings on the Hill, and you know, 10 speeches and 4 reports, at a time when most newspapers don't have enough people to cover a third of what goes on."

Pincus says he worries that many reporters these days are more focused on personal comfort and less on crusading and expressing outrage.

"Well, there's more interest in expressing outrage on personal matters, you know -- Clinton's activities with Monica, Spitzer and call girls. Everybody's against that [kind of behavior.] That's easy. But those aren't policy issues."

Cartoon Watch

Tom Toles on Cheney-Bush in a single word; Jeff Danziger on Cheney's view on reality; Dwane Powell on Cheney's last day; Ben Sargent on Bush's war story; Adam Zyglis and Brian Duffy on the anniversary of the war; Victor Harville on a soldier's view; John Cole on Bush's alter ego; Walt Handelsman on Bush's economic forecasting; and Rex Babin on Bush's mission accomplished.