White House Ignored Torture Warnings

Perino: "It does answer the question, that that is what we are working with our allies to do. But the President has said -- what I'm saying today in response to the Jerusalem Post is nothing different than from what has been said at this podium for a couple of years now."

Q. "But it's not quite an answer, because everyone's preference is always for peace, but someone could still think that an attack may be called for."

Another reporter then pointed out: "Look, skepticism seems warranted here, because in the run-up to the war in 2003, the line was officially that negotiations were still called for and that there was no decision to attack, when, in fact, subsequent reporting has shown that there probably was a decision to attack well before the attack took place. So why shouldn't we be skeptical of the claim that there's no intention to bomb Iran?"

Perino: "Bill, you can be as skeptical as you want to be. I stated what our policy is, and I don't have anything else that I can give you. I'm not going to be able to -- if you're going to be a skeptic, that's your right -- you're fourth estate, go for it."

President vs. Peacock, Continued

I wrote in yesterday's column about the White House's new feud with NBC.

Thinkprogress.org reports: "Appearing on Glenn Beck's radio show [Tuesday], [White House Counselor Ed] Gillespie continued to attack NBC. When Beck asked why conservatives continue to appear on the network, Gillespie replied, 'It is beyond me frankly.'"

Middle East Watch

Christopher Dickey writes in his Newsweek column: "President George W. Bush concluded his Good and Evil Tour of the Middle East on Sunday with a fiery sermon in Sinai. And if he wasn't in a position to hand down commandments like those delivered to Moses, it wasn't for want of trying. Even a Republican congressman was overheard saying that he found Bush's tone 'arrogant.' . . .

"Each of Bush's commandments, on its face, made sense. In fact, few if any in the audience of 1,500 men and women would disagree with him on general principles. The problem is the Bush administration's record of turning good ideas into horrible realities in the past, and deep pessimism in the Middle East about the possibilities he has left open for the future.

"Looking at Iraq, the peace process, Lebanon, the growing strength of Iran, the continued deterioration of Somalia, the potential disintegration of Sudan, not to mention the vast decline in the value of the dollar and the faltering global economy, the participants at the forum knew only too well they were halfway to hell on roads paved with George W. Bush's good intentions."

Appeasement Watch

Martin Schram writes in his Scripps Howard News Service opinion column about Bush likening those who support diplomatic talks with our enemies to Hitler's appeasers: "Bush used his own heavy hand to try to do to Barack Obama what was done to John Kerry and Al Gore, and (of course) John McCain -- without leaving any traceable fingerprints, back in Bush's good old days when [Karl] Rove was masterminding his politics of defeat through destruction."

Schram also criticizes the lame performance of the White House press corps after "White House officials denied on-the-record what they had said on background had been true" -- that Obama was an intended target.

EPA Watch

David Whitney writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "The head of the Environmental Protection Agency refused to say Tuesday whether he had any specific discussions with President Bush that would have caused him to reverse his agency's position and deny a waiver California needed to move ahead with stringent auto emission standards.