The Education of George W. Bush

As I wrote in my June 29, 2004 column and my June 30, 2006 column, each time the court so powerfully rejected the executive branch's overreach, some analysts anticipated that the president would recognize his limits, and that Congress would assert itself. Both times, however, they were disappointed.

After the 2006 decision, for instance, the Republican-controlled Congress sent Bush a bill suspending habeas corpus for detainees. Today's court decision specifically strikes down that provision.

With Democrats in control of Congress and his powers ebbing daily, it's hard to see how Bush won't learn his lesson this time.

Perhaps the third time's the charm.

Intel Watch

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball write for Newsweek: "A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002 questioned the 'credibility' and 'truthfulness' of an Al Qaeda detainee who became a key source for the Bush administration's claims about links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The statements of the detainee -- a captured terrorist operative named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi -- were the principal basis for President Bush's contention in a major pre-Iraq War speech that Saddam's regime had 'trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases.' The speech was delivered in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, just as Congress was taking up the White House-backed resolution authorizing the president to invade Iraq.

"But two months before Bush's dramatic assertion, the CIA had raised serious doubts about whether al-Libi might be inventing some of what he was telling his interrogators, according to a 171-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war intelligence released last week."

Complicating the story is the fact that "the agency itself had vetted and approved the language based on al-Libi's claims in both Bush's Cincinnati speech and [then-secretary of state Colin] Powell's presentation to the United Nations. Without actually using his name, Powell included the most expansive version of al-Libi's claims about chemical- and biological-weapons training--without hinting that there were doubts about the source's credibility. 'I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda,' Powell said during one dramatic flourish. 'Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story. I will relate to you now as he himself described it.'"

As has been previously reported, "al-Libi only made his claims about Saddam's training for Al Qaeda after the CIA rendered him to a foreign intelligence service (later identified by Tenet as Egypt), where he was allegedly subjected to brutal interrogation. According to al-Libi, he was locked in a tiny box less than 20 inches high and held for 17 hours--an interrogation technique known as a 'mock burial,' which was considered even by some of the most aggressive Bush administration lawyers as illegal under U.S. and international laws banning torture. After being let out, al-Libi claimed, he was thrown to the floor and punched for 15 minutes. According to CIA operational cables, only then did he tell his 'fabricated' story about Al Qaeda members being dispatched to Iraq."

Poll Watch

Jackie Calmes reports in the Wall Street Journal that Obama begins his presidential race against McCain with a six-point lead in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, conducted by Republican Neil Newhouse and Democrat Peter Hart.

"'I think the real story is the shadow that George Bush is casting over this election,' Mr. Newhouse [says]. What's hurting Sen. McCain is voters' sense that 'he will pattern his policies after George W.'

"Mr. Hart called the president 'a 200-pound ball and chain' around McCain's ankle, a linkage Sen. Obama and the Democratic National Committee are trying to reinforce daily in voters' minds. 'Unless he finds some way to cut it loose,' Mr. Hart adds, 'he's going to be dragging it right through the election.'

"The anti-Bush evidence is overwhelming. The latest poll findings add to the stretch of more than three years in which majorities have expressed disapproval of Mr. Bush's job performance. And increasingly, voters don't like him personally. By 60% to 30%, they have negative views of him, his worst showing ever.