The 28 Percent President

And as Wolf notes, the White House officially denies that Bush is out of touch.

"'He's worked not to be viewed as an irrational cheerleader,' spokeswoman Dana Perino said. 'His intention is to communicate very clearly to people and the markets what is going well with the economy, what the weaknesses are and what we're doing about the weaknesses.'"

Stephen Labaton and David M. Herszenhorn write in the New York Times: "The Bush administration's plan to rescue the nation's two largest mortgage finance companies ran into sharp criticism in Congress on Tuesday as some lawmakers questioned the open-ended request for money that could be used to help the companies. . . .

"Republican opposition threatened to incite an ugly intramural fight with the White House. In a high-stakes election year, the resistance reflected the deep fear among some lawmakers that the plan could set off a large taxpayer bailout, touching off a wave of voter anger in November.

"For some lawmakers facing tough re-election contests, opposing the rescue plan is a way to reaffirm their identity as budget hawks while publicly breaking with a deeply unpopular lame-duck administration."

And meanwhile, Peter S. Goodman and David M. Herszenhorn write in the New York Times that even though Bush yesterday declared such actions premature, "[m]any economists have concluded that a second dose of government stimulus spending is required to prevent a broad economic unraveling and provide relief to millions of Americans grappling with joblessness, plunging home prices and tight credit."

As a result, "Democratic leaders in Congress have already begun fashioning a package of proposed measures."

Overridden

David Stout writes in the New York Times: "President Bush cast a futile veto on Tuesday, rejecting a bill that would protect doctors from cuts in their Medicare payments. But hours later, the House and Senate voted to override the veto, making the Medicare measure the fourth bill to become legislation over Mr. Bush's opposition."

Michael Abramowitz and Paul Kane write in The Washington Post: "The House voted 383 to 41 to override the veto, while the Senate voted 70 to 26, in both cases far more than the two-thirds necessary to block the president's action.

"With organized medicine and other lobbies promoting the popular measure in an election year, Republicans broke heavily from the White House. A total of 153 House Republicans voted to defy the White House, 24 more than in a June 24 vote that started the momentum toward passage of the Medicare doctors' bill yesterday. Twenty-one Senate Republicans voted for the bill this time, including four senators who had voted 'nay' in the two previous Medicare votes."

Robert Pear writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush has been getting his way on many foreign and national security issues, obtaining money for the Iraq war, persuading Congress to pass new wiretapping legislation and fending off restrictions on harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding.

"But Democrats have gained the upper hand on many domestic issues, passing a water projects bill over the president's veto and forcing the White House to accept new education benefits for veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan."