The End of the Bush-Mush Affair

Cheney's Nod to Georgia

James Gerstenzang blogs for the Los Angeles Times: "Vice President Dick Cheney has been one of the key players pushing for a muscular response to Russia in the Georgian crisis. And it was Cheney who [Monday] afternoon stopped by the Georgian embassy for two minutes on his way home from the White House to drive home that message in one sentence.

"To be precise, he spent two minutes 20 seconds in a foyer -- 75 seconds of which were passed writing a message in a leather-bound remembrance book.

"To make certain he wrote the correct message -- this being diplomacy, where every comma (or missing comma) might be parsed -- he copied his words from a blue note card. Four times he put pen to paper in a large hand, three times he paused as he wrote, to consult the card.

"'To the people of Georgia' the vice president wrote, omitting punctuation after the salutation and at the end of his message.

"He continued: 'In this hour of sorrow, I offer the respect, condolences, and solidarity of the United States of America'

"He signed it: 'Dick Cheney'."

Here's a picture of the note.

Bush and the U.S. Attorney Scandal

"Was Bush Involved in U.S. Attorney Scandal?" That's the headline over Emma Schwartz and Justin Rood's story for ABC News.

"Before the court of public opinion, White House spokespeople have long maintained President Bush had no involvement in the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys, the central decision that mushroomed into one of the biggest scandals in eight years of the Bush administration," they write.

"'[T]here is no indication that the President knew about any of the ongoing discussions [about firing U.S. attorneys] over the two years, nor did he see a list or a plan before it was carried out,' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters in March 2007.

"In federal court, however, the administration's lawyers have been more ambiguous.

"'The record does reflect at this stage that the president was not involved in decisions about who would be asked to resign from the department,' Justice Department lawyer Carl Nichols carefully argued before a federal judge in June. But 'the record does not reflect that the President had no future involvement' in the scandal, he noted.

"Just how much of a role the president played in the firings and its aftermath remains unclear. But in trying to prevent top White House officials from testifying or turning over documents to Congress, the Bush administration 'is very consciously trying to walk a very fine tightrope,' explained Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at American University in Washington, D.C.

"On the one hand, experts say, the White House finds it politically necessary to make clear statements insulating Bush from the scandal. But in court, 'If they said [Bush] wasn't involved at all they would undermine their case for executive privilege,' Vladeck said. . . .

"Lawyer Stanley Brand, former counsel to the House of Representatives and one of the capital's leading ethics experts, put it more bluntly. 'The White House press people lie, but the lawyers have to tell the truth because they're officers of the court.' . . .

"The White House declined to comment on the president's role in the scandal. 'We don't have anything new to add to this exhaustively covered issue at this time,' wrote spokesman Scott Stanzel in an email to ABC News."

Woodward Watch

Hillel Italie writes for the Associated Press that Bob Woodward's fourth investigative book on the Bush presidency "'The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008' will be published Sept. 8 by Simon & Schuster with an announced first printing of 900,000 copies. Simon & Schuster is keeping the book under strict embargo -- although such embargoes are often broken -- and had even held back the title.

"'There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers,' Woodward's longtime editor, Alice Mayhew, said Tuesday in a statement. 'This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes.'

"According to Simon & Schuster, Woodward's book 'takes readers deep inside the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq.

"'Based on extensive interviews with participants, contemporaneous notes and secret documents, the book traces the internal debates, tensions and critical turning points in the Iraq War during an extraordinary two-year period.'

"The Washington Post, where Woodward currently serves as an associate editor, will run excerpts on Sept. 7. And that night, Woodward will appear on CBS television's '60 Minutes.'"

Mike Allen writes for Politico: "Administration officials tell Politico that Woodward spent two mornings with President Bush and interviewed Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and a host of other senior officials. . . .

"White House officials say they are optimistic that the book, which the publisher says 'declassifies the secrets of America's political and military involvement in Iraq,' will reflect more favorably on Bush than Woodward's previous volume, 'State of Denial,' which came out in September 2006.

"The president's surge strategy for Iraq, albeit late, has slowed the violence on the ground, and Bush aides believe the book will reflect that.

"As usual, though, Woodward is holding his cards close. Even officials who have discussed the project with him repeatedly are uncertain how Bush will look. The title suggests a heavy dose of administration infighting."

Cheney's Energy Man

Juliet Eilperin writes in The Washington Post: "A senior aide to Vice President Cheney is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department, according to several current and former administration officials, a promotion that would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change.

"F. Chase Hutto III has played a prominent behind-the-scenes role in shaping the administration's environmental policies for several years, the officials said, helping to rewrite rules affecting the air that Americans breathe and the waters that oil tankers traverse. In every instance, according to both his allies and opponents, he has challenged proposals that would place additional regulations on industry. . . .

"At the White House, Hutto has been one of the oil and gas industry's key points of contact for energy and environmental issues. . . .

"The move to elevate the domestic policy adviser to the post of assistant secretary for policy and international affairs signals the administration's determination to resist new environmental protections, environmentalists said. . . .

"Francesca Grifo -- who directs the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group -- said that if Hutto takes the helm of the Energy Department's climate policy office, the impact could last well beyond Bush's term in office [because] in the coming months, Hutto could make policy decisions that the next administration would find difficult to reverse quickly."

Teen Idols in the Press Room

Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts write in The Washington Post: "The Jonas Brothers own the hearts of millions of teens, and Dick Cheney-- well, aren't his approval ratings somewhere in the teens? So naturally these formidable powers were obliged to converge at the White House yesterday.

"The pop threesome -- in town for last night's Nissan Pavilion show -- aren't just boy-band sensations who also play ed boy-band sensations in the Disney Channel hit 'Camp Rock.' They're also children's health advocates (Nick, 15, the cute one, has diabetes), which snagged them a policy briefing with senior staff and a PSA taping session on the South Lawn with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. Alas, their Oval Office tour with the veep (whose granddaughters are major fans) was off-limits to press, reports our colleague David Malitz."

Revolving Door Watch

Ken Herman blogs for Cox News Service: "Former longtime George W. Bush aide Dan Bartlett is joining the commentating class.

"CBS News today announced that Bartlett is now one of its on-air analysts and will do on-air analyzing at the upcoming national political conventions."

Legacy Watch

The current issue of Mother Jones (not yet available online without a subscription) is all about the Bush legacy -- and how to recover from it.

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery write in an editors' note: "George W. Bush . . . is likely to go down in history as one of the few presidents who failed on every conceivable front. Future chroniclers will no doubt uncover malfeasance beyond what we can even now imagine, but as it stands, it's hard to think of a single admirable, or merely adequate, thing this administration has done. (Okay, one: Bush could be called many names, but 'bigot' is not one of them. His Cabinet looked a lot more like America than any Democrat's ever has; without Powell and Rice, the Obama candidacy might not have been possible.) Even aside from the war, detention, and torture, there are innumerable ways in which Bush has left us worse off and less safe. . . .

"In the past, America has [bounced] back from bad presidencies. . . . This time, the damage seems deeper, in part--and this may be George W. Bush's most pernicious legacy--because of the cynicism the W years have engendered. Large percentages of us now have no trouble believing that our ballots don't count, and that Washington is so completely in the pocket of corporate interests that no amount of mobilization can change its foregone conclusions. Can such a nation pull together to craft a new vision--one that would right the injustices, both legal and economic, of the past eight years? Do we even want to, or would we be satisfied to stop being embarrassed about our president?"

Cartoon Watch

Ben Sargent and Ed Stein on White House howlers, Matt Wuerker on Putin as an amateur, Tom Toles on the Bush threat, Pat Oliphant on four more years and RJ Matson on Bush's bird.