Bush Gets the Bum's Rush

"'I looked at those points; I don't think that they were at all even up to the line in terms of being political,' Perino said. 'And I would say that our opponents, the Democrats, use every day, every opportunity to bash this president, and I just don't think we're going to worry about it.'"

Iraq Watch

David E. Sanger writes in the New York Times: "Monday's turnover of responsibility to the Iraqis for security in Anbar Province, once Iraq's most violent territory, serves a purpose" for both McCain and Bush.

"It allows Mr. Bush to claim that five years after the invasion, Iraq is achieving stability, and it allows Mr. McCain to argue that he was the first to come up with the winning strategy, an infusion of additional troops.

"Mr. Bush skimmed past his long-running, very public argument with Mr. McCain over troop levels when he addressed the convention here on Tuesday night by video link.

"'Some told him that his early and consistent call for more troops would put his presidential campaign at risk,' Mr. Bush told the delegates. 'He told them he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war. That is the kind of courage and vision we need in our next commander in chief.'

"That is likely to be a central element of Mr. McCain's campaign coming out of the convention, his policy aides here said."

But the lesson of Anbar is much more ambiguous than Bush and McCain might have you believe.

Tina Susman wrote in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times that although the handover was " touted by President Bush as a sign of U.S. success in Iraq" it was also "tinged with evidence of political friction and security threats bubbling below the surface."

Amit R. Paley wrote in Tuesday's Washington Post that "uncertainty lingered about the future of a linchpin in the effort to secure Anbar and the rest of Iraq: the Awakening movement, a 100,000-person group of former Sunni insurgents who now cooperate with U.S. troops.

"The Shiite-led government has recently stepped up a campaign to arrest leaders of the Awakening and dismantle parts of the program, whose members receive $300 a month from the U.S. military. Many fighters have abandoned their posts and fled their homes to avoid detention, stoking fears that some will rejoin the insurgency."

Dexter Filkins wrote in the New York Times that the calm "appears fragile in some respects."

And Filkins writes: "The striking turnaround in Anbar Province, accomplished by making deals with Sunni tribal leaders, has inevitably raised a question here: Could the Americans have avoided years of bloodshed by reaching out to the tribal leaders five and a half years ago?

"'Yes, yes,' [Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser,] said, shaking his head. 'But they didn't know.' . . .

"Hamid al-Hais, a tribal leader . . . , said the trouble in Anbar could be traced to the fateful decisions of mid-2003, when L. Paul Bremer III, the chief administrator of the occupation, ordered the dissolution of the Iraqi Army -- a bastion of Sunni power under Mr. Hussein -- and the dismissal of senior members of Mr. Hussein's Baath party.

"That, Mr. Hais said . . . , had set in motion the Sunni insurgency, which is only now burning out."

As Fred Kaplan wrote last year for Slate, it's still not entirely clear how involved Bush himself was in that decision -- but there's no doubt that he bears the responsibility.

Gonzales Watch

Carrie Johnson writes in The Washington Post: "Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales told investigators that he could not recall whether he took home notes regarding the government's most sensitive national security program and that he did not know they contained classified information, despite his own markings that they were 'top secret -- eyes only,' according to a Justice Department report released yesterday.

"Gonzales improperly carried notes about the warrantless wiretapping program in an unlocked briefcase and failed to keep them in a safe at his Northern Virginia home three years ago because he 'could not remember the combination,' the department's inspector general reported.

"A National Security Agency official who reviewed the notes said they contained references to operational aspects of the wiretapping initiative, including a top-secret code word for the program, information that had been 'zealously protected' by the agency and was 'not a close call' in terms of its sensitivity, the report said. . . .

"Mishandling classified material violates Justice policies and can result in criminal charges, but prosecutors in the department's national security division declined to bring a case after reviewing the allegations and consulting with career officials, spokesman Dean Boyd said. . . .

"The notes covered an 'emergency' meeting that President Bush held with congressional leaders in the White House Situation Room in early 2004, as authority for the warrantless wiretapping plan was set to expire.

"Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then presidential chief of staff, visited ailing Attorney General John D. Ashcroft in the intensive-care unit of George Washington University Hospital on March 10, 2004, in an apparent effort to persuade him to reauthorize the program over the objections of Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey."

Eric Lichtblau writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Gonzales's mishandling of the classified documents adds a new embarrassment to the long list of problems that tainted his tenure as attorney general. He resigned one year ago, after two and a half years in the job, in the face of growing criticism from lawmakers over his role in the N.S.A. wiretapping program and in the dismissals of nine United States attorneys."

Lara Jakes Jordan writes for the Associated Press: "In the court of public opinion, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' best defense is memory failure. Again. . . .

"Whether anyone believes Gonzales' memory lapses is almost besides the point. It's one of the oldest lawyer tricks in the book: If you don't fully remember the details, don't say anything that might later land you in trouble."

And Jeff Stein blogs for CQ: "If lying to FBI agents was enough to send Scooter Libby to jail, why isn't it enough to prosecute Alberto Gonzales?

"Despite strong evidence in a today's Justice Department report that the former attorney general lied to federal investigators probing his careless handling of highly classified documents, the department declined to prosecute. . . .

"In a statement that doesn't pass the laugh test, Gonzales told IG investigators he didn't know the documents were secret. . . .

"But the IG found the smoking gun -- in Gonzales's hand, no less.

"The envelope containing documents related to the NSA surveillance program bore the handwritten markings, 'TOP SECRET - EYES ONLY - ARG' [the attorney general's initials] followed by an abbreviation for the SCI codeword for the program."

In their response to the report, Gonzales's lawyers write: "It is far too easy to forget that on September 11, 2001, the United States suffered a devastating, violent attack on its homeland and its citizens."

As for the hospital visit, the lawyers finally confirm that it was Bush himself who sent Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft's bedside. "Secretary Card and Judge Gonzales went to speak with the Attorney General because the President told them to do so," the lawyers write.

Cheney Watch

Tabassum Zakaria reports for Reuters: "The United States has a deep interest in the wellbeing of its allies in the Caucasus region, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday during a visit to Azerbaijan.

"'We've met this evening in the shadow of the recent Russian invasion of Georgia,' Cheney told reporters as he sat next to Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev.

"'President Bush has sent me here with a clear and simple message for the people of Azerbaijan and the entire region: the United States has a deep and abiding interest in your well-being and security.'"

Guy Chazan and John McKinnon write in the Wall Street Journal: "Vice President Dick Cheney will use his trip to the Caucasus this week to try to loosen Russia's grip on Caspian and Central Asian oil and gas exports. But he may be too late."

And AFP reports on some added drama on Cheney's next stop: "Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko claimed Wednesday he was the victim of a 'coup' attempt after parliament approved laws trimming presidential powers. . . .

"'A political and constitutional coup d'etat has started in the parliament,' Yushchenko said in a televised speech on Wednesday, a day after parliament passed laws reducing his powers and making it easier to impeach him. . . .

"The sudden flare-up in Ukraine came a day ahead of a planned visit to Kiev by Cheney, a trip seen as a show of Washington's backing for the pro-Western policy course pursued by Yushchenko, often against strong domestic opposition."

The Palin-Bush Connection

Michael Isikoff blogs for Newsweek "The McCain team has hastily assembled a team of former Bush White House aides to tutor the vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on foreign-policy issues, to write her speeches and to begin preparing her for her all-important Oct. 2 debate against Sen. Joe Biden.

"Steve Biegun, who once served as the No. 3 National Security Council official under Condoleezza Rice at the White House, has been hired as chief foreign-policy adviser to the Alaska governor, campaign officials told Newsweek. . . .

"Matt Scully, a former Bush White House speechwriter who helped draft some of the major foreign-policy addresses during the president's first term, is working on Palin's acceptance speech to the convention Wednesday night.

"Mark Wallace, a former lawyer for the Bush 2000 campaign who served in a variety of administration jobs including chief counsel at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has been put in charge of 'prep' for the debate against Biden.

"Wallace's wife, Nicolle Wallace, the former White House communications director, has taken over the same job for Palin.

"Tucker Eskew, another senior Bush White House communications aide, is serving as senior counselor to Palin's operation.

"Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former chief economist at the Council of Economic Advisers who has been serving as top economics guru for the McCain campaign, has moved over to serve as Palin's chief domestic-policy adviser."

Cartoon Watch

Ann Telnaes on Bush's love child, Pat Oliphant on GOP baggage, Bruce Plante on GOP countermeasures, and Steve Sack has a quick quiz.