What Is the Bush Doctrine, Anyway?

"That could have meant the loss of thousands of high-paying construction jobs just weeks before the election."

Campaign Watch

Jeremy Pelofsky blogs for Reuters: "President George W. Bush will make a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Friday, attending a closed-door fundraiser in Oklahoma City to benefit Republican hopeful John McCain and the Republican National Committee -- but the candidate will not be there.

"Despite being a prolific fundraiser during his first seven years in office, Bush has only attended a handful of events this year and almost all of them have been closed to the press, which experts have attributed to his low job approval ratings."

Michael McNutt writes in the Oklahoman: "Ticket prices range from $1,000 for lunch to $25,000 for the chance to briefly talk with Bush. Getting a picture taken with the president costs $5,000."

Woodward Watch

Michiko Kakutani reviews Woodward's new Bush book in the New York Times: "Much of 'The War Within' simply ratifies the picture that has already emerged from newspaper and magazine articles and dozens of books by journalists and former administration insiders. It's a picture of an administration riven by internal conflicts (between the Pentagon and State Department, between defense department civilians and the uniformed military, between hard-line neoconservatives and more pragmatic realists), an administration in which the advice of experts was frequently ignored or dismissed, traditional policy-making channels were routinely circumvented, policy often took a backseat to electoral politics, accountability was repeatedly evaded, and few advisers dared speak truth to power.

"Mr. Woodward tells us that [Condoleezza] Rice never took her complaints about unduly rosy military reports to Mr. Bush because 'the president almost demanded optimism' and because she 'claimed that as secretary of state, she didn't feel it was appropriate to criticize' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or military commanders. In another chapter, Mr. Woodward tells us that [national security adviser Stephen] Hadley, put in charge of a secret 2006 review of the war (reportedly kept under close guard because of White House fears that news coverage might hurt Republican chances in the mid-term elections), so 'hero-worshipped' the president that he often sidelined his own analytic methods to embrace Mr. Bush's certainties. . . .

"Mr. Bush -- who is described here as having aged, with grayer hair and 'a noticeable paunch' -- often sounds defensive and unfocused in his talks with Mr. Woodward, seemingly uttering his explanations on automatic pilot. It is his advisers -- or enablers, as they emerge in this book -- who are more energetic in spinning the administration's decisions."

Froomkin Watch

I'm taking a few days off. The column will resume on Thursday, Sept. 18.

Cartoon Watch

David Fitzsimmons on George W. Palin, Jeff Danziger on Bush and veterans, Bob Gorrell on Bush's exit strategy, Steven Greenberg on crude relationships.