By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, July 28, 2005; 12:54 PM

Is it good news or bad news for the president when he is only barely able to eke out a victory on a key bit of legislation -- even after an orgy of deal-making and arm-twisting -- in a chamber where his party enjoys a 30-vote majority?

The answer: Extremely good news. Because Democrats were ready to officially declare Bush's second term politically moribund if he failed, and the press might well have gone along and run his obituary.

But it wasn't an easy victory.

Paul Blustein and Mike Allen write in The Washington Post: "The House narrowly approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement this morning, delivering a hard-fought victory to President Bush while underscoring the nation's deep divisions over trade. . . .

"Underscoring the importance that Bush attaches to the pact, he put his prestige on the line by making a rare appearance with Vice President Cheney at the weekly closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference. Bush spoke for an hour, lawmakers said, stressing the national security implications of CAFTA, which are rooted in the concern that growing anti-American sentiment in Latin America would flourish if the United States refused to open its markets wider to the nations that negotiated the pact. . . .

"The last-minute negotiations for Republican votes resembled the wheeling and dealing on a car lot. Republicans who were opposed or undecided were courted during hurried meetings in Capitol hallways, on the House floor and at the White House. GOP leaders told their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was the time to ask, lawmakers said, and members took advantage of the opportunity by requesting such things as fundraising appearances by Cheney and the restoration of money the White House has tried to cut from agriculture programs. Lawmakers also said many of the favors bestowed in exchange for votes will be tucked into the huge energy and highway bills that Congress is scheduled to pass this week before leaving for the August recess.

"So many top Bush administration officials were working the Capitol last night that Democrats joked that the hallways looked like a Cabinet meeting. Cheney made an after-dinner trip to the second floor of the Capitol and stayed until shortly after 10 p.m., meeting with members."

Greg Hitt and Neil King Jr. write in the Wall Street Journal write: "Late last night, Mr. Cheney camped out in an office just off the House floor, and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez worked the halls.

"The president's unusual appearance on Capitol Hill, followed up with private telephone calls to wavering members, underscored his personal stake in the fight. More effective in the end-game maneuvering was deal-cutting by Bush aides and Republican leaders. Highway projects were dangled before undecided lawmakers, as well as assignments on top-shelf committees."

CNN reports that Bush also made several late-night phone calls himself, as well.

Warren Vieth writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The House voted late Wednesday to ratify the Central American Free Trade Agreement, handing President Bush a hard-fought victory on a measure with limited economic effects but large political consequences."

Edmund L. Andrews writes in the New York Times: "To supporters and opponents alike, the pact became a political symbol over how best to respond to globalization, competition from low-wage countries and the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States.

"The treaty has also been the focus of a power struggle between Mr. Bush, who championed it as a model for expanding free trade, and Democratic lawmakers who argued that it would encourage American companies to shift jobs out of this country while doing little to elevate the working standards of Central Americans."

Here's Bush's statement after the passage: "I am proud that the House of Representatives has acted to advance America's economic and national security interests by passing the CAFTA-DR agreement. CAFTA helps ensure that free trade is fair trade. . . .

"The agreement is more than a trade bill; it is a commitment of freedom-loving nations to advance peace and prosperity throughout the Western hemisphere. We have a moral obligation and a vital national security interest in helping the democracies of Central America and the Dominican Republic succeed, and CAFTA furthers that goal."

Douglas Jehl in the New York Times calls attention to the fact that, when it comes to who told reporters about Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent, there's at least one more administration official out there, somewhere.

Jehl calls attention to an article by Washington Post national security reporter Walter Pincus , that Pincus wrote for the summer issue of Nieman Reports. We posted it on NiemanWatchdog.org about three weeks ago.

In the article, Pincus wrote: "On July 12, 2003, an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction."

Jehl writes: "Mr. Pincus has not identified his source to the public. But a review of Mr. Pincus's own accounts and those of other people with detailed knowledge of the case strongly suggest that his source was neither Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, nor I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and was in fact a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed."

Similarly, Jehl notes that "the identity of Mr. Novak's original source, whom he has described as 'no partisan gunslinger,' remains unknown.

As for Judith Miller's sources, who knows? Jehl writes that all we know is that during the period in question, Miller was "assigned to report for an article published July 20, 2003, about Iraq and the hunt for unconventional weapons."

Arriana Huffington , posting in her eponymous blog, describes what I'll call the Judy Miller conspiracy theory. Based largely on murmurs and suppositions, it casts Miller as a protagonist in the effort to squelch Wilson for having the gall to challenge the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that Miller had so dutifully reported in the run-up to war.

I was Live Online yesterday, and there was some discussion about where all these leaks are coming from in the Plame case.

On NPR's Talk of the Nation yesterday, Washington Post reporter Jim VandeHei offered some insights into how these stories are coming together.

"We don't know much from [Patrick J.] Fitzgerald, who's the special prosecutor in this case. Most of our reporting, and most of the stories you've heard about, are based on people who've gone before the grand jury, have been interviewed by Fitzgerald himself, or represent clients in the case," VandeHei said. "So what you're doing is talking to folks and trying to figure out what questions are being asked, what direction does Fitzgerald seem to be headed in."

And why do we hear relatively little about Libby, at least compared to Rove? "We can't even, most often, get his lawyer on the telephone."

Alan Bjerga writes for the Wichita Eagle that Republican Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts is resisting Democratic calls to hold hearings on Rove's role.

"Roberts, who chairs the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence, isn't budging, saying that Rove's role in revealing the identity of CIA agent Plame is already under investigation and that his critics are playing politics.

" 'The sharks are in the water,' he said. 'Senate Intelligence has to be nonpartisan.' "

Liz Sidoti writes for the Associated Press: "A Democratic opponent of John Bolton asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday whether the nominee for U.N. ambassador had testified to a grand jury about the leak of CIA operative's identity.

"Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee say they want to determine whether Bolton was truthful when he wrote on a questionnaire for his confirmation hearing that he has not been interviewed in any recent investigations.

"In a letter to Rice, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., referenced an MSNBC report from July 21 that Bolton was among State Department undersecretaries who 'gave testimony' about a classified memo that has become an important piece of evidence in the leak investigation."

Has it come to this? Hearst columnist and White House press corps legend Helen Thomas is the only person still trying to get answers about Karl Rove and Valerie Plame out of spokesman Scott McClellan?

Here's the text of yesterday's briefing.

At least she gets a little backing at the end. Here's Thomas:

"Q Has Karl Rove offered to resign, in view of his problems?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you keep asking these questions that are related to an ongoing investigation --

"Q Does he still have his security clearance?

"MR. McCLELLAN: -- and those are questions that have already been addressed.

"Q No, they -- I've never heard this before. Have you?

"MR. McCLELLAN: The question has been asked before.

"Q We haven't heard an answer.

"Q What was your answer?

"Q There hasn't been an answer.

"MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead."

Bush's visits to the Boy Scout Jamboree seem almost cursed. This morning, the White House announced that his visit, originally set for last night, then rescheduled for tonight, has now been postponed until Sunday.

Karin Brulliard writes in The Washington Post: "Tens of thousands of Boy Scouts, hoping to get things back to normal at their National Jamboree after four Scout leaders were killed on opening day, endured more disappointment and hardship Wednesday as they learned that President Bush had delayed his visit and as hundreds of people were treated for heat-related conditions.

"The announcement that severe storms prompted the president's postponement came after the Scouts waited for more than two hours in the blazing sun in their dress uniforms, and was met with loud boos."

Michael Felberbaum writes for the Associated Press: "About 300 people, most of them Scouts, suffered from dehydration, fatigue and lightheadedness Wednesday. . . .

"At the last jamboree four years ago, Bush's trip was also canceled because of bad weather, in which lightning strikes caused minor injuries to two Scouts. He spoke to the group a day later by videotape."

Charles Babington writes in The Washington Post: "The White House said yesterday that it has examined federal tax returns from Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., but it would not commit to allowing Senate Judiciary Committee investigators to review them as part of the confirmation process.

"Democratic senators, meanwhile, continued pressing the administration for records related to Roberts's time in the solicitor general's office, saying they feared there would not be enough time to review them unless the White House moves promptly.

"White House aides have been dismissive of the demands for records, but an influential Republican, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.), expressed sympathy for the Democrats."

Neil A. Lewis writes in the New York Times: "Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents show."

For instance, some "senior military lawyers warned in tones of sharp concern that aggressive interrogation techniques would endanger American soldiers taken prisoner and also diminish the country's standing as a leader in 'the moral high road' approach to the laws of war."

Tuesday's New York Times report that the Bush administration is thinking about junking the slogan "global war on terror" in favor of "global struggle against violent extremism" has caused quite a stir.

Juliette Kayyem writes in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times: "It was President Bush himself who insisted on calling it a global war on terror. . . . 'A war between good and evil,' he called it. A war 'to save the world.'

"But now, apparently, a decision has been made that the language of war isn't working for him anymore. . . .

"War, it seems, is so 2004."

To make her point, Kayyem uses data from Ivo Daalder , who wrote in May on tpmcafe.com: "For three years, the president didn't let an opportunity go by without repeating that we were in a global war against evil terrorists. But he's gone strangely silent ever since his reelection last November. My Brookings intern, Jina Chung, examined the text of Bush's speeches over the 12 months, as posted on the White House website to see how many times Bush referred to the 'war on terror' or some variant of the phrase in the six months since November 2 and how many times he did so in the six months prior the elections. Here's what she came up with: Before the elections, Bush mentioned the war on terror three times as often as after. In fact, he referred to it more often in the thirty days prior to the election (71 times) than in the six months since (66 times)."

Sidney Blumenthal bristles in Salon: "Never before has a president suddenly discarded his self-proclaimed 'mission.'"

Fred Kaplan writes in Slate: "The Times story doesn't notice what appears to be the driving force behind the new slogan--a desire for a happier acronym.

"Look at the first letters of Global War on Terrorism. GWOT. What does that mean; how is it pronounced? Gwot? Too frivolously rowdy, like a fight scene in a Marvel comic book (Bam! Pfooff! Gwot!). Gee-wot? Sounds like a garbled question (Gee what?).

"Then look at Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Its acronym is GSAVE--i.e., gee-save. We're out to save the world, see, not wage war on it."

Not so fast, Jay.

Last night on NBC's Tonight Show, Jay Leno showed footage of Bush leaving yesterday morning's meeting with House Republicans. Bush waves at the press pool, but after he passes by and proceeds a few steps down a hallway, you can see him -- with his back to the camera -- raising his right hand straight in the air and thrusting a digit skyward.

Here's how Leno put it: "I think President Bush is getting a little fed up with the press. Did you see what he did today when he walked by a group of reporters? I have not doctored this. This is the actual footage. This is the raw feed. We have not changed this in any way."

He showed the clip.

Leno: "What's that all about? What was that all about? Huh? You see? That's the great thing about the second term: Who cares!?"

Blogger Onegoodmove has Leno on video. Blogger Patridiotwatch has a screen grab of the digit.

And yes, that is indeed undoctored footage of Leno, showing undoctored footage from MSNBC. MSNBC originally showed it at 10:36 a.m. ET -- I went back and checked.

But on closer inspection, it appears to be Bush's thumb.

Timothy Noah in Slate invited readers to "invent a nickname President Bush could give his Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts Jr., to show him who's boss."

The first runner-up: Hoosier Daddy.

The winner: Tort Blossom.

Peter Hyman writes in the New York Daily News from Montreal's annual Just For Laughs festival.

"Standup comedy is often a bellweather for the nation's cultural agenda, and the most prevalent themes at this year's festival were Bush's inadequacies, gay marriage and the war in Iraq. Conspicuously absent, however, were jokes about Karl Rove, but perhaps poking fun at such an easy target is considered 'hacky.' "

An example: "Greg Proops on the President's smarts: 'He wears an American flag on his lapel so he remembers which country he's from.'"

At the festival's Stupidity Awards , Bush won the "Stupidest Statement" category for his comment: "They never stop thinking of new ways to harm our country or our people, and neither do we."

New York Post gossip columnist Richard Johnson writes that comedian Penn Jillette "tells us the president passes along zingers to him through their mutual pal, Texas mystery novelist and musician Kinky Friedman.

" 'There's nothing more American than a dirty joke,' Jillette declared . . . 'George W. Bush tells dirty jokes. And Kinky Friedman tells them to me. They're never any good, but they're dirty. Kinky told me that Bush's favorite one lately was about golf.'"

A sample: "The only time I ever hit two good balls is when I step on a rake."