Time Magazine: "Into the Fray"

[Penndems]

After years of pulling away from Mideast diplomacy, the White House is forced, reluctantly, to undergo sudden immersion
By MIKE ALLEN

President George W. Bush has always done the middle East his way.
When he became the first President to formally call for the creation of a Palestinian state, it was at least partly because he gagged on such conventional but tortured constructions as "a place for the Palestinian people to carry out their aspirations." When aides drafted a speech with such wording, the President challenged them, demanding, What does that mean? An aide explained that this was how the matter was generally formulated. Bush, a senior Administration official recalls, asked, "Well, do we think there's going to be a Palestinian state?" When his aides said yes, he continued, "Then why don't we say that there should be a Palestinian state?" With that, the groundbreaking words were delivered.

<snip>

Yet Bush would dearly love to accomplish something, to neutralize anti-American forces in the Middle East and to redeem himself as a peacemaker. Without that, his foreign policy legacy lives and dies with Iraq, and it's looking ever more likely that the country won't be peaceful before he leaves office. Still, the Administration is ever optimistic. In an e-mail titled "Setting the Record Straight" late last week, the White House declared, "The President's foreign policy is succeeding."

Indeed, the West Wing is relatively upbeat after its annus horribilis. People close to Bush say chief of staff Josh Bolten and press secretary Tony Snow have given the place a desperately needed karmic injection. Bolten has pleased the President by giving him straight talk instead of cheerleading and has imposed a new accountability on the staff. Snow—with his bankerly suits, full tank of confidence and dash of celebrity—went on the breakfast shows last week to defend the pace and results of Bush's diplomacy, scoffing at the impatience of those who demanded "egg-timer diplomacy."

As for Bush himself, he is curtailing his traditional August working vacation at the ranch so that he can barnstorm before the midterm elections. Their outlook thus far seems so ominous for the G.O.P. that one presidential adviser wants Bush to beef up his counsel's office for the tangle of investigations that a Democrat-controlled House might pursue.

Link:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1218016,00.html
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Excellent article. Since it's being suggested that The White House beef up the Counsel's office, the GOP seems to have resigned itself to the fact that the Congress they'll be dealing with after the November elections will be a Democratic one.

The House and Senate Judiciary committees need to start start interviewing the biggest, baddest legal SOBs they can find to counteract the Bush cabal at the outset.

[Lautremont]

1. "Bush would dearly love to accomplish something."

Good fuckin' luck.

[Penndems]

4. He's accomplished nothing worthwhile thus far

Why should he deviate from the norm? ;)

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. He isn't making the Crawford/Cindy mistake again this year.

"barnstorm" my ass, he is in the Cindy hidey hole someplace.

[Penndems]

5. He got caught off-guard last summer when Camp Casey came calling

The White House is gonna make sure that The Village Idiot isn't "embarrassed" by Cindy Sheehan again.

He's afraid to go back to Crawford, unless he can be assured they're won't be any "unpleasant distractions" that smack of confrontation.

[Rageneau]

3. Note that Smirk had to "ask his aides" if we favor a Palestinian state.

The next question he asked was probably, "If Palestine becomes a state, will we have to add a star to the flag?"