Froomkinmania

Dan Froomkin has (as usual) a great round up of coverage of the SOTU and some biting commentary on the Libby trial.

On Libby:

How that scapegoating might mitigate Libby's alleged crime of perjuring himself to investigators isn't exactly clear -- but it sure gives us a rare and troubling view of the viper pit that apparently lurks beneath the West Wing's placid veneer.

Was Libby a scapegoat or a liar? Was he a victim of White House backstabbing, or a puppet in Cheney's obsessive war against those who dared question the highly questionable case for war in Iraq? Neither would reflect well on the White House. And they're not mutually exclusive.

If nothing else, the Libby defense hints at an answer to what I have long considered one of the great mysteries of this administration: How do Bush's two Svengalis -- Cheney and Rove -- get along? Apparently, not so great.

On the SOTU:

Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush used his State of the Union address last night to try to revive his presidency against what may be the greatest odds any chief executive has faced in a generation."

But, Balz concludes: "Bush may have been speaking into the void."

...

Marc Sandalow writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "President Bush acknowledged the change in political order in the opening minute of his State of the Union address Tuesday with a gracious tribute to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seated on the podium behind him.

"He then spent most of the next 49 minutes behaving as if the November election never happened.

"Bush pitched a health care policy he knows stands no chance in a Democratic Congress, an education plan Democrats have already rejected and an energy policy that did little to wow his opponents.

"On Iraq, Bush implored a Congress that is poised to pass a resolution condemning his latest war plan to 'find our resolve, and turn events toward victory.'"

...

Glenn Kessler does some fact-checking for The Washington Post: "In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush presented an arguably misleading and often flawed description of 'the enemy' that the United States faces overseas, lumping together disparate groups with opposing ideologies to suggest that they have a single-minded focus in attacking the United States.

"Under Bush's rubric, a country such as Iran -- which enjoys diplomatic representation and billions of dollars in trade with major European countries -- is lumped together with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 'The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat,' Bush said, referring to the different branches of the Muslim religion. . . .

"[H]is description of the actions of 'the enemy' tried to tie together a series of diplomatic and military setbacks that had virtually no connection to one another, from an attack on a Sunni mosque in Iraq to the assassination of Maronite Lebanese political figure."

Kessler questions Bush's insistence that "free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies" and that "we have a diplomatic strategy that is rallying the world to join in the fight against extremism."

He also finds room for a little domestic fact-checking as well. For instance: "Bush claimed credit for cutting the budget deficit ahead of schedule and proposed to eliminate it over the next five years. He did not mention that he inherited a huge budget surplus -- $236 billion in 2000 -- compared with a $296 billion deficit in the 2006 fiscal year, largely as a result of Bush's tax cuts and spending increases."

...

Steven Thomma writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Bush wanted to convince Americans watching on television that he's heard them and that he wants again to work with Democrats....

"Yet the chasm between the parties is wide and deep, the politics between them are poisonous and Bush bears much of the blame.

"After reaching out to Democrats his first year, Bush governed after the 2001 terrorist attacks as the leader of a one-party state.

"In Congress, his party locked Democrats out of negotiations, then hammered votes through without chance of input.

"From the White House, Bush tacked 'signing statements' onto bills he signed and used the threat of terrorism in three successive elections to attack Democrats as weak or, worse, aiding the enemy. Last fall he warned that if the Democrats won control of Congress, 'terrorists win and America loses.'"

On Webb's (brilliant) response:

Here's the text of Webb's address.

Jonathan Alter blogs for MSNBC: "Something unprecedented happened tonight, beyond the doorkeeper announcing, 'Madame Speaker.' For the first time ever, the response to the State of the Union overshadowed the president's big speech. Virginia Sen. James Webb, in office only three weeks, managed to convey a muscular liberalism-with personal touches-that left President Bush's ordinary address in the dust."