Another not-so-subtle nod to his base --
Bush declines an invitation to speak to the NAACP.

No, please, KEEP CHENEY! --
The White House Press Release Corps dutifully led their stories today with Bush's "terse" dig at Edward's (probably a carefully rehearsed delivery to a carefully planted question). He said that the difference between Edwards and Cheney is that Cheney "can be president." (My first response was, "and that's what scares us!" and my second was, "then again, he already is.") Here's a WaPo round-up of speculation about Cheney's political future. Excerpt:

Officially, administration officials say there is no chance that Vice President Cheney will leave the campaign. But the "Dump Cheney" rumors continue to swirl in the press, fueled by a steady infusion of feeble poll results, poor reviews from the campaign trail, Cheney's own foul mouth, persistent Halliburton scandals and his continued and unsupported insistence on dtrong links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

And then there was this weekend's revelation that the doctor who has repeatedly sssured us all that Cheney is fit to serve was allegedly illegally using narcotics. (Don't forget that the "Dump Cheney" conspiracy theorists predict that it all begins with an announcement that Cheney's heart problems have suddenly gotten much worse.)

The fury with which Rove&Co have unleashed attacks on Edwards' is probably the most delightful measure of their terror. While the news media's unblinking regurgitation of Rove's talking points spikes my blood pressure, deep down, it also gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to see the White House so worried.

Classy --
You must see this great photograph of you-know-who stalking off the podium after refusing to answer questions about "Kenny Boy" Lay.

Score one for conspriracy theorists? --
All those cockamamie, paranoid theories you picked up on blogs and in emails in recent months, suggesting that the White House would make a concerted effort to land Bin Laden before the election? Not so cockamamie according to this story in The New Republic. Here's an excerpt:

This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a "sanctuary" for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. "The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better," he said.

This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November. The Bush administration denies it has geared the war on terrorism to the electoral calendar. "Our attitude and actions have been the same since September 11 in terms of getting high-value targets off the street, and that doesn't change because of an election," says National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack. But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections." Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations--according to a recently departed intelligence official, "no timetable[s]" were discussed in 2002 or 2003--but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt. Another official, this one from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, which is responsible for internal security, explains, "The Musharraf government has a history of rescuing the Bush administration. They now want Musharraf to bail them out when they are facing hard times in the coming elections." (These sources insisted on remaining anonymous. Under Pakistan's Official Secrets Act, an official leaking information to the press can be imprisoned for up to ten years.)

A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

And before I get that requisite email asking what I would expect from a leftie rag like TNR, let me ask you, have you read it recently?