kissmyass.jpgIn a blatant display of ass kissery, showcasing the awesome power of WH spinmeisters to plant unquestioned dreck with American media stenographers nationwide, I give you today’s biggest examples of Bush Administration S.W.A.K.s:

– Via the AP, winner of most obtusely humorous headline in conjunction with the reporting therein:  “Bush Lends Clout To Mideast Peace Talks.”  (UPDATE:  Since the AP decided to change their title, here’s another link showing their original one.  H/T twolf1.)

…Bush will open the Annapolis conference with a speech. He’ll make clear that Mideast peace is a top priority for the rest of his time in office through January 2009, but he is not expected to advance any of his own ideas on how to achieve that, Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley said Sunday….

The run-up to the meeting has been fraught with disputes, skepticism and suspicion about the opposing parties’ good faith. And expectations remain low.

Clout.  Yep, exactly what I was thinking, too.  You? 

– Via the NYTimes, two examples of journamalism from Elizabeth Bumiller.  The first:

President Bush and ‘Madame Rice’: A Personal Bond Helps Align Policy

Condoleezza Rice and President Bush are often described as opposites, but their closest advisers say they are remarkably alike. Both are products of their own elites — Mr. Bush from the old East Coast establishment, Ms. Rice from Southern black professionals — who are supremely self-confident on the surface but harbor resentments underneath. Ms. Rice, like Mr. Bush, has been underestimated her entire life, as an African-American, as a woman and often as the youngest person in the room….

In January 2001, Ms. Rice went to Mr. Bush to stop Mr. Cheney from taking a major part of her job, running National Security Council meetings in the president’s absence, as Mr. Cheney had proposed to Mr. Bush that he do. “She threw a fit,” a former administration official close to Mr. Cheney recalled.

Ms. Rice, in an interview earlier this year, said that she went to the president because she was determined “to get it fixed,” and that she made the argument to him that it “wasn’t appropriate” for Mr. Cheney to run the meetings since that had not been the role of vice presidents in the past. “Mr. President, this is what national security advisers do,” Ms. Rice recalled that she told the president, who sided with her.

Study in power that one is, eh? And the second “gem” from Ms. Bumiller today:

…Not least, Ms. Rice’s supporters say, she is determined to fashion a legacy in the Middle East that extends beyond the war in Iraq.

Ms. Rice was able to engineer the administration’s shift in large part because of her extraordinarily close relationship with the president — Mr. Bush “loved Condi,” said Andrew H. Card Jr., the former White House chief of staff — and her ability to move him at critical moments. Mr. Bush, Ms. Rice insisted, is also fully committed to the Annapolis meeting….

There is pimping your book, and then there is diving whole hog into the kool-aid, Liz.  And is it me, or do you also sense the Dick Cheney pen to newspaper annotation going on today? 

– For a more clear-eyed view of the conference, I’d try Australia’s The Age:

But so far the progress on the Annapolis meeting has been faltering, with no agreement on the framework just 48 hours before they were due to start.

Adding to the low-key mood, Mr Bush’s national security adviser said that the president would not adopt an activist role in the negotiations, even though many observers believed Washington must step up its direct involvement if the effort was to succeed….

Many Arab and European diplomats said they believed Dr Rice personally wanted to make progress towards Middle East peace, but they feared Mr Bush did not fully share her views, and had at times limited her role.

Yes, the halcyon days of status quo are here again.

– Finally, there is an intriguing review for a book on the “Israeli lobby” in Foreign Affairs.  I’m wondering if anyone has read it and/or has insights on the authors — John J. Mearsheimer and Stephan M. Walt — or the reviewer, Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations.   I know a bit about each, but would love additional background if anyone has some to share.

(Photo via ianus.)

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