Some days, for political, diplomatic or security reasons, a White House press secretary can comment not one bit on the topic of the day.
Today was such a day, when President Bush's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, came up against questions about reports that U.S. commandos conducted raids in Syria that left at least eight people dead.
Here's how the questioning went -- and the non-answer answers from the White House briefing room podium:
Question: What is the likelihood of more raids into Syria like the one we saw this weekend?
Perino: The United States government has not commented on reports about that and I'm not able to here, either.
Q: So we've talked about Pakistan, the raids into Pakistan, whether by ground or by air. And there's been some acknowledgment by U.S. officials that those are happening. We're now seeing this sort of thing spread to other countries. Can you not -- you can't shed any light on why, when, where, how, whether we're going to...
Perino: I can't comment on it at all, no.
Q: Have you heard anything about whether the target was successful, that it hit the target?
Perino: I'm not going to comment in any way on this; I'm not able to comment on that.
Q: You're not even able to say that there has been some decision taken by the administration that 'If you guys can't clean up your act, we will clean it up for you'?
Perino: I'm not going to comment on the reports about this, no, I'm not. Anybody else?
Q: Can you comment on Syria's protest?
Perino: I'm not going to comment on it at all. This could be a really short briefing.
Q: Has anybody from the White House spoken to anybody from Syria?
Perino: I don't know. I don't know.
Q: Let me ask you this one: You have another government making claims. At some point, you either have to confirm or deny the claims they're making, no?
Perino: Jim, all I can tell you is that I am not able to comment on reports about this reported incident, and I'm not going to do so. You can come up here and try to beat it out of me, but I will not be commenting on this in any way, shape or form today. Or tomorrow.
Q: What about another agency, nobody -- if it comes, it's going to come from here, and so it's not going to -- nothing is going to come out of this?
Perino: I don't believe anybody is commenting on this at all.
Q: Dana, why can't you comment? Is it a reason for national security, or is it political? I mean, why --
Perino: To give you an answer to that would be commenting in some way on it, and I'm not going to do it.
Q: But, I mean, Dana, you can't give us anything? I mean, this is a major issue --
Perino: Nothing.
Q: This is a major issue --
Perino: I understand the reports are serious, but it's not something I'm going to comment on in any way.
And with that, the questioning moved elsewhere.
— James Gerstenzang
Photo: Mourners in the Syrian village where U.S. commandos reportedly staged a raid. Credit: Hussein Malla / Associated Press
When President Bush sits down next month with the leaders of the major developed and developing nations to figure out what went wrong with the global economy and hash out a coordinated response, save a seat for: President-elect Barack Obama? President-elect John McCain?
The president-in-waiting has been invited to the Nov. 15 summit of the Group of 20, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said this morning. Presumably, no RSVPs have been returned.
(She didn't note that Obama had called on Sept. 19 for such a meeting. She didn't have to. He pointed it out himself after a meeting with economic advisors in Richmond, Va.)
Certainly, there will be all the talk between election day and the inauguration on Jan. 20 of "just one president at a time," but Perino said: "We will look for his input after the election."
But how much authority will the president bring to the table? That's a trickier question for the White House.
Here's Perino's answer:
I think all of the leaders have agreed that we wanted to have this summit. They wanted the president to be able to host it, and he's excited to be able to do so. We will seek the input of the president-elect. But we didn't want the financial crisis to happen at all and -- but now that it's happened, we can't control the timing of it. And we think it's important not to wait to have this meeting.
In other words, the crisis is now, the president is the president, and he'll soldier ahead until he's no longer the president.
One thing the participants can expect to hear from the president (after all, he's been saying it for years): This is not the time to retreat on international trade; rather, the global economy and individual countries will benefit from liberalized trade rules.
One thing you are not likely to hear coming out of the meeting: specific details of a new course to solve the problem.
That, Perino said, would be more likely from another summit -- and, yes, George W. Bush is thinking of attending. As president. It would be that soon.
He gets along so well with Johnson-Sirleaf -- and respects her efforts to pull up her impoverished, politically-shredded country so much -- that he was uncharacteristically (and unsmirkingly) patient while the "Iron Lady" of Africa delivered a lengthy, effusive introduction to a speech he delivered Tuesday in downtown Washington on international development.
Among those cheering Bush was Irish rocker Bob Geldof, who with Bono has devoted huge amounts of time to wrestling with global poverty issues and, with Bono, has struck up a curious friendship with Bush.
In his final years in office, the president, too, has put a special emphasis on tackling the continent's myriad health and hunger problems. The result: He has gained praise from quarters where he often finds only criticism.
And as Countdown to Crawford noted this summer, with Iraq still unsettled and Afghanistan increasingly dangerous, Africa could emerge as one of his foreign policy successes.
Bush visited with Johnson-Sirleaf last February in Monrovia. On that steamy day, he drove along a freshly paved downtown boulevard that days before had been impassable except very slowly and in the sturdiest of four-wheel drive vehicles.
The city turned out for Bush, whose visit was limited to daylight hours for security reasons. He rewarded guests at a presidential luncheon with encouragement for the democratic path on which Liberia has embarked -- and this impromptu dance performance.
As President Bush meets today with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the head of the European Commission, he might keep in mind the view of the United States from Europe, Japan and elsewhere.
It isn't pretty -- and has grown notably ugly during his presidency.
A poll conducted by eight major newspapers found that opinions of the United States had dropped sharply over the past eight years.
According to a report in the Guardian, of Britain, among the French, 75% said their view of the United States had gotten worse or much worse since Bush became president. In Canada, 77% made a similar statement.
And in Switzerland -- notwithstanding die anmut,la douceur, la dolcezza (OK, for those of you not conversant in three of Switzerland's four languages, the sweetness) of Heidi and its chocolates, and its appreciation of Bush-like efficiency -- the percentage of those with an increasingly negative view of America under Bush topped out at 86%.
The credit-banking-financial maelstrom will be the central topic of Bush's meeting this afternoon with Sarkozy at Camp David, Md. Maybe the Swissies are thinking of late about the banking crisis?
In its report, the Guardian noted:
Many people now fear rather than warm to America. In France 25% of voters say relations with the U.S. are tense, against 38% who say they are friendly and 39% who think they are neutral. In Japan only 16% say friendship and 19% tension, with 62% neutral. In no country does a majority think relations should be described as friendly.
Even America's two neighbouring states are sceptical of U.S. intentions. Only 23% of Mexicans describe relations as friendly and 28% say they are tense. In Canada, which has just re-elected a Conservative minority government, voters are strongly supportive of a Democratic presidency; 43% say relations with the U.S. are friendly and 14% tense.
The survey also finds strong opposition to any attack on Iran and -- in the six countries questioned on the issue -- majority support for a rapid withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
Indeed, it found that in each country polled, with the exception of Britain and Poland, a majority opposed military intervention in Iran.
As for views of the U.S. presidential election, John McCain and Barack Obama, the blue and red in the chart above says it all.
The solution that Sarkozy is touting is nothing less than to "recast the capitalist system."
In less dramatic but similarly sweeping terms, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is talking about an overhaul of the global financial order.
Writing on the op-ed page of today's Washington Post, he called for the sort of "visionary internationalism" that led after World War II to the post-war international economic order -- and institutions that he said must be "wholly rebuilt."
But don't expect anything like that to come floating out of the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains at dusk on Saturday.
Speaking early this morning to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, across Lafayette Park from the White House, Bush said "our European partners are taking bold steps," and they had the "full support of the United States."
The goal of Saturday's meeting, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said this morning, was "to address the challenges so that we can prevent a crisis like this from happening again [and] also preserve our free market system."
As for overhauling capitalism, Saturday's meeting may fall short.
Perino said: "I don't expect anything to be announced tomorrow or worked out."
In other words, stay tuned. There'll be no re-making of the world order this weekend. At least no announcement of it.
In a suggestion that the moving vans may already be loading up in the State Department driveway, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called off her trip this weekend to a U.S.-designed event in Dubai called Forum for the Future.
The event is an annual gathering of foreign ministers from large industrial powers and Arab countries, and is tied to the administration’s effort to promote democracy in region.
First Lady Laura Bush has used her final year in the White House to try to influence two of the most doggedly difficult human rights and foreign policy issues to face the Bush administration and its recent predecessors.
She has made a personal crusade of trying to free political opposition leader and human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in Myanmar, and -- on a broader front -- she has tried to bring democracy in general to the country also known as Burma.
And today, she brought a very public spotlight to the Ladies in White, the group of spouses and other relatives of jailed dissidents seeking to bring respect for human rights to Cuba -- as they worked to do in the 2007 protest march pictured above.
Just as her work on behalf of Burmese dissidents has had an "in-your-face" quality, so, too, has her direct challenge to the Castro regime in Cuba.
With Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, who was born in Havana, she spoke with members of the group by digital video conference.
In a written statement issued after the long-distance meeting, she said:
These women show a courage and determination that is deeply moving, and their stories are an important reminder that dictatorship cannot crush the spirit of freedom.
The United States will continue to shine a light on the abuses of the Castro regime, which has imprisoned the husbands, sons and brothers of the Ladies in White, as well as other Cubans who attempt to exercise their fundamental human rights. The United States supports the efforts of the Ladies in White and other independent civil society activists to free all political prisoners and restore human rights in Cuba.
If the video conference and a statement by the first lady suggest to Cuban Americans in Miami and elsewhere a continued White House effort on behalf of Castro's opponents, well, what Republican campaigner would complain?
-- James Gerstenzang
Photos: Above: Ladies in White in a 2007 protest. Credit: Gregory Bull / Associated Press.
Below: First Lady Laura Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez in video conference with members of the group. Credit: Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House.
The president of the United States generally meets twice a year with the president of the European Commission -- once in Europe, once in the United States -- and the meeting occasionally takes on the trappings of a summit.
But with few major issues of disagreement dividing Europe and the United States -- and both working to ease the financial crisis sweeping the globe -- the next meeting will be largely low-key and out of view, save for a brief photo op at the start.
The wives or husbands of dozens of U.S. government officials and diplomats attending the dinner, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi, were identified as a 'spouse.'
But the list identified Poe as the 'guest' of Mary Cheney, just as it identified all other attendees who were accompanied by friends rather than married spouses.
Now that Connecticut has joined Massachusetts and California in legalizing same-sex marriage, the question of how married or partnered gay couples should be described in formal affairs such as White House dinners is likely to resurface.
It's a difficult question for the White House.
As Countdown to Crawford noted last week when the Connecticut decision came down, "for more than four years, the Bush White House has run against any changes in the law that would allow gay Americans -- even his vice president's daughter -- to marry."
Speaking of the speaker, who was seated next to Berlusconi, the Columbus Day dinner proved that politics makes for interesting dinner companions.
Only hours earlier, Pelosi had set the Democrats on an economic path diverging from that favored by the White House. She called for a new stimulus package to the tune of $150 billion, setting up a likely end-of-term clash with Bush and congressional Republicans.
But the dinner itself suggested international accord: Maine lobster fondue, artichoke and reggiano cheese ravioli, lamb with crispy eggplant and Swiss chard, chocolate napoleons and Russian River cuvee.
The entertainment? The cast of "Jersey Boys."
Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons -- the real Jersey Boys from Newark (which, as anyone from Newark knows, is pronounced Nerk)-- yucked it up with the president afterward on stage.
-- James Gerstenzang
Top photo: Heather Poe and Mary Cheney. Credit: Damon Winter / Los Angeles Times.
Bottom photo: Nancy Pelosi and Silvio Berlusconi. Credit: Aude Guerrucci / EPA / Pool
President Bush achieved one of the key foreign policy goals of his second term today: He signed legislation paving the way to a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India.
That may sound uncontroversial. But it turns upside down three decades of U.S. efforts to restrict nuclear work in India after it exploded a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, the legislation opens up the prospect of American access to a multibillion-dollar nuclear business in India.
Bush's success in squeezing the legislation out of Congress in its final days reflected, once again, the ability of a lame-duck president with approval ratings below 30% and facing a hostile House and Senate to nonetheless achieve some top priorities.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
