Tuesday Morning Follow Up

North Korea

Both the NYT and the USA Today are reporting that Bush has begun his slow painful walk out of the corner he painted himself into, while trying to make it look like he hasn’t backed off or caved, like he did at the outset of his term, when he apologized to China in order to get our plane back in pieces....

Iraq

The Sanger story linked above also references that the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the same folks Bush is relying on to help him out of his hole on Korea, stated yesterday that “We haven’t yet seen any smoking gun” in what they have inspected so far in Iraq. Laboratory tests of samples taken at sites suggested by US intelligence “have not raised any eyebrows.” Sanger goes on to say “some allies began to question whether there is enough evidence to build a coalition for military action.”

It would be somewhat difficult for Bush to discredit down the road the assessments of the IAEA when he is using them for help in North Korea.

Budget/Economy

Following on the heels of the excellent analysis by Billmon last night, the Los Angeles Times reports that Bush added more money to his “stimulus” package last night “to offset an unintended consequence of his plan: a further decline in the tax revenues of already cash-strapped states.” Good staff work there, guys. It is good to see the same level of excellent analysis and planning that has been evident in the foreign policy side of the Bush Team now spreading its way over to the flagging domestic side.

Again, following up on Billmon’s point of last night on the dividend tax cut approach, the NYT points out that “Bush selected the one proposal that most emphatically benefits a tiny sliver of the nation’s richest households.”

So much for Karl and Ari’s spin efforts.

Steve Soto

Posted January 07, 2003 08:10 AM | Comments (14)