White House Memo: Remember ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’? For Bush, They Are a Nonissue By RICHARD W. STEVENSON, NYTimes

In the debate over the necessity for the war in Iraq, few issues have been more contentious than whether Saddam Hussein possessed arsenals of banned weapons, as the Bush administration repeatedly said, or instead was pursuing weapons programs that might one day constitute a threat.

On Tuesday, with Mr. Hussein in American custody and polls showing support for the White House’s Iraq policy rebounding, Mr. Bush suggested that he no longer saw much distinction between the possibilities. ”So what’s the difference?” he responded at one point as he was pressed on the topic during an interview by Diane Sawyer of ABC News.

To critics of the war, there is a big difference. …

“And if he doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction?” Ms. Sawyer asked the president, according to a transcript provided by ABC.

“Diane, you can keep asking the question,” Mr. Bush replied. “I’m telling you — I made the right decision for America because Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction, invaded Kuwait. But the fact that he is not there is, means America’s a more secure country.”

ABCNEWS.com : Appeals Court Says Bush Can’t Hold U.S. Citizen

The president of the United States does not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, in a serious setback to the Bush administration’s war on terror.

CNN.com – Court: President cannot detain U.S. citizen as enemy combatant – Dec. 18, 2003

In a 65-page decision, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 that the U.S. government must release Jose Padilla from military custody within 30 days.

“The government can transfer Padilla to appropriate civilian authorities who can bring criminal charges against him,” the order said.

Padilla has been held in a South Carolina naval brig for the past year and a half.

We can expect the Radical Right to come out against “judicial activists” even as they continue to stack the court with like-minded jurists. The courts are our last hope — a hope that will fade under a second Bush term. mjh

Less than 2 hours later, this appeared:

U.S. to Seek Stay of Court Ruling on Padilla
Thu December 18, 2003 02:38 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration said on Thursday it will seek a stay of a court ruling ordering the release of a U.S. citizen who is being held by the military as an “enemy combatant.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the court’s decision “troubling and flawed.”

Op-Ed Columnist: Behind Closed Doors By WILLIAM SAFIRE, NYTimes

When George W. Bush was running for president, he was inspiring on the subject of privacy. But it was not your privacy or mine he was talking about. He has gone all out to keep his administration’s energy-legislation deliberations from public scrutiny.

The administration’s eagerness to slam the door in the snoopy public’s face will now be argued before the high court during political primaries and probably decided in July, right before the issue-hungry Democratic political convention.

Are Republicans out of their collective mind? Why the hots to hide? …

If “freedom” is the word Bush and Cheney want as the hallmark of their administration, they should begin with freedom of information.

Note this is THE William Safire, arch-conservative, who notes that what was “sauce for the Clintons is sauce for the Bushies.”

Safire hands Dean a couple of memorable quotes and presents the argument Dean should have made when the issue of his records blew up. mjh

Op-Ed Contributor: Saddam Is Ours. Does Al Qaeda Care? By BRUCE HOFFMAN, NYTimes

[I]s Iraq really the central battleground in that struggle, or is it diverting our attention while Al Qaeda and its confederates plan for new strikes elsewhere? There’s strong evidence that Osama bin Laden is using Iraq the way a magician uses smoke and mirrors.

FOXNews.com – Politics – Dean Widens Lead in New Hampshire Poll

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean leads rival John Kerry by 29 percent in a survey of likely New Hampshire primary voters, an increase of 7 percentage points since a similar poll last month.

Dean leads the Massachusetts senator, 46-17 percent, according to a poll released Wednesday by television stations WMUR in Manchester and WCVB in Boston. Wesley Clark had 10 percent and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman 7 percent.

Trailing were North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, 4 percent; Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt, 3 percent; and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton, 1 percent each.

The number of undecided voters fell from 27 percent in November to 11 percent. Four out of five people surveyed said former Vice President Al Gore’s endorsement of Dean would have little influence on their decision.

The telephone poll of 447 likely voters was conducted Dec. 10-15 by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Bush ratings up after Saddam capture

Fifty-eight percent of Americans now approve of the way Bush is doing his job, six percentage points higher than the number just before the former dictator surrendered to U.S. forces in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit. Bush’s disapproval ratings have shrunk to 33 percent from 40 percent prior to the capture. …

The positive perception of the president spread to his domestic policies as well. After Hussein’s capture, 49 percent of Americans approved of his handling of the economy, compared to 44 percent before the weekend.

There is no denying that the capture of Saddam Hussein is considerably more important than serving turkey to soldiers. As a result, all of Bush’s numbers shifted 5% or so (a bit more than the margin of error). Granted, if the nation is still as closely divided as it was in 2000, it won’t take even a 5% shift to decide the election.

It may all come down to who blunders the most in the next 11 months. mjh

Op-Ed Columnist: Dreams and Glory By DAVID BROOKS, NYTimes

George Bush fundamentally sees the war on terror as a moral and ideological confrontation between the forces of democracy and the forces of tyranny. Howard Dean fundamentally sees the war on terror as a law and order issue. At the end of his press conference, Bush uttered a most un-Deanlike sentiment:

”I believe, firmly believe — and you’ve heard me say this a lot, and I say it a lot because I truly believe it — that freedom is the almighty God’s gift to every person — every man and woman who lives in this world. That’s what I believe. And the arrest of Saddam Hussein changed the equation in Iraq. Justice was being delivered to a man who defied that gift from the Almighty to the people of Iraq.”

Bush believes that God has endowed all human beings with certain inalienable rights, the most important of which is liberty. Every time he is called upon to utter an unrehearsed thought, he speaks of the war on terror as a conflict between those who seek to advance liberty to realize justice, and those who oppose the advance of liberty….

Furthermore, Bush believes the U.S. has a unique role to play in this struggle to complete democracy’s triumph over tyranny and so drain the swamp of terror. …

At first, the Bush worldview seems far more airy-fairy and idealistic. The man talks about God, and good versus evil. But in reality, Dean is the more idealistic and naïve one. Bush at least recognizes the existence of intellectual and cultural conflict. He acknowledges that different value systems are incompatible.