Our, "Let's work out the details next year" president

"All he's trying to do is get through the next three months and work out the details later," said Gary Hart, a former Democratic senator from Colorado who is a national security expert. "He just wants to be seen as doing something right now."

National security experts noted that much of the new intelligence chief's authority would depend on the kind of person the president chose for the job, and for that matter whether it was Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry who did the choosing.

Mr. Bush gave no specific timetable for when he might name someone to the position, and the White House did not answer questions on whether the legislation creating the job could be completed before November. But White House and Bush campaign officials have long said that the details matter far less than the pictures and sounds of Mr. Bush talking in any way about his campaign against terrorism [emphasis added, of course], which polls show is still his strongest card against Mr. Kerry.

Even the White House has stopped trying to pretend that Bush thinks he has any other job besides running for re-(not)-election.

Josh Marshall looks at, how the administration continues to say they are "embracing" the 9-11 commission recommendations, while being quite clear that they have no plans to execute them. He also takes to task the press for not calling the Bushies on it.

I agree with Josh that the commission's recommendations should not be blindly taken up without hearings, but the cynical manipulation of the report by Bush and Cheney needs to be better highlighted by the mainstream press.