"White House Defends Trip"

That's the headline on this story which details Condie Rice's spin on her boss' holiday travel. I'm sure it's not the headline they wanted - "Bush Makes Historic Heroic Journey" was more along the lines they'd hoped for I imagine - which points up one of the reasons I think Bush is incredibly vulnerable come next fall.

For the record, I think the trip to Iraq itself was just fine. Was it a big publicity ploy? Well, to some degree ever trip any President takes is a big publicity ploy. Was it a treat for the troops, regardless of their political predelictions or dissatisfaction with their assignment? You betcha. I was certainly no fan of Richard Nixon, or the war he sent me to, but I have to admit that if Dick Nixon had shown up at Tan Son Nhut to dish up turkey to me and some of my fellow troopers, I would have thought it was pretty damn cool, as war stories go. So to the degree that it provided a little morale boost for the troops, good enough.

As a play for positive political spin, though, it falls short, not because they didn't consider its value in those terms and do everything possible to exploit that value, but because the press and a good chunk of the people are cynical enough about this guy that even when he does something perfectly appropriate and even if it was perfectly well-intentioned, within a day he's going to get a headline like "White House Defends Trip." Not celebrates. Defends. And no defense offered is going to be good enough for a lot of folks, and especially a lot of reporters.

What's that mean? Well, I won't say it means he's toast, but the bread is sliced and the butter's on the cutting board. All the D's need is the right candidate (as you know, I have a suggestion along those lines...).

Meanwhile, Senator Clinton made her own 10 hour trek into the combat zone, and got generally good notices for the effort, but I'll bet the headline on this story isn't what she was looking for either...

"Sen. Clinton visits Baghdad; two more U.S. soldiers die "...