In the 21-minute paean to freedom that was President Bush’s second inaugural address, the domestic portion of the talk included a pledge to “build an ownership society.”

Ownership society is the rationale the president cites when arguing that younger workers should be allowed to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into private investment accounts. His theory: the accounts would produce greater returns than current Social Security policies and give citizens a fuller sense of owning a portion of the American economy.

But interestingly, the president and his top aides have a tightly circumscribed sense of ownership. It does not appear to extend to admitting to – or owning – policy mistakes in the first Bush term.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post took a detailed look at this phenomenon in Thursday's Post under the headline “In 2nd term, no doubt about it; Bush and his Cabinet nominees concede and explain little.”

The story cited two examples. Last week Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the president’s nominee to be Secretary of State, spent two days testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As Milbank noted, “Rice yesterday gave a nod to Democrats' complaints, acknowledging that "bad decisions" were made but declining to cite any.

"We've made a lot of decisions in this period of time," she said. "Some of them have been good. Some of them have not been good. Some of them have been bad decisions, I'm sure. I know enough about history to stand back and to recognize that you judge decisions not at the moment but in how it all adds up."

Asked about briefings she had received on Iraq's weapons program – remember the long looked for, never found weapons of mass destruction – Dr. Rice said, "I'm sorry, I just don't remember." When senators asked her about abuse of prisoners in Iraq, she said, "I'm not going to speak to any specific interrogation techniques."

Lack of ownership was also on display when Alberto R. Gonzales, the President’s nominee for Attorney General, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. As the Post’s Milbank noted, Attorney General designate Gonzales admitted to no recollection of his role in the writing of a controversial memo that narrowly defined what constitutes torture.

In written answers to committee member Edward M. Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts, Gonzales used the words "I am not at liberty to disclose" at least 10 times; "I do not recall" or "I have no recollection" six times; I did not "conduct a search" seven times; "I am not at liberty [to discuss certain matters]" 10 times; and "I have no present knowledge" seven times.

Of course, Republicans have no corner on restrictive definitions and selective memory. Remember President Bill Clinton wondering aloud about the meaning of the word “is” as he denied sexual misconduct?

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Last week’s presidential inauguration had clear martial overtones as 13,000 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers as well as military troops patrolled our city.

The Monitor’s Washington bureau is just one block from St. John’s Episcopal Church where President Bush worships. So the Monitor staff had a clear view of the massive security apparatus deployed to protect the president, the vice president, and their families as they worshiped on Thursday before heading to the Capitol to be sworn in.

The entrance to the section of 16th Street that contains the church was blocked off by a city bus and by multiple security officers. Both sides of the street were lined with limousines, Secret Service SUV’s, and police motorcycles.  One side of the church was also protected by an empty city bus. 

Of course, there are only so many security vehicles that can be crammed into one city block. So the most massive display of security ever seen in Washington came when President Bush traveled down Pennsylvania Avenue after taking the oath of office. During his trip to the parade reviewing stand outside the White House, the president’s new Cadillac limo was surrounded by a sea of protective vehicles.

The best observation about the scene came from ABC News analyst George Will. The conservative commentator said, “The parade is supposed to be spontaneous, cheerful. This looked like a banana republic, worried about a restive tank regiment at the edge of town. It was unworthy of the occasion.”

Will is right.  The overwhelming security presence was an unintentionally ironic counterpoint to the president's speech hailing freedom. 

What is the leader of the free world to do on a cold, rainy, overcast
Saturday morning?

Go biking at the Secret Service Training Facility in Beltsville,
Maryland was George W. Bush's answer this weekend.

The Monitor is a member of a newspaper cooperative - or pool - that covers the president's travels in and around Washington. So roughly once a month, White House Correspondent Linda Feldmann or I find ourselves typing away in the Monitor's tiny (but free!) White House work space which is located in what once was the presidential swimming pool.

On some days, being in the reporting cooperative offers a reporter a valuable opportunity to observe the president up close and, occasionally, to actually ask the chief executive a question. On other days, reporters traveling with Mr. Bush know the president is around only because the area is flooded with Secret Service agents and bomb sniffing dogs.

This Saturday about all a reporter learned was that no matter the weather, President Bush is devoted to getting his exercise. To that end, at 9:45 a.m. a 14-vehicle motorcade pulled out of the south grounds of the White House.

Just before the convoy of SUV’s began rolling out the back drive of the White House facing the Washington Monument, presidential brother Marvin Bush jumped into the left hand door of the black presidential SUV.

The trip to Beltsville, Maryland - down East Executive Avenue, 17th Street, Interstate 295, and the Washington Baltimore Parkway - took 28 minutes which included stops at some traffic lights. When the president travels around Washington, flags fly on his limousine and the motorcade breezes through traffic lights.

Today, the trip was unofficial. So there were no flags and stops at some – but not all – traffic lights. And the usual unbroken stream of black vehicles was interrupted by a white Chevy Suburban carrying two presidential bikes with blue plastic over their seats.

The ride was punctuated by wailing sirens from the accompanying Park Police escort and occasional swerves to avoid motorists who found themselves breaching the sanctity of a presidential motorcade.

Once through the high metal front gates of the unmarked Beltsville facility, the president and his party headed into the facility's inner recesses. Reporters were shunted into the gatehouse snack room. There was plenty of time to read the Fall 2004 issue of "Tactical Response" magazine and its special report on forced entry while being enticed by the aroma of microwave popcorn.

After roughly 80 minutes of presidential exercise, at 11:35 a.m. the motorcade headed back onto the Baltimore Washington Parkway for the 30-minute ride to the White House. Along 15th Street, surprised tourists waved at the passing entourage.

Outside the Commerce Department, about a block from the heavily fortified back entrance to the White House, the driver of a blue van failed to yield to the approaching motorcade. Suddenly, he found himself cut off by an SUV filled with grim looking, armed men glaring from the open rear window.

The motorcade pulled into the White House complex just after noon. Reporters were held at a distance while the president entered the residence under an awning which kept the press from seeing him. Photographers who frequently attend his bike riding journeys say the president usually wears especially sporty orange colored Nikes on these outings.

While the president eluded us, his venture capitalist brother, Marvin, was seen alighting from SUV One and entering the White House as the presidential bikes were being unloaded.

Word was, the president would spend the rest of the day in the White House. Work on the inaugural reviewing stand continued in the cold drizzle outside the gates.

A duel of the disingenuous. That’s my take on the continuing flap over John Kerry’s mention of Vice President Cheney’s lesbian daughter in Wednesday night’s debate.

Perhaps the issue will die down over the weekend. But on Friday morning, the widely watched Today program on NBC opened with a debate over the issue between representatives of the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

Neither side in the dispute looks appealing.

The dust up began during Wednesday night’s televised debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry. Moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News posed a question about whether homosexuality was a choice.

President Bush said he did not know.

Senator Kerry said “We are all God’s children. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you she’s being who she was. She’s being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it’s not a choice.”

Minutes after the debate, Mrs. Cheney called Kerry’s comments, “a cheap and tawdry political trick” that makes him “not a good man.” The vice president says, “I’m a pretty angry father.”

On Thursday, seeking to damp down the controversy, Kerry released a statement saying, “I was trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with the issue.”

Sure. A highly experienced debater just happens to use the example of the vice president’s daughter, Mary, to remind voters about the only known policy issue where President Bush and Vice President Cheney disagree. It’s also a topic than could hurt the president with his conservative religious base.

The president favors a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage. The vice president has said the issue should be handled by the states. As USA Today notes this morning, “the federal amendment banning same-sex marriage has stalled in Congress. But voters in 11 states will vote on state amendments to ban same-sex marriage on Nov. 2.”

Kerry’s use of Mary Cheney was seen as a mistake even by persistent Bush critic, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times. Her latest column observes that “Mr. Kerry showed the bite in his overwhitened, overeager "I'm smarter than you but I'm trying not to show it" grin when he strategically dragged Dick Cheney's gay daughter back into the debate, a dead-wrong thing to do.”

But even if Mr. Kerry’s comments were calculated, the Cheney response appears a bit disingenuous.

There is no question that the Cheneys are wonderfully loyal and proud parents.

They are also among the most politically sophisticated, media savvy people in Washington.

If you felt your child had been the subject of unwanted public attention, what would you do? The Cheneys drew attention to Kerry’s comments with pungent quotes of their own, making sure Americans who skipped the debate to watch the baseball playoffs heard what Senator Kerry had said about their daughter.

It is simply a fact that the continuing flap over Mary Cheney’s life style provided a useful distraction to President Bush’s performance in the final debate which several national polls found Senator Kerry had won.

All of this is enough to make you glad there are only 18 days before the election. Still time to get the candidates to talk about a $413 billion federal budget deficit, oil prices hugging $55 a barrel, nukes in Iran and Korea, and bombs going off in the highly protected compound in Baghdad which houses the American embassy.

Monitor Breakfast with Governor Bill Richardson:

Political conventions are not like the poems you read in college English courses where you have to puzzle out the message by decoding symbols.

No, if you are a reporter at a political convention, folks are only too happy to tell you the meaning of the convention – even before the first speech is given.

So on a rainy Saturday morning, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, the chairman of the 2004 Democratic Convention, came to eat lukewarm scrambled eggs with a roomful of reporters at a Boston hotel and share the convention’s message.

“The objective of the convention is to come out with a perception of Senator Kerry as a proven tested leader with a lifetime of service and strength in his service to the country,” Richardson said. “The main objective will be to convey to the American people that Senator Kerry through his experience and background is going to be ready for the presidency.”

Expect the message to be overwhelmingly positive with any servings of rhetorical red meat parceled out sparingly. “This is going to be a positive convention, the objective is to offer positive solutions. This is not a bash Bush convention,” Richardson said.

Having previously served as a member of Congress, as US Ambassador to the United Nations, and as Energy Secretary in the Clinton cabinet, Richardson is skilled at serving up his message spiced with self –deprecating humor.

He noted that his Wednesday night speech at the convention has not yet been approved and that all convention speeches must be vetted by the Kerry team.

What would happen, one reporter asked, if former Vice President Gore wants to say something in his convention speech that the Kerry team did not like? “That is up in the higher echelons,” Richardson quipped. “I am just convention chairman. By being convention chairman, everyone thinks I have got all the passes, I decide the speakers. I have no say in this.”

Richardson, whose mother was Mexican and who spent his early days living in Mexico City, argues that the Latino vote will be crucial in the coming election.

“I believe the Latino vote is going to decide this election and it's going to be in states like Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. That is the key constituency. The issue is not who is going to get the winning margin. We will – the Democrats. The issue is can the Republicans get 40 percent. They got 35 percent last year. If they get 40 percent – in other words an extra 5 percent – they win the election. And our objective is to keep them under 35. I saw a poll where they were 31, we are at 59 (percent).”

As one of the country’s most prominent Hispanic politicians, Richardson has the freedom to joke in a way that would cause a firestorm if done by others.

He noted that he is scheduled to appear this weekend in a re-enactment of a Revolutionary battle. “I hope I don’t have to do anything. Just sit there. They had a couple of Hispanics … they were the waiters.”

As to the prospects of the Democratic ticket, Richardson voiced the expected optimism. “I believe it will be a 2 percent race but Senator Kerry will win.”

While loathe to discuss much in the way of dangers to the Kerry-Edwards ticket, Richardson did admit that, “there is no question that Ralph Nader is a threat. In my state, he got 4 percent [of the vote] last time and Al Gore won by …366” votes.

Thus the convention’s expected focus on undecided voters. “This will be the first time those undecided voters get a sense of Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards together and the Democratic ticket. This is why we are so conscious of sending a positive message,” Richardson said. “This is why so many of the candidates who ran in the primary are going to be so positive about Senator Kerry and the need to unite.”

Being powerful means never having to say you are sorry.

At least that is how it often seems here in Washington, where politicians caught in a mistake go into verbal acrobatics to avoid anything that might actually sound like an apology. When pressed, public servants usually lapse into the passive voice and say, “mistakes were made.”

Which is what made Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s week so interesting.

On Tuesday, Wolfowitz, a major architect of the war in Iraq, agreed with statements made by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) that the news media’s focus on violence in Iraq overshadowed reports of progress there. According to the Associated Press, Wolfowitz said, "Because frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors and rumors are plentiful." He added that, "our own media have some responsibility to try to present a balanced picture, instead of gravitating for the sensational. And the violent is admittedly sensational."

The comments provoked a storm of criticism from media outlets. Columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times [June 24] accused him of “sliming journalists …who are risking their lives traveling around Iraq to cover the cakewalk that became chaos….”

Columnist Al Kamen of the Washington Post [June 25] noted that at least 30 reporters have been killed covering events in Iraq. Kamen pointedly added that when the Deputy Defense Secretary travels to Iraq, "Wolfowitz prefers to travel by air, in a fleet of Black Hawk helicopters with several Apache attack helicopters – bristling with machine guns, rockets and Hellfire missiles – flying escort."

But give Wolfowitz credit. Late Thursday, he issued a full-throated letter of apology to journalists. It read, in part, "Just let me say to each of you who have worked so hard and taken such risks to cover this story, I extend a heartfelt apology and hope you will accept it. I understand well the enormous dangers you face, and want to restate my admiration for your professionalism, dedication, and, yes, courage."

While Wolfowitz gets credit for saying he was sorry, the art of apology apparently does not extend to the office of Vice President Cheney.

On Tuesday, the same day Wolfowitz was attacking journalists, Cheney was on the Senate floor while lawmakers were having their class picture taken.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, approached the vice-president. Leahy tried to engage in small talk. But the vice-president was angry about comments Leahy previously had made about Cheney’s connections to Halliburton, an oil services firm, which has been criticized for winning no-bid contracts in Iraq.

The exchange ended when the Vice President allegedly used a four-letter word to suggest Leahy engage in a procreative anatomical impossibility.

Leahy’s aides confirmed the dust-up. The vice-president’s spokesman, Kevin S. Kellems, was especially artful in his response to the Washington Post. [June 25] "Reserving the right to revise and extend my remarks, that doesn’t sound like language the vice-president would use. But there was a frank exchange of views."

"Frank exchange of views" is the phrase diplomats use to refer to an unpleasant discussion.

Democratic think tanks were quick to e-mail reporters quotes from the vice-president including one from August 4, 2000 saying, "Governor Bush and I are also absolutely determined that (we) will restore a tone of civility and decency to the debate in Washington."

Civility sometimes suffers as elections draw near. "The Note," a political newsletter produced by ABC News, observes this morning that, "Some Democrats have seized on Cheney's outburst (His office isn't much denying the account from Leahy's side . . .); on the President's testiness with an Irish television interviewer; and some other signs of alleged White House collar-tightening to suggest that the Bush-Cheney campaign realizes more than ever before that it COULD lose the election."

This past Saturday, President Bush emerged from the White House at eight minutes after noon - 18 minutes behind the printed schedule and a rarity for the usually-punctual president.

He was wearing a blue suit, white shirt, and red and blue patterned tie and was off to feed his political base. I tagged along.

Base feeding is a political imperative for presidents and those who want to be. As his poll numbers weaken, the president is likely to be especially eager to keep core supporters happy.

President Clinton's pollster, Stan Greenberg, told a Monitor breakfast Wednesday that "in their [the Bush team’s] base there is trouble. Trouble on the war, trouble on the economy…I think they have to struggle to keep where they are."

Whether struggling or not, the president was going to spend a good chunk of his Saturday at the 23rd Annual National Police Officers Memorial Service. It’s a law-and-order crowd and a fertile political field for the president.

Even at age 55+, some small boy pleasures remain and one is riding in presidential motorcades. It is the only way to travel in congested Washington.

The Monitor, like other major news organizations here, is a member of a cooperative - a "pool," in newspaperspeak - whose members share the duty of traveling with the president as he moves around Washington. Pool members report to their colleagues who could not be present for security or logistical reasons. This particular muggy Saturday, it was the Monitor’s turn to brief other newspapers on the president’s in-town travels.

A half-hour before the president’s scheduled departure from the White House, representatives of various elements of the press – wire services, radio and TV networks, news magazines and newspapers – were escorted past the Rose Garden and onto the circular driveway behind the White House. There, 16 vehicles - including two identical armor-plated presidential Cadillacs - waited. A Secret Service agent was busy with a white rag rubbing something – dust or fingerprints – off the president’s car.

The news pool members crawled into vans well behind the presidential limo as Secret Service sharpshooters in black fatigues patrolled the White House lawn, weapons drawn.

When the president emerged, we whipped through the E Street gate at the back of the White House and onto the streets of Washington at a rapid clip, every intersection blocked by police. The journey to Capitol Hill, which might take 15 or 20 minutes in a private vehicle, takes us 5.

On the west front of the Capitol (where presidential inaugurations are held) thousands of police officers and their families gathered. Police bagpipe units - only slightly off-tune - worked their way through various patriotic favorites.

In what must be a constant morale booster, the president enters such an event by walking down a long red carpet to “Hail to the Chief." If you are going to be president, you need to be able to suppress the urge to grin as a police officer offers a lengthy rendition of the national anthem that makes clear she has never seen the words before. The president passes the test – visage unmarred by a smile.

After extended introductions, the president spoke as police officers and their families fanned themselves and drank from waterbottles gone lukewarm in the sun.

The president’s prose was earnest. “Our fallen officers died in service to justice, and in defense of the innocent. They will never be forgotten by their comrades. They will never be forgotten by their country,” he says.

What happens next was a display of Mr. Bush’s prodigious ability to connect with individual voters one-on-one in a direct and appealing way.

After placing a red carnation on a memorial wreath, the president spent an hour – 25 minutes more than scheduled - talking to survivors of the 151 law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty last year. After handing his coat to an aide, Bush bent down to talk with and kiss young children. Many of the survivors have their pictures taken with the president by White House staff using the visitors' cameras.

At 2:03 p.m, his base fed, the president leaves the Capitol grounds for the quick trip back to the White House. There are small groups of tourists along museum row on Independence Avenue but nary a protester in sight.

The President is already safely in the residence by 2:08 p.m. when the van holding the press pool stops rolling.

Why would the Monitor’s Washington bureau get into the business of blogging?

This online journal (a web log, or blog) is just the latest sign of the paper’s long commitment to covering Washington and doing so using the most up to date methods.

Only months after the paper’s founding in 1908, the Monitor opened its first Washington bureau run by a freelancer whose cryptic byline was W. W. Jermane. What those initials stand for has been lost to history.

But W.W.’s legacy lives on at the Monitor’s Washington bureau at the corner of 16th and I Streets. Our building, which resembles a six-story concrete bunker, was designed by the famed architectural firm of I.M. Pei & Partners. What the building lacks in charm, it makes up for in location. We are just one block from St. John’s Episcopal Church where President Bush worships most Sundays. And just two blocks from the house where he lives.

From this perch, a dozen or so Monitor reporters, editorial writers, and a photographer keep an eye on the folks who run the country – or at least think they do.

Our goal with this blog is to speak to the Monitor’s online readers in a conversational, occasionally humorous, hopefully insightful manner about what happens here in the US capital. During this election year, much of what goes on here will focus on the presidential campaign, as will the blog. But we’ll also comment from time to time on two other forces that drive this city: economics and the news media. While I will be writing most of the entries, I also plan to share observations from the Monitor’s hugely talented staff here.

This is a new venture. Your comments are welcome. I can be reached at: cookd@csmonitor.com.

Gay Marriage Amendment

The big political news today is President Bush’s announcement in the Roosevelt Room that he supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. T.R. would appreciate the “bully pulpit” aspects of the president’s announcement.

The move will appeal to the President’s conservative base, the energizing of which is a prime White House goal. But as Monitor White House correspondent Linda Feldmann notes, Congress is unlikely to pass such an amendment in an election year.

While a majority of Americans opposes gay marriage, they are evenly divided on amending the constitution to block such unions. In recent decades, efforts to amend the Constitution to protect women’s rights, ban flag burning, and allow school prayer, have failed. The last time the Constitution was amended was in 1992; the 27th Amendment, regarding the regulation of congressional pay, had lain dormant for more than 200 years before becoming part of the Constitution.

Still the president’s announcement, on the heels of his speech Monday night attacking Democratic contender John Kerry, underscores an incumbent’s ability to set the news agenda. And as the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank noted in Monday's Post, the Bush administration also is skilled in burying unpopular news on Friday afternoons in the expectation that fewer Americans will be watching television or reading papers over the weekend. Last Friday, the administration announced it was making a recess appointment of controversial nominee William H. Pryor Jr. to the bench. The previous Friday was marked by the release of President Bush’s massive National Guard files.

Ralph and the Monitor

Few journalists have the personality needed to be a politician. Most of us would rather stand on the fringes of cocktail parties than boldly “working the room,” shaking every hand in sight. The idea of some ambitious writer combing through our tax returns – let alone our health records – is enough to make most news folks glad they are on the giving rather than the receiving end of journalism.

But there are exceptions. A 29-year old Ralph Nader hitchhiked his way to Washington 40 years ago packing degrees from Princeton and Harvard Law. Biographer David Bollier says that while researching a book about auto safety, Nader stayed at the YMCA and supported himself by freelancing for The Nation and for The Christian Science Monitor. That just about covers the ideological spectrum.

And knowing what the Monitor used to pay freelancers, you’d have to live at the Y.

In any case, the resulting, Corvair-killing book “Unsafe at Any Speed” became a bestseller after General Motors cleverly decided to have private detectives tail Nader and hired women to accost him in an apparent seduction and blackmail scheme.

From this high-profile start, Nader founded or helped found some 37 consumer organizations and authored or co-authored 20 books. In 2000, he ran for president under the Green Party banner, pulling nearly 3 million votes, and inflaming Democratic strategist James Carville in perpetuity.

If the pollsters are right, we don’t have to worry about having a former Monitor writer in the White House.

Special interest pays

There is lots of talk in the presidential election campaign about who is and who is not a captive of the dreaded “special interests.” In general, an organization one agrees with is not a special interest; it is a bastion of virtue doing God’s work. Folks we disagree with are special interests.

The current issue of the respected and pricey (annual subscription $1,699) magazine National Journal shines a light on just how nice it is to run a special interest in this fair city. The Journal did a survey of what CEOs of Washington associations make. Trade associations, interest groups, think tanks, and labor unions have to report salary information to the government, but the data is available, although with a time lag. So the Journal report covers the years 2000-2002.

During those years of trouble in the economy, the number of association chief executives earning $1 million or more nearly doubled to 32. The number earning more than $500,000 rose to 120.

As the Journal noted: “the overwhelming majority of compensation packages in Washington for top officials of associations and other nonprofits didn’t drop during the downturn in the early years of this decade….pay hikes chugged right along – despite the tough budgetary pressures that many organizations faced between 2000 and 2002.”

Some examples: the head of the National Association of Securities Dealers took home $9.4 million in total compensation; the head of the American Psychological Association’s annual take was $2.2 million; the head of the Recording Industry Association had to get by on $1.4 million a year.

For that kind of money, you can call me a special interest. (By Dave Cook)