by Matt Barr

W stands for Whitewash!

Knight Ridder busts Bush re: the foiled 2002 L.A. terror plot:

The timing of his chilling disclosures, four years after the plot was discovered and four months after he first discussed the broad outlines of the scheme, raised suspicion that his remarks were politically motivated. At the moment that Bush was defending his aggressive approach to terrorism, two of his top advisers were trying to quell a revolt in Congress against his domestic eavesdropping program.

It's worse than that: Bush also spoke four weeks after the conclusion of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Samuel A. Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court and four days after the Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XL. His disclosure of the foiled plot comes as Washington is still digesting a hard-hitting and controversial GAO report about using mandatory budget triggers to constrain spending growth.

Alert readers will note that this business about timing his disclosures and speeches is an insidious pattern with this president.

Critics noted that when the President spoke at the funeral for Coretta Scott King Tuesday he did so exactly one week after Mrs. King died.

The President's speech at New Birth Missionary Church in Atlanta seemed timed to coincide with the appearance of some 10,000 mourners paying their respects to Mrs. King. Democrats questioned why Bush did not produce an impromptu eulogy for whoever happened to be present the moment he heard about the civil rights icon's death. "Clearly, he had to have his communications staff research Mrs. King, then devise a strategy about what to say and how to say it," one Senate staffer chided. "Plus it seems like he wanted as large an audience as possible."

Earlier, the President promoted his American Competitiveness Initiative, an effort to improve the nation's investment in research and development and produce technologically advanced graduates -- during his weekly radio address on Saturday, just as the latest issue of Time magazine was being mailed to subscribers with the cover story, "Is America Flunking Science?" Veteran White House watcher Dana Milbank said:

This administration wants every advantage it can get in the marketplace of news and opinion, and it doesn't care which reporter's, editor's or publisher's thunder it has to steal to do it. It's no coincidence that the President was talking up programs to improve science education days before Time broke the story that American kids aren't doing well. And it works -- he blunted the impact of what should have been a jolting revelation about the quality of American public school education.

Small potatoes, these, compared to the suspicious timing of last week's State of the Union Address. Corporate blogger Andrew Sullivan:

Things that make one wonder. Just a day after I accused this president of purging administration dissenters to his heinous power-grab, he throws a major press event and talks about how safe he's made the country. Will these people stop at nothing?

Alas, no, it doesn't stop there. Last month, the President welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House -- on January 13, 152 years to the day after Anthony Foss patented the accordion. As a Daily Kos diarist put it:

The cynicism of the Bushies knows no bounds. They want it both ways, they want us to think he's buddying up to Europe but he wants the repugs to be distracted thinking about the anniversary of the accordion so they won't notice. Fuck them.

Nor is this a recent pattern. On January 20, 2005, Bush participated in an elaborate inauguration ceremony short weeks after nearly losing in his re-election bid, hoping, critics contended, the American people would forget a long and contentious campaign.

On June 29, 2002, in what was widely regarded as misdirection meant to distract from the seriousness of a presidential colorectal screening procedure, President Bush temporarily ceded power under the 25th Amendment to Vice President Cheney. Wolf Blitzer commented:

On a day when we should be talking about the President's rectum, we're talking instead about the first official transition of presidential power under the 25th Amendment to the Vice President. What, some Democrats wonder, is the President afraid we'll find if we dig too deep?

And as the most strident critics of the President are quick to point out, Bush was facing vigorous opposition to his education plan in early September, 2001.

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