At Any Cost

I saw a link to this New Republic article on The Kirby File. Apparently the Bush administration has asked Pakistan to deliver a High-Value Target - any important al Qaeda operative - in July, "'it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July'--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston."

Along similar lines, President Bush gave the Pope a medal and asked him to crack down on Catholic legislators like John Kerry, he's been accused of colluding with the Saudis to manipulate gas prices in the run up to the election, he's asking churches to turn over membership lists to his campaign, and he turned over sovereignty to Iraq despite a complete lack of security, or even an elected government or a constitution so he could claim "Mission accomplished!".

And just so he can have a foreign policy "success" to point to going into November, President Bush has now pressured Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai into holding a presidential election in October, despite an earlier decision to cancel it due to the brutal murders of a large number of election officials and voters trying to register.

President Bush seems prepared to make policy decisions designed to get himself re-elected regardless of whether the decisions are good for America. Compared to the sheer breadth of these efforts to generate short term approval ratings and influence the upcoming election (or even cancel it, if things go badly for them), Reagan's October Surprise looks like small potatoes.