If They Really Think This, The Election is Over...

From Dan Balz's story in Sunday's Washington Post, on Bush's reelection "strategy":

"In 2000, the necessity was to demonstrate that he had a clear vision of what he wanted to do, that he had a plan of action that all fit together, that he could talk with assurance," said one of Bush's most senior advisers, who asked not to be identified. "This had to be a credible governing statement. [Today] we have a credible governing statement; it's called the budget."

One of my pet causes is that newspapers should not allow sources to go unnamed when all they offering is the official spin. Sentences of the type, "'The President is decisively focused on creating jobs and meeting the challenges ahead,'" said an aide who asked not to identified," appear all too often in the Post and to a slightly lesser extent, the Times. But in this case, I'll make an exception. If I had to offer this particular spin, I wouldn't want to be named either.

(Although it's not really such deep cover: Since Karen Hughes as well as all the top campaign officials -- Ken Mehlman, Marc Racicot, Matthew Dowd -- are quoted in the story by name -- this is Karl Rove. Maybe the prospect of going to jail has addled his brain.