President Bush’s former top aide and pollster Matthew Dowd comes clean:

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides. …

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

McClatchy reports, via David Kurtz:

The State Department in recent weeks has issued a series of rhetorical broadsides against Syria, using language harsher than that usually reserved for U.S. adversaries.

“It’s the new Cuba – no language is too tough,” said one of the officials, who like others insisted on anonymity to discuss internal government planning. …

Some officials who are aware of the campaign say they fear its real aim is to weaken or even overthrow Assad and to ensure that he can’t thwart the creation of an international tribunal to investigate the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A U.N. report has implicated Syrian and Lebanese officials in the murder.

The officials say the campaign bears the imprint of Elliott Abrams, a conservative White House aide in charge of pushing Bush’s global democracy agenda.

Bud Cummins is the former U.S. Attorney for Arkansas who was pushed out to make room for Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin.

Interviewed two weeks ago on Fox News Sunday, Cummins said that while he was seriously concerned about the administration’s treatment of the seven other purged prosecutors, he knew why he was fired and said the White House had been honest about it:

In my case, I served at the pleasure of the president. They asked me to leave. I left. And they told the truth almost consistently throughout this about my situation.

So I really don’t think this is as much about me as it is the positions they’ve taken to try and explain the other seven. And that’s where I personally am still very concerned, because I don’t think they’ve been fair to the other seven colleagues at all.

But during his testimony on Thursday, Kyle Sampson suggested that Cummins was also let go for performance-related reasons. During a speech in Arkansas, Cummins was livid:

Cummins objected to the testimony of Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in Sampson’s appearance Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sampson told senators he believed each of the federal prosecutors fired late last year by the Justice Department was replaced because of problems related to his or her performance in office.

“If they’re starting to say that I had performance problems, then I have the same gripe the other seven have, because it’s a lie,” said Cummins, a Republican Bush appointee who was removed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and replaced by Tim Griffin, former assistant to White House political adviser Karl Rove.

Cummins said if he were to comment further on Sampson’s testimony, “I’d need a censor.”

Cummins also said during his speech that he was “astounded” by Sampson’s suggestion that “political success and success as a prosecutor are one and the same.” In an op-ed today for Salon.com, Cummins writes, “Being credible is like being pregnant — you either are, or you aren’t. … Once you have given the public a reason to believe some of your decisions are improperly motivated, then they are going to question every decision you have made, or will make in the future.”

The Marine Corps is investigating charges that Col. Matt Sanchez — a right-wing activist who was discovered to be a former gay porn star and male escort — “solicited more than $12,000 from private organizations by asking them to fund a deployment to Iraq he never made.”

Bush at Walter Reed: “Journalists were allowed to take pictures and watch for only a few minutes before being ushered out, though not before Bush told photographers to take pictures of Sgt. Mark Ecker’s tattoo of a naked woman. Reporters were not allowed to interview patients in Abrams Hall, hospital officials said, citing logistics. The hospital instead made available two doctors, who spoke glowingly about the president’s visit and had no information to provide about the facility’s problems.” Bush wrapped up his visit an hour before the scheduled time.

UPDATE: “The president was not taken into the shut-down Building 18 yesterday but was shown a well-kept, empty dormitory room equipped with flat-screen television and desktop computer in Abrams Hall, where some Building 18 patients have been moved.”

“Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping,” the Washington Post reports. “Kerik’s indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik’s extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet.”