Snow: "I think the president understands that it's important to set high standards"

So how would one precisely describe these standards? High standards for supporting a wife choker? Superior skills in being a racist? What ever happened to that higher moral standard, or does all of that go out the window when you are panicked and desperate to avoid a Congress that will actually debate and ask questions?

President Bush campaigned Thursday for a congressman who has confessed to adultery [AP includes the choking history later in the article] and a senator accused of racial insensitivity, seeking to boost incumbent Republicans once safe for re-election but now in peril.

Bush's appearances for Rep. Don Sherwood here and for Sen. George Allen in Richmond, Va., found the White House on the defensive over the decision to try to help candidates in such straits as the GOP struggles to keep control of Congress.

And here is the kicker...

Helping to raise more than $300,000 for Sherwood, Bush only obliquely addressed the controversy.

He praised Sherwood as "the right man to represent" his district, because of policy positions ranging from taxes to Iraq to highway money. Bush then offered effusive admiration for Sherwood's wife, Carol, who sat beaming beside her husband on the dais behind the president after mostly staying out of view during the campaign.

Bush called her a "caring and courageous woman" because of a letter she wrote to constituents over the weekend, in which she denounced Sherwood's opponent, Democrat Chris Carney, for airing campaign ads about the affair.

Now if that is not pathetic, I don't know what is. How does Laura feel about being choked? Is this some kind of a good ol boy routine where wife abuse is acceptable? Heavens no, it's not possible to call a wife abuser a wife abuser when he can give you a supportive vote. Just another case of Bush being the biggest coward in politics and another whore for power.