No deep discussion on this, just a link to/a few blurbs from a thought provoking NY Times piece by Sheryl Gay Stolberg. It covers how President Bush’s role - not to mention schedule - has changed drastically in preparation for the November election. John McCain’s biggest liability is the appearance of close ties to Bush and his change on several policy points to a position similar to GWB.

Bush and his GOP handlers have nixed high-profile meetings or events in favor of relaxed and long-winded jaunts out of the country and silly little things like honoring the ‘08 Men’s NCAA basketball champions (i.e; Jayhawks). Indeed, most GOP strategists playing a role in the fall fight want Bush to simply “stay in the background.”

On Wednesday, Mr. Bush was supposed to play host to the annual Congressional picnic on the South Lawn of the White House. But it was postponed under threat of a tornado.

On Thursday, making up for the picnic rain-out, the president caught up with the House Speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi – not in a bare-knuckled negotiating session over war funding or judicial nominees, but at a groundbreaking for the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace. (They left arm in arm, chatting animatedly, after turning their ceremonial shovels in the dirt.)

If that sounds like an unusually light, mostly ceremonial public schedule for the leader of the world’s richest and most powerful nation, it is. But with Americans riveted by this week’s drama in the Democratic presidential race – and the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, perfecting the art of Bush avoidance – the president has little choice but to go underground for a while.

“The president’s job is to help raise money and to stay out of the headlines,� said John Feehery, a Republican strategist who was a top aide to J. Dennis Hastert when Mr. Hastert was speaker of the House. “I think at this juncture, he is better off staying in the background.�

That is exactly what Mr. Bush is doing. Last week, Mr. Bush traveled to Arizona and Utah last week to headline three fund-raisers for Mr. McCain. But the two were barely seen in public together; Mr. McCain did not attend the Utah events in Utah and gave photographers only a few minutes to capture images of himself and Mr. Bush together when Air Force One landed in his home state of Arizona.

And, despite their well-publicized joint appearance in the Rose Garden in March, where Mr. McCain said he intended to have “as much possible campaigning events together� with the president, Ms. Perino now says Mr. Bush intends to steer clear of the presidential race.