Two must reads today on the farm bill, from Carolyn Lochhead and Dan Morgan.

In the SF Chronicle ("Farm bill upends normal political order"), Lochhead highlights the irony hanging over the final act of the 2008 farm bill:

It is the rarest of moments: President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are on a collision course over a giant farm bill, but it is Bush who is broadly aligned with liberal Bay Area activists pushing for reform, while the San Francisco Democrat is protecting billions of dollars in subsidies to the richest farmers.

And she anticipates the case Democrats will make for veto override:

Lawmakers are betting that Bush will not dare kill a $10.3 billion increase in nutrition spending such as food stamps, which make up the bulk of the bill, or anger farm-state Republicans in an election year. If he does, they plan to override him.

Congress has its bases covered. Each interest group represented in the sprawling legislation - from tiny Santa Cruz organic vegetable growers to Georgia cotton magnates, from conservationists to prairie-plowers - gets enough money that it would prefer this bill rather than start over with a new president . . .

. . . Pelosi threatened to blast Bush for killing the food-stamp increase if he vetoes the bill, issuing a statement urging Bush to sign the legislation to "ensure that 38 million Americans - especially children - have improved access to basic nutrition."

Embedded in Pelosi's argument is the very point that gives Bush the upper hand this coming week: a mere extension of current farm law is unacceptable, because without the new spending on food assistance Pelosi can't pass a farm bill through the House. Whereas she could easily pass a bill that included more subsidy reform plus the other goodies, which is what her caucus really wants.

Which suggests the checkmating veto message Bush needs to telegraph this week: a counter-offer that retains spending increases for food assistance, conservation, support for minority farmers and specialty crops and pays for them through cuts in subsidies to wealthy farmers and other reforms.

Dan Morgan starts his Washington Post story ("As Farm Bill Nears Vote, Bush Presses for Fewer Subsidies") where Bush started this farm bill: feeling burned by the last one and resolved to stand on conservative principles as the 2007 debate unfolded.

President Bush's decision in 2002 to sign a farm bill loaded with billions of dollars of new agricultural subsidies triggered considerable criticism from GOP conservatives true to the party's anti-spending philosophy.

Now, as Congress nears final agreement on a new five-year farm bill that will cost nearly $300 billion, the president has taken a harder line. Emboldened by soaring food prices and record farm profits, he has pressed Congress to cut farm subsidies sharply and has made clear that he will veto the popular bill if lawmakers do not meet his demands.

Were the Bush administration to embrace the core investments that have been added to satisfy the vast majority of the House and Senate, who have no taste for another round of subsidy handouts, the White House would be in a strong position to sustain its veto and finish with much of its agenda in the final bill, for the reasons spelled out by Morgan.

Top priorities for the White House include tightening limits on federal farm payments to wealthy individuals; closing a loophole that allows farmers to sell crops above the support price and still collect a subsidy; modifying a plan that would guarantee U.S. sugar growers 85 percent of the domestic sugar market through government purchases of excess imported sugar; and adjusting U.S. farm policy to bring it into compliance with international trade treaties.

Insistence on change by an administration often seen as siding with the wealthy is allowing Bush to display a populist side and to emphasize the GOP's commitment to fiscal restraint heading into this year's election.