For an Opaque White House, A Reflection of New Scrutiny --WaPo Analysis

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602589.html?referrer=email


For an Opaque White House, A Reflection of New Scrutiny

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 7, 2007; A01



Shortly before he was inaugurated for his second term, President Bush was asked why no one was held responsible for the mistakes of the first. "We had an accountability moment," he replied, "and that's called the 2004 elections."

Two years and a stinging midterm election later, Bush is having another accountability moment, but this one isn't working out as well. The conviction of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has coincided with a string of investigations into the mistreatment of injured soldiers and the purge of federal prosecutors, putting the operations of his administration into harsh relief...


While the president's aides watch uncomfortably as one hearing after another plays out on Capitol Hill, the Libby conviction hit a nerve inside the White House. The onetime chief of staff to Vice President Cheney was well liked in the West Wing, and the notion of him going to prison dispirited the colleagues glued to televisions as the verdict was announced. Bush watched in the Oval Office with aides Joshua B. Bolten and Dan Bartlett, then instructed Bartlett to put out a statement expressing sadness for Libby.

"This has been a huge cloud over the White House," said Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist close to the Bush team. "It caused a lot of intellectual, emotional and political energy to be expended when it should have been expended on the agenda. They're never going to fully recover from this. If you're looking at legacy, this episode gets prominently mentioned in every recap of the Bush administration, much like Iran-contra and Monica Lewinsky."


While the White House publicly withheld comment, some Bush advisers expressed outrage, seeing a double standard and citing the documents-smuggling case of former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. Berger. "Scooter didn't do anything," said former Cheney counselor Mary Matalin. "And his personal record and service are impeccable. How do you make sense of a system where a security principal admits to stuffing classified docs in his pants and says, 'I'm sorry,' and a guy who is rebutting a demonstrable partisan liar is going through this madness?"

A senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president ordered aides not to comment publicly, disputed the idea that Bush has escaped scrutiny in the past. "I don't buy the conventional wisdom that we haven't had accountability in the past," he said. "Is it different because Democrats are in charge? Of course. . . . But that's fine, that's a reality that we're prepared to deal with."

No one has been quicker to declare the return of accountability than Democrats, who are using their newfound subpoena power to sharp effect in hauling up Pentagon officials to answer for poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and in giving fired U.S. attorneys a venue to blame their dismissals on administration politics. In two months, Democrats have held 81 hearings on Iraq. "This is just the beginning," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "What a difference a year makes."


Two people looking forward with choices to make are Bush and Libby. The president came under instant pressure from conservatives to pardon his former aide. "Justice demands that Bush issue a pardon and lower the curtain on an embarrassing drama that shouldn't have lasted beyond its opening act," National Review said within hours of the verdict.

And Libby may have to decide if he has anything else to tell authorities. John Q. Barrett, an Iran-contra prosecutor who teaches at St. John's University, recalled James W. McCord Jr. in Watergate and Alan Fiers in Iran-contra, who under threat of prison recanted past versions of events. If the jury was right that Libby lied, Barrett said, "he's now sitting wherever he is with cold sweat and troubled stomach and truth that he hasn't told. . . . Whatever the chips, if he held them and didn't lay them down, this may be the moment to decide."

[tanyev]

1. "They're never going to fully recover from this."

:party::toast::D

[L. Coyote]

2. "... In two months, Democrats have held 81 hearings on Iraq...."

First things first. And there are too many things to investigate.

John Conyers is starting a hearing today on past election irregularities. It will be interesating to see where that road leads.