The Missing Meetings - Who did Abramoff see at the White House?

[DoYouEverWonder]

Slate

Jan. 19, 2006, at 6:32 PM ET

The drizzle of the White House briefing was interrupted this week by a pointed exchange between NBC's David Gregory and spokesman Scott McClellan. Gregory repeatedly tried to get McClellan to talk about Jack Abramoff's meetings with Bush administration officials, and McClellan repeatedly did not. McClellan wouldn't say with whom the disgraced lobbyist met, what he was after, or what gift baskets he may have left behind. Had Karl Rove met with Abramoff, Gregory asked? "We don't ever tend to get into those staff-level meetings," McClellan said.

Potomac Fever has seized the Bush White House. That sickness, as defined by the Texans Bush brought with him to the White House in 2000, afflicts the self-important who stay in Washington too long. Sufferers forget that they work for The People and fall in love with the perks of their job. Clay Johnson, the head of White House personnel in the first term, set up a special Web site to inform White House aides about the symptoms associated with the disease. The site contains pictures of a limousine and a posh table setting as telltale signs of infection. Sufferers seeking a cure were encouraged to travel beyond the Beltway to talk to regular people, so that they'd remember who paid their salaries.

Jack Abramoff was the Typhoid Mary of Potomac Fever: He sucked up to people in power and showered them with gifts and favors in hopes that they would forget who they worked for and think they worked for him. Did White House aides succumb? McClellan's argument for not telling us is that staff in the executive branch should be allowed to deliberate without fear of disclosure. Staffers can't give honest advice if they're constantly worried about how the public might react to every meeting they might hold. The courts upheld the idea when they rejected attempts by both the General Accounting Office and private watchdog groups to sue for the records detailing which representatives of which oil, gas, and coal companies helped Dick Cheney write the administration's energy policy.

http://www.slate.com/id/2134512/