The Turning of the Tide: Let’s Take the Offensive Now
Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard:
Instead of “Fitzmas,” the leftist nickname for the crippling of the White House through multiple indictments by special prosecutor Fitzgerald, Bush may have experienced the darkness before the dawn last week. Of course, that depends on what he does now.
Short of a Rove indictment, Bush won’t be overshadowed by trials and hearings the way Reagan was. The Libby prosecution will draw media attention, but not the massive coverage a criminal case against Rove would. So the White House won’t be too distracted.
Many have blamed the recent Bush travails on just such a distraction, particularly a distraction of the attention of Karl Rove:
Rove may yet be indicted, but that’s unlikely. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent two years investigating the case, called Rove to testify four times before a grand jury, and still had doubts about prosecuting him. Fitzgerald, at his press conference last week, wouldn’t discuss the subject. But to indict Rove, he would have to go to a new grand jury and outline the entire case, an arduous and improbable step. So Rove should be safe.
Also, no one in the White House was charged with actually disclosing the name of an undercover CIA agent. That would have given the case an overarching national security dimension. Fitzgerald said merely that the name of a CIA agent, undercover or not, is classified information and shouldn’t be revealed. Fitzgerald said he specifically wasn’t accusing anyone of outing a secret CIA agent.
I’ve gone on the record several times as to doubting whether Rove is the superhuman mastermind he’s made out to be, but I will say this: Barnes is right, it’s time for boldness.
For too long now, with Iraq, with Katrina, with PlameGate, with Miers, this has been a President who has been playing defense. There are three years left in the Bush presidency. Find a solid Supreme Court nominee, tout the 3.8% GDP growth figures, celebrate the continued progress in Iraq, and remember those great words of military strategy – the offensive, the offensive, always the offensive…we’ve weathered the storm, I firmly believe. Let’s not make the same mistakes twice.
UPDATE 12:47 p.m.: Again from the Weekly Standard, William Kristol with what appears to be a forming conventional wisdom, at least on the Republican side:
The larger story on Friday was that Fitzgerald indicted no one else. The wrongdoing leads in no way beyond this one individual and what he allegedly said to FBI investigators and the grand jury. There was no conspiracy, high level or otherwise, at the White House, or involving the Defense Department or the State Department–all scenarios that enemies of the administration had been fantasizing about for months.It may sound odd to call this good news for the president. But go back and read the fevered anticipations and lethal expectations of Bush’s critics over the last month. This was going to be the moment when the case for war was discredited. This was going to be the moment when the supposed venality and corruption of the Bush administration was going to be exposed. This was going to be the moment when the whole criminal conspiracy would unravel. This was going to be the moment of paralysis and disgrace for Bush and Cheney and the assorted warmongers in their employ.
I believe that Barnes is wrong by stating that “short of a Rove indictment, Bush won’t be overshadowed by trials and hearings the way Reagan was.”
First, Fitzgerald was quite clear that there are things which he still does not know. It is possible that the five indictments against Libby will put enough pressure on him that he will reveal incriminating information against Bush and/or Cheney. We may be in the stage which is equivalent to when Gordon Liddy was indicted — as we know, Watergate went on for about two years after that. Or maybe the trail stops at Liddy — we don’t know yet.
However, if there is a trial, it will be very difficult for the Bush administration, as it seems inevitable that Cheney will have to testify, and perhaps Bush as well. If this is concurrent with a DeLay trial, it will be devastating.
However, I would be very surprised if Libby comes to trial. My guess is that the Bush administration will do anything to prevent this, so he will plea bargain, serve a minimal amount of jail time, and be pardoned by Bush in January 2009.
Barnes is right. Kristol is right (boy, after the whole Miers fiasco, its sure nice to say that again). And, of course Mark, you’re right. Its time to take on the opponents and detractors of the Administration, no more bunker mentality. No matter what happens, it can’t be worse than what we’ve just been through. Stephen Hayes said that in regards to Iraq, the White House has the arguments but is just unwilling to articulate them for fear of retaliatory leaks from the CIA. Well, make the case anyway, prepare for the leaking onslaught and have a response ready. Last week was the low point of the Administration. If they start once again aggressively making the case for their agenda, in a few months the current troubles will be nothing but a distant memory and an interesting but ultimately superfluous historical footnote.
Sorry, meant to say “the trail stops at Libby,” not Liddy. Can’t these guys get names which don’t sound alike?
Hey, Liddy’s a sneaky guy, maybe you were right the first time…
i can’t agree with peter on his liddy analogy.
liddy didn’t work at the white house during W/G.
he was outside contract help.
you know……..a plumber.
i think a better analogy would be poindexter during the reagan admin. taking the rap for the arms trafikking between our good friends the mullahs of iran our other good friends in central america.
Sorry if I was unclear: the analogy was not between Liddy and Libby. Rather, the point I was trying to make was that when G Gordon Liddy was indicted, one might have thought then that the Watergate affair was over, when in fact it went on for another two years or so. Similarly, one might think that because Scooter Libby was indicted, that the Plame affair is over. Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t. So the analogy was not between the two men, it was between the two indictments and whether they both are false signs that their respective scandals have reached their peaks.
Today I made a mental list of all of the high officials in Republican administrations who went to jail or were indicted. Haldeman, Erlichman, and Colson served time. Agnew plea-bargained and resigned to avoid indictment. Nixon resigned. Poindexter was pardoned. Libby now indicted. I then tried to think of high ranking officials in Democratic administrations since LBJ which were indicted or jailed. Outside of the Clinton impeachment, I couldn’t think of any instances where senior administration figures in Democratic administrations were in serious legal trouble. Am I missing anyone? I am not making the argument that Democrats are cleaner than Republicans — we are all fallible and the temptations of power are great – but it is an interesting line of reasoning which I haven’t seen discussed anywyere.
peter, Henry Cisneros…Clinton.
Bert Lance…Carter.
Mike Espy…Clinton Administration.
Ron Brown…Clinton Administration.
Hazel O’Leary…Clinton Administration.
You missed Casper Weinberger on the Republican side…but more to the point, since LBJ, Democrats in office: Carter, Clinton, 12 years. Republicans: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II…25 years. Not a fair comparison…
I stand corrected, although in my hazy memory I thought Bert Lance just quit with no legal problems, and honestly I don’t know who Hazel O’Leary is.
Also, I was counting the five years of LBJ (1963-1968), so it would be 17 years vs. 25 years. But your point is well taken, it’s not a fair comparison.
I think a more interesting question was how little scandal there was (of a legal jeopardy nature) prior to Nixon…was it just that Watergate made the press more aggressive, after Vietnam made the Presidency a subject of ridicule (hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?)?…
Well, there was Teapot Dome — I’m not a good enough student of American history to know which other scandals occured in the past — but I think that the answer to your question is that in times past there was a higher caliber of public servant than we have today. This is obviously quite a generality, but I think it is by and large true. Not surprising — to be in public life these days you have to accept getting the crap beat out of you every day, and who needs that?