Bush’s Cover-Up
Murray Waas argues that George Bush–and the Republican party–will regret Bush’s efforts to claim absolute immunity to prevent Congress from getting testimony and documents pertaining to the US Attorney purge.
The continuous claims of executive privilege– whatever the motive for them being invoked– are going to appear more and more to the pub[l]ic part and parcel of a cover up. That is inevitable as the U.S. attorney report becomes public, and the report on the politicization of the Civil Rights Division is made public, as well as whatever else the public learns about these issues through leaks from the federal grand jury, the House Judiciary Committee’s ongoing probe, and sleuthing by folks like Josh Marshall.
[snip]
Even though the President might think otherwise, and he is being advised to stay his course, his best hope in assisting Republican congressional candidates in the fall would be to have Karl Rove and Harriett Miers testify before Congress– and the sooner the better. As for the public welfare, the testimony would help resolve many unknowns about the firings of the U.S. attorneys and other allegations of White House misuse of the Justice Department.
He bases that argument on the following logic:
- Per Evan Perez of the WSJ, the two remaining DOJ IG reports on politicization will be released before the election.
- The Civil Rights division IG report–that investigating Shorter Schloz and Hans von Spakovsky–may include criminal referrals.
- The larger US Attorney purge IG report will show that the Kyle Sampson and Rove lackey Chris Oprision deliberately hid Rove’s role in the firings on at least two occasions.
- As the Administration continues to stall on Miers and Rove testimony at the same time as these reports come out, it will be increasingly clear to the public that Bush is stalling precisely because he is trying to cover up the real White House involvement in the US Attorney purge.
I’d be happy if all this came to pass–but I’m a little skeptical, based on three things.
First, when asked by the Senate Judiciary Committee when his reports on the Civil Rights and US Attorney purge would be done, Glenn Fine said he didn’t know–he had to follow whereever the evidence led, and therefore couldn’t know how long it would take to finish up the reports. He specifically said he couldn’t guarantee they’d be done before the election. Now, maybe Fine was just being coy, or just trying to avoid promising he would finish the reports before the election in case he failed to do so. But he’s a straight up guy, so I think we may, in fact, not get one or both of those reports before the election–and certainly not before September.
More importantly, I just don’t think the DOJ IG reports will cause Republicans the embarrassment Murray suggests they will. The Republicans are shameless, and there’s no sign that any of them save Arlen Specter seems to care that Bush is clearly engaged in a cover-up. Furthermore, none of the Republicans directly tied to aiding and abetting Bush’s contempt for Congress–John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Lamar Smith, and Chris Cannon–are going to be any more electorally exposed as these IG reports break than they are now. It’s unlikely the party leaders will be ousted, unlikely Smith will face a challenge, and Cannon is already on his way out. And in the Senate Judiciary Committee, only John Cornyn and (less likely) Jeff Sessions has any exposure for their attempts to help Bush stonewall. In other words, even assuming the US Attorney purge flares back into a front-burner issue, it’s not going to be directly tied to any of the most vulnerable Republicans.
And that all depends on the unlikely possibility that the media would make a big deal about this issue. That, from a media that can’t seem to connect Monica Goodling’s loyalty oaths with inadequate judicial review following immigration raids or that sees one investigation of County-level Democrats as a threat to Obama’s candidacy without considering whether numerous national level investigations might hurt McCain’s bid.
Mind you, I would be thrilled if all this blew up on the Bush Administration and the Republican party this fall. Consider me skeptical, though.
Republican losses this fall are an ‘externality’ to Bushco.
Prosecution is a real cost.
I predict more stalling and more ‘innovative’ legal questions from Freddy.
The Bush hope, then, is that the Washington political class will treat his “peccadilloes” the same way they treated the Iran-Contra affair – by sweeping it under the table when he is out of office.
I’d say that the Bush people are making a good bet. Odds are in their favor.
Damn!
I agree with the skepticism. Only when there are real consequences directly for Bush and those closest to him will the behavior change. There is nothing in Waas’ predictions that would mean any kind of punishment for Bush, Cheney or Rove. Only when one or more of those three is looking at certain jail time will their behavior change. Until then, they will just keep taunting us…
EW, I tend to agree with you. We are only 80 some days from the election and unless those reports are in pretty much final draft form right now, they probably can’t get through the staffing process before the election.
You may understate how shameless is this Republican Party. It is brazenly covering up multiple crimes, hoping to geld allegations of criminality into mere “policy differences”. Given their faux religious bent, I would call that their “sure and certain hope” of resurrection, one based less on faith in the lord than on lavish bribing of the emperor, the senate and the mob.
Perhaps the biggest mistake the Democrats are making is that they are not connecting the facts of malfeasance on the part of individual GOP notables, whether elective office holders, unelected appointees of supposedly non-partisan offices (eg politicized DOJ hacks), or partisan political operatives (eg. Turdblossom), to the increasingly obvious fact that over the past forty years the party itself has become a lethal threat to the future of Constitutional government in this country. For them effective governance is a distant second (or lower) priority behind the acquisition and preservation of power. And since power still comes primarily out of ballot boxes in this country rather than the barrels of guns, when they put on their governance hats the good of the country at large is a distant concern in comparison to the effects of their actions on the next electoral cycle.
The Democratic establishment seems to be operating under the assumption that the two parties share an underlying conception of what the United States is all about, and that the core memberships of both parties share a commitment to the preservation of the institutions that embody that conception. The events surrounding the general elections beginning in the year 2000 should have disabused them of this fantasy, not to mention the day-to-day machinations of the Bush 43 White House and the Republican Congressional leaderships. It’s time the Democratic Party beginning making this case to the American public. One of the tragedies of Pelosi’s impeachment-is-off-the-table stance is that it is a walk away from the best venue for doing this.
The Dems (are mostly DINO’s) have the same agenda as the Repucks, i.e. power and money. It’s interesting how as a minority the Repucks have tied up Congress with delaying tactic after delaying tactic while the DINO’s, as a minority in the last 10 years, rarely used delaying tactics. It’s a dependent relationship: Repucks shamelessness and DINO’s milquetoast mindset, yet both get what they went to DC for. Through Congressional action or inaction and malfeasance the Republic is in jeopardy due to both parties .
Unfortunately, this seems increasingly to be as true of Democrats (see Pelosi’s new book and public statements) as Republicans. We need a party that makes defending the Constitution a priority.
Bob in HI
I agree that it is an attribute of many Congressional Democrats as well, Pelosi at the head of the pack among them. However there remains an element of upholders of Constitutional democratic governance in the Dem party. This element is strongest at the grass roots, but there are some in influential Congressional positions as well; e.g. Feingold, Waxman, etc. By contrast, their counterparts in the GOP have for all practical purposes been pushed out of the party. This has resulted from the different kinds of people at the grass roots. GOP activism at the local level has been taken over lock, stock and barrel by people who define themselves primarily by their religious perspective (various forms of Christian fundamentalism to be more specific), and their commitment to the support of our Constitutional forms is limited by the extent to which those instutitions can help realize the furtherance of their god’s kingdom on earth. The Dem grass roots also contains its share of religiously motivated people, but they tend to be more ecumenically minded. It also contains a large element of basically secular people who view the workings of our founding fathers as one of mankind’s greater accomplishments.
The only way such a move by the Democrats would be convincing is if the leadership of the party were fighting for the Constitution.
As long as Pelosi disdains impeachment (she hasn’t even read or seen Kucinich’s 35 articles!), and Cass Sunstein and Obama (Mr. “if crimes have been committed”) are out there characterizing accountability for massive constitutional violations as “criminalizing policy differences”, then any effort to paint the Republicans as the system-wrecking radicals they are will make no sense.
I don’t think it’s just Republican shamelessness. The Democrats have shamelessly taken accountability off the table. The Democrats have shamelessly refused to tread on any ground that tracks back to Democratic leadership. The Democrats have never hauled Rockefeller or Pelosi up and demanded answers to “what did you know and when did you know it” The Democrats haven’t been serious and had committe counsel handle the questioning, except in a few instances. Instead, they’ve done often pathetic rounds of questioning in service of not much more than their face time.
The shameless Republicans have been able to infect the Dems to the point where they feel it is in their self interest to be just as shameless. Then the shameless Dems pass the buck to the shameless trio of AG, OPR and IG. And while Fine hasn’t been as abysmal as maybe a Gonzales, he is very wedded to doing a series of “tsk tsks” that don’t go anywhere either. How do you have thousands and thousands of NSL violations and no criminal referrals? How do you have torture killings and no criminal referrals? How do you have lies to tribunals and no criminal referrals and no recommendations for loss of license? How do you track back to chiefs of staff but never beyond, to their bosses? How do you issue the pretense of an “investigation” when you’ve waited long enough that documents are destroyed and people have their lies aligned and btw, you never even took a peek at millions of missing emails involving people at the heart of almost all the scandals and when you carefully segregate your areas of review so as to never go for a full picture?
On reflection, I think you’d have to say the Republicans aren’t shameless at all. Shamelessness would imply exceeding a standard of some kind, and right now the Republicans seem to be pretty much in synch with the standards of the Dems and the “investigators”
It’s all The Aristocrats, Part II.
{applause}
The Dems have been running away from impeachment since Lee Hamilton led the Dems’ investigation of the Iran-Contra mess in the late 1980’s.
The first thing the then Democratic leadership did was to take impeachment off the table. Hamilton, in turn, was so bi-partisan or post-partisan, whatever, that he thought he and Cheney had the same goal in investigating what turned out to be blatantly illegal presidential conduct, covered up by multiple pardons from a departing President. Look how that turned out.
Hamilton appeared to want to get at the truth and to chastise the President and all his men, but no more. Cheney wanted to enshrine the President’s ability to engage in the secretive, illegal conduct that he did and to tell Congress to go Cheney itself. With hindsignt, I’d say Cheney’s a lap ahead in that race. The Dems better start running a little smarter, not just faster.
Buttons, buttons. Comment #8 responds to Minnesotachuck’s comment #5.
8 – Running in the right direction would help too.
I still remember Sherrod Brown’s grace note on his MCA vote, that it had to be good legislation because, after all, John McCain backed it. *sigh*
Reid may as well be on McConnell’s staff.
Feinstein is so pleased with Southwick and golly gee, isn’t unconsitutional wiretapping fun?
Besides, a very wise Booz Allen Hamilton (company of interest in the European investigation of illegal rummaging through and siphoning off of SWIFT information) officer, who sometimes holds an Exec branch title, told the Dems (after testifying so credibly and reliably about how under ”old FISA” no one could listen in to overseas communications for days and days when soldiers were kidnapped) that we will all die if we don’t kill the Constitution first.
Obama makes a thoughtful face while agreeing with everything and repackaging it for sale to his acolytes.
Clinton really did do it first (renditions and warrantless wiretaps of US citizens on US soil under the umbrella of his powers vis a vis the Latin American ”war on drugs”) so Hill has no desire to push.
The world knows Maher Arar’s story, but the Democrats have done nothing. The world knows Khalid el-Masri’s story, but the Democrats have done nothing. The world knows about children and innocents held forever in abuse at GITMO, but Democrats help frame a few scapegoats for Abu Ghraib, then ignore Taguba’s call for an MI investigation to parallel his MP investigation.
It’s really too long a list – If Hugh starred all the Bush scandals that are also have Dem feature players, I bet it would be like looking at an evening sky on a clear night.
I suspect Sherrod Brown voted for the MCA because he wanted the Senate seat he won in ‘06, and didn’t think conservative Ohio would let him have it if in the House he had voted against the reprehensible MCA. Discretion is the better part of valor, as Falstaff would say.
Well, he’ll have an opportunity in the next Congress to undo the damage some of his opportunistic decisions have wrought. Let’s see how many other Dems take that tack, too. Then we’ll know whether our course is being corrected, or if we’re leaning so hard to starboard that the mast is almost awash.
Rhymes with McDonnell
Per Scott Harper in his recent post on No Comment regarding the U.S. Attorney scandal:
“The Inspector General’s report on the U.S. attorney’s scandal is due to be released before Labor Day, the traditional start of the presidential campaign. Any later than that and it risks becoming too much a front-and-center aspect of the election campaign, which would hardly serve the interest that every sober observer now recognizes in a less political Justice Department.”
They will notice, en mass, twenty minutes after it has become obvious that Bush et al are going down, hard, never to rise again.
That very afternoon we will be treated to countless well written, thoroughly researched reports on how it all came about and the deeply disturbing signs that were there all along and should have tipped us off if only someone had been able to connect he dots.
And as soon as the story’s outer petals start to wilt some blonde will go missing in Nebraska and they’ll move on.
–MarkusQ
“some blond will go missing in Nebraska”…there is a female missing in the good ol USA..her name..’Lady Liberty’.
I just don’t understand how Pelosi can take impeachment off the table and still pretend that congress is practicing oversight.
It’s like a pre-emptive agreement not to hold them accountable no matter what they have done.
At least that is how it is playing out.
Weekend reading: “The March of Folly” by Barbara Tuchman.
Her discussion how the long string of uncontested abuses of authority and position by the Medici popes led to Protestant Reformation analogizes quite well to the long string of uncontested abuses by Bushco that a craven Democratic party and craven media have enabled.
Bloggers = Martin Luther?
I want to see an end to the de-legitimizing of the American government that has been led by the Reps and joined in by the Dems.
New post from Jane
I have no crystal ball, but reading the biz news suggests that there’s a whole lot of restiveness afoot.
IMHO, most business people understand that the system of laws and courts protects their rights to intellectual, trademark, copyright, contracts, stocks, bonds, and other forms of wealth. Without that legal system to enforce their claims, they’re vulnerable.
As Bu$hCo has perverted the entire system of laws and justice, they’ve destabilized some business interests (apart from infuriating people). I suspect that some of those biz have the clout to push behind-the-scenes for these criminals to be public exposed, prosecuted, and imprisoned IF that’s what the biz faction believes that it will take to secure the system that protects their interests.
FWIW, my hunch is that the quiet, behind-the-scenes business interests will have more influence on how this all plays out than public opinion will ever generate.
It appears to me that Yoo is getting scared. It is dawning on him that he too may have his day in Court. His travel is already restricted, as a important yet minor player I wouldn’t put it past another government to arrest and try him in much the same way Bush used Hamden, a test case. I would make the popcorn for that trial, real butter included.
17 – Ohio is my next door neighbor and voting against the MCA wouldn’t have lost Brown anything. No one in Ohio had the MCA as a vote changer – no polling, no press, nada. Like most of the country, hardly anyone in Ohio knew a gobble about the MCA and they cared less. Brown won with a 56/44
Your facts and the then would be senators PR don’t match up. I’ll take your facts. Progressives can only hope that the Senator does too, and that he now helps clean up the mess he voted for when passing the MCA.
Ban the GOP? The Turkish supreme court nearly did ban the islamic-oriented ruling party in Turkey; so why not try.
After WW II we declared that the SS was a criminal organization, so that membership in that organization was a crime.
The Republican Party needs to be similarly declared a criminal organization based on its support of torture and war crimes.
What if the Hague made such a declaration, and every American who traveled abroad was asked at each port of entry “Are you or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party?”
minnesota chuck at #5 wrote:
Nancy Pelosi, at least, will pay for her cowardice as faux Speaker of the House. Cindy Sheehan just qualified to run for Pelosi’s Congressional District 8 seat in NoCal as an Independent.
During the Democratic Primary for Pelosi’s seat, a total unknown without finances or grassroots backing — a former educator named Shirley Golub — snagged 11 percent of the Dem primary vote from under Pelosi’s deaf-dumb-blind nose. A VIRTUAL UNKNOWN TOOK 11 PERCENT FROM PELOSI’S ENTRENCHED PLATE.
Indie candidate or not, Cindy Sheehan is neither Unknown nor without grassroots, veteran or contributor donation means.
Pelosi, at least, will pay for ignoring the will of the people. Very good start.
Jon Stewart has Suskind tonite.