My thought is that the move by the President to "move the goalposts" in the Rove scandal is pretty huge.
I don't profess to have all the answers, but I would like to throw down some of the basics as I understand them and start a discussion about it...and invite you to join.
My take is that this is a "big time" moment. Not a "business as usual moment." You see, for the the President himself to come out on a Monday morning and make what I consider a major change of strategy in the Rove affair is a pretty big deal. The President has, for the first time, made this story explicitly about two things:
This is huge, and new, and significant.
The New York Times
article that I'm drawing quotes from here has this from the President this morning:
"If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," Mr. Bush said in response to a question, after declaring, "I don't know all the facts; I want to know all the facts."
My first impression was that this is a complete non-statement. I mean, obviously....any President would say that. It only seems to mean something "strong."
(For one thing, whoever might have "committed a crime" would have been working scott free for two years now at this point; for another....if that's the case, why is Elliot Abrams still on staff??)
However, in the context of what we've learned in the last week about the Rove affair and "the standards" that had been "in force" before this moment, this is a profoundly significant statement.
Here's what the New York Times has as Bush, or his surrogate's, previous standards:
On Sept. 30, 2003, Mr. Bush said he was eager to find out if there had been "a leak" from his administration about Mrs. Wilson. "I want to know who it is," he said. "And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
Just one day earlier, Mr. Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, had stated a more categorical standard. "The president has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration," Mr. McClellan said. "He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."
And this affirmation from 2004 in response to a reporter's question by the President himself, confirms this earlier standard:
Mr. Bush himself embraced a broader position on June 10, 2004, when he was asked whether he would fire anyone who had anything to do with leaking Mrs. Wilson's name.
"Yes," Mr. Bush replied, and his spokesmen have reiterated that stance repeatedly in the months since then.
So we have, in chronological order, these changing standards for firing someone:
- "if anyone in the administration was involved in it" (McClellan, Sept. 29th, 2003)
- "if the person has violated the law "(Bush, Sept. 30th, 2003)
- "anyone who had anything to do with leaking the name" (Bush gives passive "yes", June 10th, 2004)
- and, today, July 18, 2005... "If someone committed a crime" from Bush himself.
I think this is a big deal, and not simply because the casual hypocrisy of these changing standards make it astonishingly clear that BushCo. have lost their moorings.
#1: This is also big deal for a bundle of implicit conclusions that it leads one to draw.
The first of which is that it is a sure sign that things must be 'on fire' behind the scenes at the White House for Bush to have said, just last week, that he wouldn't comment on an ongoing investigation....and for him now to make a new statement in regards to the scandal on a Monday morning. That in itself is odd.
Second, and I'm not a political scientist or an "in the know operative" in any way, but common sense leads me to ask why in God's name are Bush's people having him use the expression committed a crime? The C word is a big, big deal...after all, only criminals (...or...uh...crooks) commit crimes...and this after McClellan and Mehlman seemed to be taking a "no comment, can't talk about it" line for the last seven days...it's just shocking to hear any President use the word "crime" referring to the White House staff.
Third, for Bush to be changing the groundrules mid-game must mean that BushCo. think that the previous statements leave them vulnerable enough that the alternative....ie. moving the goalposts and calling attention to their own hypocrisy right now...is somehow less bad. I mean, the President himself has now taken a "hit" in this story...and he really hadn't previously...because the reporting will have to discuss Bush's changing standards and his role in this. Bush is now a part of the Rove story. That's a big deal.
#2: I see this statement as a huge political liability as well. It's a really weak political statement. I mean, if Bush could say something strong and exculpatory, he would. In fact, in politics, you always assume that what the other guy is saying is the strongest possible thing he can say at any given moment. "Committed a crime" as the new standard says this to me:
- Bush is confirming, implicitly, that people in his administration DID play a role in the leaking of Valerie Plame's name
- In creating new "wiggle room" Bush is admitting that he and his spokespeople lied to us when they said that specific members of his Administration had nothing to do with this, mentioning Rove, Libby and Abrams by name.
- Finally, Bush, in using the locution, "committed a crime" is making the standard a legal one. I would point out that you can be indicted for committing a crime and still be "innocent until proven guilty." So, we now have a framework where members of the Bush Administration could be either: guilty of "involvement" and not get fired, or actually indicted of a crime and Bush could still keep them on. That's nuts.
- The question is not simply that Bush moved the goalposts. Which is, in and of itself a sign of enormous weakness. It's also where Bush moved the goalposts to....the far reaches of legal culpability. Which brings me to #3.
#3: I'm not a lawyer, but common sense tells me that this new "goal post" means absolutely nothing...I mean, folks, Bush could just as well have said..."anyone convicted of being an axe-murderer will be fired from my Administration." It moves the standard to the far reaches of common sense, instead of where the standard should be: anyone whose public actions do not live up to moral, ethical and legal standards of the American public should not serve in the White House.
However, not only does Bush's statement really mean nothing, it does, explicitly, and for the first time, move the entire affair into Greta Van Sustren territory.
Bush talked about crimes here. No one has done that fully yet. It's been a political story. But now that we're on the subject...we're going to have get into the legal nitty gritty. And it is the President himself who has taken us there. In a word, wow.
#4: Finally, this little phrase is HUGE:
"I don't know all the facts; I want to know all the facts."
George Bush, today.
Think about this one for a second. Did the President just admit that for two years he's lived with the allegation that members of his administration were involved in leaking a CIA officer's name, of committing, in his words, a crime...and "he doesn't know all the facts?"
Why, for goodness sakes, would he say that...and why would Andrew Card let him say that? It's mind boggling.
Not only does it make Bush look like a passive idiot on the sidelines of the commision of treasonous crimes...it makes it seem like he had no clue at the time that he promised that anyone "involved in this would be fired" that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby would be implicated.
Friends, when someone in power who should know the facts, claims, to their own political detriment not to know the facts...I think one thing: that person is covering their ass.
Think about it.
In fact, I'll repeat it:
When someone in power who should know the facts, claims, to their own political detriment...not to know the facts...
that person is covering their ass.
In sum, I think we just saw something pretty amazing today. Remember it, you'll be telling your kids about this.
It makes me ask myself: what the HELL is going on behind the scenes at the White House? I mean who is giving President Bush advice on this one???...And the scary thing is, despite how sad and sick and inevitable this conclusion appears...it almost seems like Bush is doing Rove's bidding here.
I mean, what the President did this morning was an extremely bad move for one person, over and above anyone else in this whole mess...
and that person is himself.