(Diarist’s note: All snark in italics; embarrassing truth in regular type.)
(UB) WASHINGTON – As part of a national campaign to streamline legislative and legal processes, the White House today issued a directive to the heads of all congressional committees and every judicial jurisdiction in the country – from rural justices of the peace to the Supreme Court – specifying that only White House-approved witnesses will be required to testify in any future proceedings.
"We want to eliminate unnecessary and duplicative testimony by persons who might be uninformed about the Big Picture," White House spokesman Tony Snow wrote in a press release. "By restricting the number and selection of those who must go under oath," Snow said, "we have reduced the possibility of confusion, and thereby enhanced the effectiveness of the federal government’s message."
Snow decried as "political theater" the many recent appearances by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other Department of Justice staff members before various congressional committees. "It becomes impossible for the executive branch to get its work done when so many uninformed underlings are getting dragged into court or before Patrick Leahy’s committee," Snow said.
As a model for the White House directive, Snow pointed admiringly to a recent memo from Assistant Defense Secretary Robert Wilkie severely restricting testimony by any members of the armed services before any congressional committee.
"We think Mr. Wilkie had the right idea," Snow said, "he just didn’t go far enough. His guidelines still allow for some testimony to leak out."
Wilkie's guidelines stipulate, for example, that "junior officers" -- any officer at or below the rank of colonel, as well as noncommissioned officers -- "may provide support to briefers and witnesses, but shall not be asked or required to have their names entered into the record or speak on the record," according to the memo, which was sent to Erin Conaton , the armed services panel staff director.
The guidelines claim the right to provide Congress only with witnesses who are Bush administration appointees -- as opposed to longtime senior government officials who do not owe their jobs to the current administration -- to provide sworn testimony.
Some nitpicking far-left wackos have tried to argue that Wilkie’s guidelines – which he forwarded to various congressional committees – somehow do not comport with such quaint documents as, for example, the United States Constitution.
David Golove , a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said there appears to be no legal basis for the Pentagon's limits on lower-level officers speaking directly to Congress -- and lawmakers' power on this issue supercedes the military's.
"Congress has the power to subpoena anyone in the United States who has information relevant to their proceedings," Golove said.
The Bush administration, however, takes a different view:
"There are evidently certain members of Congress," White House spokesman Snow said, " – and perhaps even a few judges scattered around the country – who seem to believe that they somehow have the right to demand that anybody – ANYBODY! - can be asked to testify. Anyone who has passed eighth-grade U.S. government knows that that’s not how it works."
You just can’t make this stuff up.
(Hat tip kamarvt, whose diary brought this absurdity to my attention.)
(Also available at My Left Wing)