The president held a 50-minute press conference in the Rose Garden this morning, offering a veritable treasure trove of content for blog posts. (Taking notes during the Q&A, I felt like a kid at a candy store…)
Here’s one of several notable exchanges:
Q: Good morning, Mr. President. I’d like to ask you about the Justice Department. In the last couple months, we have heard disturbing evidence about senior officials of the Justice Department misleading Congress. We heard disturbing evidence yesterday that a senior official at the Justice Department improperly took, by her own admission, political considerations into effect in evaluating career employees of the Justice Department.
We’ve also had evidence from the former Deputy Attorney General of the White House strong-arming a sick man into trying to approve an illegal spying program. I’m curious, Mr. President, if you are concerned about the cumulative picture that’s being drawn about your Justice Department? And what assurances can you give the American people that the department is delivering impartial justice to the American people?
BUSH: Yes, thank you, Michael. There is a — an internal investigation taking place at the Justice Department. And this will be an exhaustive investigation. And if there’s wrongdoing, it will be taken care of.
I thought it was interesting how you started your question, “over the months,” I think you said, “over the last months.” This investigation is taking a long time, kind of being drug out, I suspect for political question — for political reasons. In other words, as I mentioned the other day, it’s just grand political theater.
To fully appreciate how inarticulate all of this was, you’ll have to see the clip — Paul Kiel posted it. I particularly liked the phrase “drug out,” instead of the correct “dragged out,” in part because of the irony — the president sounded quite medicated when he said it.
Far more important, of course, was the substance of the response. For the president to accuse Congress of dragging this investigation out is almost comical, since it’s the administration’s fault that the process is taking so long.
As Kiel explained:
You might say that the investigation has taken such an awfully long time because the Justice Department misled Congress when questions were first asked about the U.S. attorney firings (senior Department officials even giving false testimony to Congress), the White House has stonewalled, a key witness invoked the Fifth Amendment, and despite all this, the revelations have just kept on coming steadily over the past three months. That might explain why Bush sounds so tired.
Exactly. As soon as Dems recognized the seriousness of this scandal, they demanded answers — quickly. They didn’t want a long investigation; they wanted an informative one. In response, the Justice Department, as disclosed emails later revealed, thought delaying tactics would help them weather the storm. Gonzales & Co. would offer a few documents here, a few there. They’d respond to some inquiries quickly, some slowly. Once lawmakers started learning more, and after administration officials got immunity from prosecution, Congress had more questions. That’s how investigations work.
For that matter, the White House certainly isn’t helping. Dems asked for testimony from Rove, Miers, and other WH aides weeks ago, only to find more delaying tactics and more stonewalling.
The president said the investigation is taking a long time “for political reasons.” On this, I think Bush is absolutely right — he’s just blaming the wrong side.
Update: An emailer notes that the question was: “What assurances can you give the American people that the department is delivering impartial justice to the American people?” Bush never did get around to answering that one, probably because he can’t.