The president hasn’t had to go out of his way to defend Tom DeLay against the multiple criminal and ethical charges surrounding him — as Scott McClellan once said, Bush considers DeLay a friend but “there are different levels of friendship” — so it was of particular interest when the subject came up yesterday when Bush sat down with Fox News’ Brit Hume.
Asked, for example, why he’d like to see DeLay return as majority leader, Bush said, “Well, I like him. When he’s over there, we get our votes through the House.” Then Hume got a little more specific.
Hume: You know a thing or two about Texas politics. What is your judgment of the prosecutor in the case, Ronnie Earle?
Bush: I’m not going to go there, simply because I want — I want this trial to be conducted as fairly as possible. And the more politics that are in it, the less likely it’s going to be fair.
Hume: Do you just — do you believe he’s innocent?
Bush: Do I? Yes, I do.
There are a couple of ways to consider this. First, as the WaPo noted, it is “highly unusual for a president to express an opinion on a pending legal case.” I kind of doubt the president was thinking about the impropriety of a president weighing in on an ongoing criminal case — in context, I get the impression he was speaking as a partisan, not the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer — but in the Plame scandal, Bush set his own high standard. As Dan Froomkin noted, we’ve all heard “Bush’s repeated insistence that his obligation not to prejudice a criminal investigation or trial resoundingly trumps the public’s right to hear what he thinks or knows.”
In this sense, Bush had no business offering his assessment of the charges against DeLay, particularly on national television. But presidential duties aside, I had a slightly different reaction to Bush’s assessment. In fact, it reminded me a lot of baseball player Rafael Palmeiro.
In August, the Baltimore Orioles’ Palmeiro was suspended after testing positive for steroid use. When Palmeiro denied guilt, Bush said he believed him.
[Bush] also offered an unequivocal defense of Palmeiro, a friend from their days together with the Texas Rangers in the early 1990s. Bush was the team’s managing partner when Palmeiro played in Texas.
The Orioles slugger was suspended for 10 days after testing positive for steroid use, despite his insistence that he never intentionally used the prohibited substance. Bush has been an outspoken critic of steroid abuse.
“Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him,” Bush said, referring to Palmeiro’s denials under oath to a congressional committee on March 17. “He’s the kind of person that’s going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn’t use steroids, and I believe him. Still do.”
It’s interesting to me the way in which Bush deals with evidence that conflicts with his preconceived ideas. Palmeiro tested positive for steroid use, but Bush likes him, so he defends Palmeiro’s innocence. Tom DeLay more or less admitted his involvement in a money-laundering scheme, but Bush likes him, so he defends DeLay’s innocence.
As Kevin Drum put it a few months ago, “It’s like listening to a small child. He doesn’t want to believe it, so it isn’t true.”
It must make Bush’s daily life absolutely delightful. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.