The effect of indictments

October 27, 2005

If one or more White House aides are indicted tomorrow, part of the planned response, according to the LA Times, is a conservational detour in which the president would tout new agenda items such as spending cuts, changes to the tax code, and immigration. David Gergen isn’t optimistic.

“Changing the subject will not work,” said David Gergen, a former aide to Presidents Reagan and Clinton. “Giving more speeches about Iraq or the state of the economy doesn’t have the weight that action does…. It’s dangerous for the country to have a disabled president for three years, and we’re getting close to seeing that happen. I worry that they [Bush and his aides] are in denial.”

It’s quite the conundrum. Support for the president is so shallow, and the substance of his presidency so thin, I can’t quite figure out what Bush could do if Fitzgerald has some bad news for the White House.

I’ve been trying to consider the Plame scandal as if I were a member of Bush’s staff (yes, I know it strains the imagination, but it’s just a thought experiment). From where I sit, Bush doesn’t have many options. When Reagan was hit with Iran-Contra, he relied on fairly high approval ratings to withstand the pressure. When Clinton had the Lewinsky matter, he could point to a record of accomplishment and a corrupt investigator on a witch hunt. Bush has the Plame Game and can lean on … nothing in particular.

Paul Begala wrote a terrific item for TPM Cafe yesterday, offering his insights about what it’s like to be in the White House in the midst of a challenging scandal and making some suggestions for his successors.

This is when a White House staffer earns his pay. The pressure of a federal criminal investigation — especially one in the media spotlight — is bone-crushing. My guess is that the strain is taking a gruesome toll. Already we hear rumors of President Bush exploding at his aides, at the President blaming Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, and anyone else in sight for his woes. […]

Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush’s personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers’ cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.

In other words, what Bush needs most is what he’s least likely to get.

Bush can’t just change the subject; it’d be transparent and ineffective. Bush can’t just pretend nothing’s wrong, because his White House would be consumed with scandal. Bush can’t lash out at Fitzgerald, because the prosecutor has too much credibility. Bush can’t count on his record and popularity to see him through, because he has neither. Bush might be tempted to go hide in Crawford, but that would only make things worse. And Bush can’t just bring in a stronger staff, because he prefers an atmosphere of ignorance and fear.

It’s a standing joke among the president’s top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. […]

Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty.

David Gergen, to his credit, touched on the one approach that makes sense.

Gergen said problems went deeper than the CIA case. “This story’s going to have legs if somebody gets indicted,” he said. “I think the president has to lance the boil directly…. It starts with facing reality, accepting your share of responsibility without blinking.”

If Bush’s best shot at making it through the Plame scandal is facing reality and accepting responsibility, he’d better hope there are no indictments on the way.

Gergen said problems went deeper than the CIA case. “This story’s going to have legs if somebody gets indicted,” he said. “I think the president has to lance the boil directly…. It starts with facing reality, accepting your share of responsibility without blinking.”

Gergen assumes here that the extent of Bush’s “responsibility” is just tolerating the leakers’ ongoing presence in his White House. I very much doubt that Bush’s responsibility is that limited, so whatever acceptance of responsibility he does make will have to be feigned.

For a guy who has constructed an entire persona around tough, no-nonsense infallibility, as a way of avoiding discussion of his obvious shortcomings, feigning acceptance of responsibility is going to be a very tall order.

  • I’m still betting on Bush heading to Crawford. Sure, it would be disasterous, but this isn’t about smart, it’s about tuning out, finding his bubble and mountain biking as if nothing’s gone wrong. In other words, exactly what he’s been doing the past five years.

  • Bush can’t lance the boil, because he is the boil.

    Maybe James Baker will show up to help clean up the mess, but the public is sick of Junior.

    I hope we see some polls asking “if you could take your vote for Bush back, would you do it?”

  • Excuse me, but at this point, what respectable person would join this sinking ship? Looks pretty hopeless that anyone really good from the outside will come in and help. Now of course, that wont prevent the addition of a few more hacks or ideologues…

  • Gergen would be right if we were talking about another president. But we are talking about Bush. When has this president or this administration ever really faced reality and accepted responsibility – and I am not talking about Katrina lip service? Seriously.

  • I’m not getting this at all. Bush’s problems
    aren’t tactical, they’re systemic. Paul
    Begala makes this comment:

    “Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. ” What’s
    the team got to do with it? The public neither knows nor
    cares who they are. All they know is that the war is a mess,
    the rich are getting obscenely richer while they’re standing
    still, Bush is wrecking the environment, ignoring global
    warming, doing nothing about fossil fuel dependence,
    totally ignoring health care, making a mess of disaster
    relief, cutting programs for the poor and needy,
    fixing what ain’t broke about Social Security, and
    God knows what else.

    IT’S THE POLICIES, STUPID

    How are new players going to change
    the neocon/corporate policies of this
    administration? They’re just going to
    do the same thing, only better and meaner
    and greedier if they’re any good.

    I am really baffled by both Gergen
    and Begala. The public is sick
    of Bush’s policies, but nobody
    seems to understand that in
    the political world, including the
    Democrats.

    And I don’t think the Plame scandal is
    going to do Bush much harm, if at
    all, because it has no reach. It’s
    over, once Fitz announces the
    indictments. To the American people,
    it’s a yawner. No big names, and no
    effect on their lives. Back to the soaps,
    the football, the NASCAR races,
    whatever.

  • G2000’s objection aside — maybe nobody would want to join up — I wouldn’t underestimate GWB to do something along the lines of what Begala suggested. The thing is, this Carpetbagger post is dedicated to the proposition that Bush has no good options, and yet maintains that he basically can’t/won’t do the tough thing and face reality.

    But — to exaggerate a bit — those are the only conditions under which anyone faces “reality” — when one has to. Bush may surprise us by “cleaning house and starting over” — that it would be the best choice of a bad set of choices doesn’t make it less likely, it makes it more likely.

  • Hark –

    You say you are “baffled” because “the public is sick of Bush’s policies, but nobody seems to understand that. . .”

    But you then provide the explanation: “To the American people, it’s a yawner. . . Back to the soaps, the football, the NASCAR races. . .”

    The politicians don’t get that the problem is the policies because the public doesn’t really ACT like the problem is the policies. Oh sure, they’ll tell a pollster who takes 2 minutes of their time that they now oppose Bush for doing all the same things he promised he would do back when they supported him, but they wont give up their television or sports time to actually read and understand the issues, to write a congressperson, to go join an activist group, to go volunteer on a political campaign or show up for a rally.

    I wish I could agree that “ITS THE POLICIES, STUPID.”
    Sadly, “ITS THE APATHY, STUPID.”

  • Dear Leader may well get new faces in the White House, out of necessity in this crisis–some pretty big jobs seem to be opening up. But it won’t be any old time or competent Repugs like those that moved in during the Watergate mess–that would be an admission of inferiority to Daddy so, not gonna happen, Pardner. Scowcroft and Baker need not apply. And, at the risk of continuing in the Freudian vein, look to him to gather his mommies around him–Condi, Karen and yes, even Harriet–as he goes into emotional retreat whether in Crawford or the White House. This is a weak and frightened person–that’s where the petulance and the haplessness come from. After a few months of cowering, I’d expect some real nasty things from him as he goes for broke trying to make something (even more hideous) out his failed presidency.

  • Bush has never accepted responsibility for anything in his life. Becoming a Jesus Nut was the ultimate act of avoiding responsibility and he leapt for it. Look at the aftermath of Katrina: he brought his Mom and Dad out to remind everyone that they didn’t take kindly to people saying bad things about their son. What the fuck?

    This guy is a pussy. P-U-S-S-Y. We’ve all known men like him.

  • Yes, Oy. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Bush, at some point, just walk away from it all. As he has with every previous failure in his pathetic, miserable excuse for a life.

  • On Bush’s options: he can still attack Iran.

    When he got elected in 2000, Bush already scared me, and part of me really did fear that he would get us into a war, with someone, because he had this twisted militaristic mentality that we needed a war, as if for some nostalgic purpose more than anything. Remember the disturbingly prophetic Onion quotes, “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over,” and “We will find an enemy and we will defeat it.” The feeling was difficult to describe, and before September 11th, I always thought the prospect was too far-fetched. I was wrong. We cleaned up the Taliban in Afghanistan, which I applaud (though we should be spending more attention and effort rebuilding it.) And then we attacked Iraq, when we all knew the claims coming out of the administration about WMDs and terrorist connections were bogus, and the only good reasons were to overthrow a dictator and bring freedom to an oppressed country, but those reasons by themselves would never enough to convince Americans to go to war, and have were always secondary in Bush’s mind until the ones he created were proven false.

    Maybe it was another conservative, but didn’t Bush make some disparaging remark about Clinton’s policies that led the military to become sort of nation-builders? Funny how things turn out.

    Anyway, now that I’m done ranting, I have that feeling in my gut that, if nothing dramatic enough happens in Iraq to distract the national attention from the Bush’s problems, that he is going to start another war in Iran. or maybe Venezuela with all the noises Pat Robertson has been making.

  • After the indictments should come the trials. And after the trials comes the civil suit.

    It’s the trials and the civil suit that will start to unravel the lies that led to war. The forgeries, and what was said by whom when, in what context and why will bring in testimony from Cooper and Miller, Russert, maybe Novak, John Bolton, the INC guys, CIA Supervisors, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer, Scotty McClellen, Mary Matalin, Karen Hughes, Harriet Miers. Probably deposing Bush and Cheney. Right now Patrick Fitzgerald is Monty Hall; if this stuff starts going to court, he turns into Bush and Cheney’s worst nightmare.

    This thing should be big, ugly and public.

    Then again, the avian flu pandemic could hit any second now, and we’ll be up to our chins in a crisis of incompetence that will “send us back to the Declaration of Independence”, as Lawrence Wilkerson so eloquently stated.

  • “Bush has never accepted responsibility for anything in his life.”

    It’s true. He’s somehow failed upward to the highest pinnacle. (A more damning indictment of our society than that this man has come to “lead” it, I can’t imagine.)

    Now he’s alone, and it’s narrow up there–treacherous footing, sudden gusts of wind. What I think we’re seeing is that he has no way off, no way out, and–most frightening–no self-awareness that he’s put himself in this position.

    He certainly might fall. I just fervently hope the damage he does on the way down is minimal.

  • Is it too early to speculate on the possibility of Bush having an actual nervous breakdown from the pressure? He’s very much a control freak with a strong dose of megalomania to boot, pampered and coddled by his office wives and protected up to now by strong and ruthless subordinates.

    Now those subordinates are running for cover, and his office wives proven to be essentially useless for anything except spit-shining his loafers. He himself has no real skills at anything so he couldn’t save himself even if he wanted to. His world is crumbling around him and he has no idea why or what to do. It should be no surprise if he simply cracks up from the strain. It’s happened to better men than he and for lesser reasons.

    Am I the only one wondering about this? Surely not.

  • I beleive that we are watching a slow motion replay of Watergate. Cheney will be forced to resign; the new vice-President will have to be confirmed by a majority vote of both houses of Congress. A new VP will either run the government while GWB vacations in Texas, or GWB will be somehow forced out.
    The popular revulsion against the administration is one thing; the country can stand weak and unpopular Presidents. But unpopular, incompetent and unstable creates another situation. Somewhere, another power center is arising to take Bush down. Ask yourself: why is the CIA putting Bush in such a hard spot? (They could have downplayed the Plame outing but instead they made a criminal referral.) Ask yourself: is it just Fitzgerald’s personality that makes him so relentless? Ask yourself: why is McCain pushing the anti-torture amendment and why has it succeeded? That kind of direct challange to the President would have been unthinkable before the election.
    I don’t know who the equivalent force to the “Wise Men” who went to Lyndon Johnson and told him that his policy in Vietnam was no longer supportable is today, but somewhere, something has shifted, and important power centers have decided that W is done.

  • Actually, Rian, when the Hariri report came out concluding Syria had responsibility, and the next day I heard Condi saying that Syria “needs to be held accountable,” my first frightened thought was “Wag the Dog II: The Sequel.” I still will not be remotely surprised when I turn on CNN late some night after a bad day in or Rove on trial and see the night-goggle views of F-117’s over Damascus.

  • [Please excuse me if this post turns into a incoherent rant.]

    The subject of Carpetbagger’s post was the effect of indictments, particularly directly on George Bush. I agree with most of the commentary above, especially with the observation that apathy plays such a great role in current politics, plus the character portraits of W himself.

    On the morning of 9/11, I was struck with two thoughts in addition to the horror of it all. First, I was surprised that some kind of major terror attack had not occurred sooner. Second, I was stuck by the fact that our man in charge was George W. Bush.

    At a time when I thought we needed a Lincoln or a Roosevelt, we were stuck with Bush. I didn’t vote for him, but on 9/11, I sincerely hoped he could rise above the caricature of himself,

    He didn’t. The famous moment when he got on the bullhorn at Ground Zero, I had exactly the opposite impression of most folks. He didn’t strike me as a leader. To me, he looked and sounded like a desperate cheerleader — the very opposite of a real leader.

    Yes, he attacked Afghanistan and the Taliban. (Any president who failed at that time to respond accordingly would have been driven from the White House with pitchforks.) But in the end, he made a mish-mash of Afghanistan, allowing much of al queda to escape.

    Then came Iraq. There’s no need to go into that.

    Throughout his first term, everytime I saw Bush (particularly answering press questions) he reminded me of the guy in class who didn’t study, had no idea what was going on, and was trying to bullshit his way through being called on by the teacher.

    I was furious with the voting public and the press for not calling him out. (I dearly wished some reporter would have asked him to NAME more than SIX members of his precious “coalition of the willing.”)

    Like some of the above posters, I was confounded by Bush’s popularity in his first term. I felt like the country was like a school bus whose driver (Bush) was headed straight for a cliff, with the riders in front egging him on, the riders in back yelling for him to stop, and the riders in the middle just staring out the windows without a clue.

    I’m convinced that during his first term, Bush was continually frightened that he’d be “found out.” But when he was re-elected, I think he decided he really was the great leader everyone claimed. He believed his own press.

    Now he’s under fire and his popularity is dropping. I figure he will continue to think he’s a great leader, or he’ll revert to the nervous, unprepared frat boy.

    Either way, I figure he’ll attempt to deal with the Plame disaster by repeating what his tiny little brain tells him worked before. But without Karl, I don’t think he has a chance. And as others have said, he doesn’t have the intellect or courage to do anything reasonable. I fear he may become really dangerous in his attempts to pander to what he sees as his cheerleaders, and that includes military action somewhere. (Support the Props!”)

    I also suspect that Bush will not finish his term of office. I think he’ll either be impeached or resign. I agree that he really might crack up — because I think his popularity and policies have tanked, never to recover. And along with others, I still can’t imagine how this nation allowed such an inept, arrogant halfwit to become president.

    (I’ll stop now.)

  • Two words:

    Self. Medication.

    Expect many more public ‘incidents’ ranging from that horrific five-minute presser following the NYC blackout (if you were one of the priviledged few who saw it the first, and only time it was run) to Andrew Johnson’s inagural.

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