The goalposts find a new location

July 18, 2005

I suppose this was inevitable, but the standard for dismissal from the White House has officially shifted. It was a plain and simple standard: leak an agent’s identity, lose your job. That’s not the yardstick anymore.

At a June 2004 press conference, a reporter asked Bush if he stood by his pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame’s identity. The president said, simply, “Yes.” Several months earlier, Scott McClellan said, “If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the leaking of Plame’s identity], they would no longer be in this administration.”

The list goes on. In September 2003, Bush said, “If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action.”

Today, the message was different.

“It’s best people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. I don’t know all the facts. I want to know all the facts,” Bush said. “I would like this to end as quickly as possible. If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.”

And just like that, the goalposts have been moved. Before, Bush said publicly that he would fire the leakers. Now, we know we know who did the leaking, and Bush is vowing to fire them … so long as they’re found to have committed a crime.

In other words, the president doesn’t particularly mind if you leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, so long as you haven’t literally violated any laws. Good to know.

Just imagine a CEO taking the position that he would wait until his CFO was convicted of fraud before taking any managerial action. Then, remind yourself that instead of fraud, we’re talking about treason.

  • Add to that the fact that GWB is the “CEO President.”

    How do we make this shift obvious? I’ll say it again, letter-to-the-editor. Any other ideas? Emails to reporters?

  • same old – same old. how many times did they change the rational for iraq? any wonder why the poll numbes keep dropping. people are slowly waking up to the fact this adminstration are liaring about everything.

  • anyone who leaks … anyone indicted … anyone convicted … anyone who has exhausted his appeals all the way through the Supreme Court … term over

  • I think it sounds like he’s confident (for whatever reason) that there will be no indictments for the leak per se. I’ve also come to the conclusion that we should temper our enthusiasm about all of this. As much as we’d all like to see a serious scandal finally have some serious real-world consequences for this administration, we have to remember that they wiggled out from under everything else (so far). Intrepid bloggers should stay on top of it but we still DON’T KNOW what the prosecutor will come up with. Maybe nothing. After all, Ashcroft and Gonzales gave them sufficient time to cover their tracks.

  • Fitzgerald prosecuted some Gambino bosses, too. If there was ever a group that was more fastidious about keeping conspiracies secret than BushCo, it’s the Mafia.

  • I don’t know all the facts. I want to know all the facts,”

    Yeah, Dubya’s obviously been working real hard at trying to find out the facts.

  • Smiley, I’m not sure the changing goalposts necessarily mean BushCo is confident. First, they didn’t think they would get caught, so it’s easy to make nice-sounding statments about how tough you’d be on the alleged offenders (knowing all the while that you wouldn’t be obliged to carry through on the threats). Second, this event seems so small compared to all the really big lies they’ve used. It must really come as a shock that the whole rotten structure will come down based on this one little investigation of a minor political vendetta.

    Also, what Bush is really saying with his statement is that he won’t let anyone go unless forced to by uniformed officers frog-marching his people out of the WH. He won’t voluntarily discipline his people. His inner circle has priority over national security, obviously–as it always has.

  • I can’t help but remember…

    When OJ was charged with his crime it took no time at all for Hertz to dump him.

  • Actually, the posts aren’t don’t moving. Check out Sunday’s meet the press:

    Old Goal: Leak, fired
    New Goal: Crime, fired, trust the special prosecutor

    Question, ‘So, if you have all this confidence in the special prosecutor, will you support his findings if he indicts?’

    MaggotMan: ‘Ummm, can’t speculate’

    Presumably, if indicted, we’ll start hearing about ‘innocent until proven guilty’, along some serious smearing of the folks now being praised…

    -jjf

  • I agree with smiley, and I think we’re the ones who have moved
    the significant goalposts, from removing the radical right
    from the executive branch and Congress, to removing Karl
    Rove.

    Check out Frank Rich’s Sunday NYT column for his
    perspective on the Rove case:

    http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071705B.shtml

    It would be great if the Karl Rove affair led to another
    Watergate, but I think the chances are extremely slim.
    At worst, he’s gone, and we will have been distracted for how
    long and at what cost?

    As Ed says, they can run the table on this one. Indictment,
    conviction, appeals and out of there. And indictment for
    what? Americans don’t give a damn about technical crimes.
    If it’s obstruction, everybody yawns and goes home anyway.

  • “In other words, the president doesn’t particularly mind if you leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, so long as you haven’t literally violated any laws. Good to know.”

    Correction, the president doesn’t mind if you literally violated the law, just as long as it can’t be proven.

    I don’t see how they win either way…the American Public, even many Bush supporters are now unsure of the administration. His keeping Karl by his side is only hurting him.

  • In other words, the president doesn’t particularly mind if you leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, so long as you haven’t literally violated any laws.

    Is there an opportunity here? I think a perjury or obstuction of justice charge will come down … if so, that’s a crime. It may not be the original crime, but its a crime nonetheless. I say we hold his feet to the fire on this.

  • Obstruction of justice? How about making that charge stick against that lying sack o’ shit Dubya himself? After all, he could have revealed it all right in the beginning. And still he sandbags. How is that NOT obstruction of justice?

  • Past——–I will fire anyone who leaked the name of a CIA operative.

    Present—I will fire anyone who broke the law.

    Future—–It is with great satisfaction that I pardon Karl Rove.

  • WWTRD – What would the Republicans do? If Rove had an adversary in this situation, I bet he’d probably do one of two things:
    1. He’d escalate. The link of leaked info about Khan, the informant assisting in bringing down British Al Quaeda cells, by the White House may have been in part responsible for the UK getting caught off guard about the recent bombings. Make the White House look a sieve. Loose lips sink British subways, and maybe one of ours next. Add another log to the fire and force the White House to lop off someone’s head.
    2. He’d create more dirt. Rove would invent some outrageous accusation and the press would run away with it. Maybe with the White House press corps in a frenzy, bringing up some other Rove scandals might push him over the edge. If the WH press corps holds up their recent standards, no smoking guns would even be needed to make accusations stick. Make him a walking scandal. What made the Lewinsky business so powerful is that a parade of womanizing had been rolled out in front of the public to make it look like its all Clinton ever did. Saying Rove forced Sandra Day O’Connor to retire so he could control the Court would be juicy bait.

    Actually, this is a fun parlor game. Instead of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” start playing “Six Conspiracies of Karl Rove.” This game works by describing how in six cruel and unusual steps you could bring down the career/ life of anyone at the party.

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