{"id":4735,"date":"2005-07-19T09:56:02","date_gmt":"2005-07-19T13:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=4735"},"modified":"2005-07-19T09:56:02","modified_gmt":"2005-07-19T13:56:02","slug":"we-must-remember-the-high-standards-that-come-with-high-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/we-must-remember-the-high-standards-that-come-with-high-office\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We must remember the high standards that come with high office’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atrios mentioned<\/a> this yesterday, but I think it bears repeating. The overly legalistic approach<\/a> to Karl Rove’s leak is wholly at odds with the high standards<\/a> articulated by George W. Bush shortly after his inauguration. Looking back, the comments sound like those of a Bush critic in 2005, not the president himself in 2001.<\/p>\n

After the oath was administered, Bush told the staff — and 100 or so family members on hand — “You all are here because you have my full confidence.”<\/p>\n

“Today, everything is so promising and new,” the new president said. “I’m hoping the day will never come when any of us take this place for granted.”<\/p>\n

Bush warned that he expected his White House staff to meet the highest ethical standards, avoiding not only violations of law, but even the appearance of impropriety.<\/p>\n

“We must remember the high standards that come with high office,” he said. “This begins careful adherence with the rules. I expect every member of this administration to stay well within the boundaries [that] define legal and ethical conduct.<\/p>\n

“No one in the White House should be afraid to confront the people they work for over ethical concerns, and no one should hesitate to confront me as well.”<\/p>\n

Bush told his staff that he sees civility as a central part of the required behavior of White House staff. “There is no excuse for arrogance and never a reason for disrespect toward others,” he said. “I expect each of you … to be an example of humility and decency and fairness.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The president’s words that day came literally the day after he took the oath of office. Reading this now is almost comical in light of what we’ve seen since. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.<\/p>\n

Some will note that Bush, now floundering, is falling into the trap that has burdened so many of his predecessors: second-term overreach and complacency. But, remember, Bush is struggling because of his corruption and mismanagement from his first<\/i> term, not his second. <\/p>\n

In the Plame Game scandal, for example, Rove & Co. outed Plame, decided she was “fair game,” and lashed out at Joseph Wilson because “he’s a Democrat” just two years after the president warned his staff about staying “well within the boundaries [that] define legal and ethical conduct” and insisting he wanted his White House “to be an example of humility and decency and fairness.”<\/p>\n

The words read like a punch line to a joke now, don’t they?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atrios mentioned this yesterday, but I think it bears repeating. The overly legalistic approach to Karl Rove’s leak is wholly at odds with the high standards articulated by George W. Bush shortly after his inauguration. Looking back, the comments sound like those of a Bush critic in 2005, not the president himself in 2001. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}