{"id":9596,"date":"2007-01-12T09:45:53","date_gmt":"2007-01-12T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9596.html"},"modified":"2007-01-12T09:45:53","modified_gmt":"2007-01-12T14:45:53","slug":"lieberman-to-give-bush-a-pass-on-katrina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/lieberman-to-give-bush-a-pass-on-katrina\/","title":{"rendered":"Lieberman to give Bush a pass on Katrina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, it looked like congressional Dems would finally<\/a> get some long-sought after answers about the Bush administration’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. In particular, there’s a still-secret videoconference held shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans in which Michael Brown allegedly warned presidential aides that 90% of the city was being “displaced,” a dire warning which was greeted with “deafening silence.”<\/p>\n

Republicans refused to push the White House to divulge its Katrina materials, but Democrats, anxious to get the whole story, have been gearing up for a fight with the Bush gang. Newsweek noted that presidential aides “indicated that if Congress pressed harder, the White House was likely to claim such material was covered by executive privilege.” Against a subpoena, that may not matter.<\/p>\n

That was earlier in the week. Now, the plans have been scuttled. Take a wild guess who’s decided to give Bush a hand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat [sic<\/i>] to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Lieberman’s reversal underscores the new role that he is seeking to play in the Senate as the leading apostle of bipartisanship, especially on national-security issues. On Wednesday night, Bush conspicuously cited Lieberman’s advice as being the inspiration for creating a new “bipartisan working group” on Capitol Hill that he said will “help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror.”<\/p>\n

But the decision by Lieberman, the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to back away from the committee’s Katrina probe is already dismaying public-interest groups and others who hoped the Democratic victory in November would lead to more aggressive investigations of one of the White House’s most spectacular foul-ups.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This isn’t just a decision that undermines public accountability, it also goes against what the senator was saying late last year. Lieberman told voters, and the nation, that there were “too many important questions that cannot be answered,” and noted with dismay that his committee “did not receive information or documents showing what actually was going on in the White House.”<\/p>\n

That, of course, was before … when Lieberman was still running for re-election.
\n<\/p>\n

But now that he chairs the homeland panel — and is in a position to subpoena the records — Lieberman has decided not to pursue the material, according to Leslie Phillips, the senator’s chief committee spokeswoman. “The senator now intends to focus his attention on the future security of the American people and other matters and does not expect to revisit the White House’s role in Katrina,” she told NEWSWEEK.<\/p>\n

Phillips said that Lieberman may still follow up on some matters related to Katrina contracting. But in listing the Connecticut senator’s top priorities for the panel, she cited other areas, such as reform of homeland-security agencies and legislation promoting tighter security at U.S. seaports. Asked whether Lieberman’s new stand might feed complaints that he has become too close to the White House, Phillips responded: “The senator is an independent Democrat and answers only to the people who elected him to office and to his own conscience.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the House side, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is the new chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He’s a man with a legendary appetite for accountability<\/a> and public advocacy. His Senate counterpart is Joe Lieberman, with a legendary appetite for protecting Joe Lieberman.<\/p>\n

I like Harry Reid and I’m confident that he’s going to be a fine Senate Majority Leader. But allowing Lieberman to move up to be the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, a panel that is supposed to strike fear in the hearts of the White House, was the worst decision he’s made since midterm elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, it looked like congressional Dems would finally get some long-sought after answers about the Bush administration’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. In particular, there’s a still-secret videoconference held shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans in which Michael Brown allegedly warned presidential aides that 90% of the city was being “displaced,” a […]<\/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-9596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9596","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=9596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}