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roachboy · 10-30-2005, 02:57 PM

even members of the rulilng oligarchy think that bush needs to get rid of some people over this scandal. apparently they are not persuaded by the conservative talking points that dominate the responses from the right in this thread, and which consist in trying to pretend that there is no scandal:

Quote:

Lawmakers From Both Parties Call for White House Shakeup
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 - Senior lawmakers from both major political parties called today for a White House shakeup in the wake of the C.I.A. leak case, and some urged an internal investigation into any involvement by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Democrats called on both President Bush and Mr. Cheney to apologize to the American people for the affair that led to the indictment on Friday of Mr. Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr. Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, remains under investigation by the special federal prosecutor.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney "should come clean with the American public," the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said. "The president, I guess, is still being driven by Karl Rove," he said on ABC's "This Week." Later, on CNN, he added, "He should be let go."

Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, a former Senate majority leader, urged Mr. Bush to bring "new blood" into the White House. Asked whether he expected Mr. Bush to forcefully address his problems, Mr. Lott replied: "I think he is a man that knows when there's a time to make moves and take actions. He will do that."

Mr. Libby resigned on Friday after being indicted on five counts, including perjury before a grand jury in the leak case, all involving false statements that investigators said he had made to them.

As the White House digested Mr. Libby's departure and sought to map a recovery from that and other recent setbacks, Mr. Bush met with advisers at his Camp David retreat, and senior administration officials stayed away from the Sunday morning news programs. But some Republicans who did venture into the spotlight sought to give the Libby matter the narrowest possible focus and to turn the page quickly.

"This is a serious matter," said Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, speaking on CNN, "but I think you go on with the agenda." And Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said that anyone trying to turn the scandal to Mr. Bush's political disadvantage is "going to be disappointed by the fact that this appears to be limited to a single individual."

Most immediate among the issues facing Mr. Bush is his next nominee for the Supreme Court seat now held by Sandra Day O'Connor. His initial nominee, his White House counsel, Harriet Miers, withdrew on Thursday under heavy bipartisan criticism. Mr. Bush is expected to announce a new nominee as early as Monday.

There was no consensus among political figures and pundits as to whether the combination of Ms. Miers's forced withdrawal and Mr. Libby's indictment would leave Mr. Bush seeking confrontation or accommodation with his next choice.

The case that produced Mr. Libby's indictment on Friday and continues to leave a cloud over Mr. Rove began with a column by Robert Novak in July 2003 that identified Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative. That and other news reports, identifying her as an undercover C.I.A. officer, were seen by some as retaliation for the vocal criticism of the Iraq war by her husband, a former ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had been dispatched to Africa by the C.I.A. in 2002 to investigate intelligence reports about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium.

In announcing the indictments on Friday, the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, emphasized that Mr. Rove remained under investigation, but he provided scant elaboration, leaving unclear the degree of Mr. Rove's continuing legal exposure.

But one senior Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, himself a former prosecutor, went so far today as to say that "I think the likelihood of Karl Rove being indicted in the future is virtually zero."

He did recommend that Mr. Bush launch an internal investigation of any involvement by the vice president's office in the leaking of Ms. Plame's name.

Politically, however, Mr. Rove appears vulnerable. Mr. Lott , a former Senate majority leader, suggested that Mr. Rove's future in the White House remained unsure. "If this is going to be ongoing, if he has a problem, he's got to step up and acknowledge it and deal with it," Mr. Lott said on Fox-TV.

Asked if he was urging a wider shakeup, Mr. Lott said, "You should always be looking for new blood, new energy," but added, "I'm not talking about wholesale changes."

Democrats again sought today to frame the leak scandal as reaching beyond Mr. Libby and implicating Mr. Cheney , and therefore affecting the broader debate over how the administration moved the nation toward war.

"The vice president was the leader of the effort here to get us into this war in Iraq," said Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. To suggest that the Plame leak had nothing to do with the war "is to be terribly naïve," he said on Fox-TV.

But Senator Lott rejected this approach. Those who try to tie the vice president to the leaks, Mr. Lott said, were bound to "fail miserably."

Conservative commentators today emphasized that Mr. Fitzgerald appeared not to have found evidence to indict anyone on the underlying charge of knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert C.I.A agent, and even argued that the affair could soon slip from the public memory.

But Senator Dodd countered that Mr. Bush would make a mistake to assume that the leak problem would simply be forgotten with time.

"I think he makes a mistake if he minimizes it," he said. "Do not minimize this. This is very serious, and it's not going to go away."

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/po...rtner=homepage

and a summary of a recent opinion poll, solliciting public reactions to the scandal that the right would prefer simply went away:

Quote:

White House Ethics, Honesty Questioned
55% in Survey Say Libby Case Signals Broader Problems

By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 30, 2005; A14

A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an "isolated incident." And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.

In the aftermath of the latest crisis to confront the White House, Bush's overall job approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls. Barely a third of Americans -- 34 percent -- think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton's standing on this issue when he left office.

The survey also found that nearly seven in 10 Americans consider the charges against Libby to be serious. A majority -- 55 percent -- said the decision of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald to bring charges against Libby was based on the facts of the case, while 30 percent said he was motivated by partisan politics.

"One thing you can't ever, ever do even if you're a regular person is lie to a grand jury," said Brad Morris, 48, a registered independent and a field representative for a lumber company who lives in Nashua, N.H. "But multiply that by a thousand times if you have power like [Libby had]. And if anybody wants to know why, ask Scooter. He's financially ruined; he'll be paying lawyers for the rest of his life."

Taken together, the findings represent a serious blow to a White House already reeling from the politically damaging effects of the slow government response to Hurricane Katrina, the continuing bloodshed in Iraq, the ongoing criticism of its since-repudiated claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the bungled nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

The ethics findings may be particularly upsetting to a president who came to office in 2000 vowing to restore integrity and honor to a White House that he said had been tainted by the recurring scandals of the Clinton years.

On Friday, a federal grand jury in Washington indicted Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, on two counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice in the course of Fitzgerald's investigation into the disclosure of the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to reporters. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has accused the Bush administration of going to war in Iraq based on intelligence officials knew was untrue.

The survey of 600 randomly selected Americans represents a snapshot of initial reactions to the Libby indictment. Those views could quickly change as the public learns more about the charges and as Republicans and Democrats mount competing campaigns to shape public attitudes. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus four percentage points.

Those campaigns may play an influential role in the public's final conclusions about the leak investigation. In the 24 hours after Fitzgerald's news conference, the survey and follow-up interviews found many Americans confused as to what, if anything, to make of the complicated indictment.

Ellen Mulligan, 34, a Republican and part-time art teacher who lives in Hamden, Conn., was one of these. "If I understood what happened, Vice President Cheney's adviser spoke to his wife and then she leaked the secret," Mulligan said.

That is not an allegation in the indictment, but though Mulligan may not know exactly what happened, the scandal for her is both typical Washington and part of a broader pattern of ethical challenges in this administration. "My actual opinion is more, 'Here we go again.' Every administration has their secrets and has some corruption," she said. But she is disappointed with Bush on the ethics front. "I think Bush's actions in certain situations are pretty much unethical, [though] not illegal. . . . He's definitely not his father. His father seemed more wholesome, more down-to-earth."

The survey found some areas of general agreement. Most Republicans, 57 percent, said that the obstruction of justice and perjury charges are serious, compared with 81 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents.

But once past the specifics of the charges against Libby, Republicans and Democrats differed dramatically. While a large majority of Democrats (76 percent) said the case is a sign of broader ethical problems in the administration, an equally large majority of Republicans (69 percent) said it was an isolated matter. Most Republicans continued to give Bush high marks for his handling of ethics in government, while Democrats overwhelmingly graded him poorly.

The survey also suggests the emergence of an appealing fresh face in public life: special prosecutor Fitzgerald. Fifty-five percent said Fitzgerald brought the charges against Libby based on the facts of the case and not for partisan political reasons. Less than a third -- 30 percent -- said Fitzgerald was politically motivated.

"I was very impressed by him," said Dorothy Harper, 56, an immigration lawyer and a St. Louis Democrat, who watched portions of Fitzgerald's news conference. "He was very impressive. He obviously knew what he was doing."

Many Americans believe that others may be involved in the disclosure of Plame's identity to the news media. Nearly half -- 47 percent -- believe that senior White House adviser Karl Rove did something wrong in connection with the case, including nearly a fifth who believe that Rove acted illegally.

On Friday, Rove was not indicted, though Fitzgerald's investigation is continuing.

A smaller but still significant proportion -- 41 percent -- believe Cheney did something wrong, while 44 percent believe he did not.

Most Americans believe Bush had nothing to do with the incidents that resulted in the indictment brought against Libby: 55 percent said the president was not at fault, while 12 percent said he probably did something illegal, and 21 percent said he did something "unethical but not illegal."

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102901223.html

apparently not everyone is as willing as are the conservatives in this thread to dissolve this bushcrisis.

comparisions to the clinton business are interesting only in the most superficial possible sense: it does not take a rocket scientist to note the difference between lying about a blow job and lying about the reasons to go to war.
you would think that folk on the right, who mostly fancy themselves the guardians of Morality (wasn't that a recurrent rationale for supporting bush in the first place, his "morality"?--well, this shows what that word actually means) would be able to sort out these differences.
from this thread, apparently expecting this sort of thinking is asking too much.

a graphic of bush's approval ratings from across the whole of his sorry presidency:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102901606.html

the right is at this point a clear minority position.
their arguments do not persuade.