Hunkered in the Bunker with Bush

Hunkered in the Bunker with Bush

As his Presidency falls apart,
George W. waits for more Bad News

One year after his re-election President Bush governs from a bunker. “We go forward with complete confidence,” he pronounced during his second inaugural address, urging “our youngest citizens” to see the future “in the determined faces of our soldiers” and to choose between “evil” and “courage”; but as he listened to Bush that day, Vice President Dick Cheney knew the election had been secured by a cover-up.

“I would have wished nothing better,” said Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in his press conference on October 28, announcing the indictment on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff, “that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail.”

The indictment of Libby documents that it was Cheney who confirmed the exact identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to him. The indictment also describes a figure called “Official A,” subsequently disclosed to be Karl Rove, the president’s chief political advisor, who informed Libby that he had told conservative columnist Robert Novak of Plame’s secret status. The next day -- July 12, 2003 -- Libby deliberated with Cheney on how to handle the press on the matter.

That same day, Libby revealed Plame’s identity to two reporters: Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. Then Libby falsely testified that he had learned Plame’s name from reporters. On September 30, 2003, President Bush emphatically stated that he wanted anyone in his administration with information about the Plame leak to “come forward”; if anyone inside was involved, he wanted to know; and if anyone had violated the law, “the person will be taken care of.” On June 10, 2004, he pledged that anyone on his staff who had leaked Plame’s name would be fired.

When the Libby indictment was announced, Bush and Cheney praised him as a fine public servant. Still under investigation, Rove remains in the West Wing. But Cheney knew during the presidential campaign that he had discussed with Libby how to deal with Plame. Now Bush knows that Rove had enabled Novak to publish her identity. But the president’s promise to fire officials is suddenly out of order. It is apparently okay for aides to lie to the president and compromise national security so long as they further his short-term political benefit. Ever-shifting ends justify ever-shifting means.

Libby’s alleged cover-up smacks of neo-conservative Socialism while the administration, which sets all policy and uses the party as its instrument, rationalizes any tactic. Libby is a deeply seeded neo-conservative zealot, possessing long experience and great bureaucratic skill -- an inside man, never seeking the spotlight for himself. If he had testified honestly in October 2004, the result would have consumed the final days of the campaign. His twisted logic permitted him to protect the Republican cause -- but he has tainted Bush’s victory and his place in history.

Bush took his 2004 win as a resounding mandate for a right-wing agenda. His second term was to be the fulfillment of conservative dreams to roll back decades of liberalism. With each right turn, however, his popularity declined. Iraq acted as an accelerator of his fall.

His nomination of his White House legal counsel Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court was an acknowledgment of his sharply narrowed political space. Bush believed he could thread the needle with her because her record was unknown. While the Republican masses supported him, the zealot neo-con right staged a revolt. In Bush’s cronyism and opportunism, they saw his disloyal departure. With the prosecutor’s indictment imminent, Bush withdrew Miers and caved. Broadly unpopular, he couldn’t suffer a split right; his new nominee, Federal Judge Samuel Alito, is a tribute to his bunker strategy.

Hostage to his failed fortune, Bush is now a prisoner of the right while his administration has become its own little republic of fear. Libby’s public trial will reveal the administration’s political methods. Cheney, along with a host of others, will be called to testify.

Whatever other catastrophes may befall Bush, the worst of them might be the inevitable twisting of the blade by neo-cons let down by their leaders -- and those folks go for the jugular…as George W. Bush knows all too well…