WASHINGTON — The prosecutor hasn't announced any indictments, but President Bush's aides and their allies in Congress are working on strategies to counter the blow if White House officials are accused of crimes.
The basic plan is familiar to anyone who has watched earlier presidents contend with scandal: Keep the problem at arm's length, let allies outside the White House do the talking, and try to change the subject to something — anything — else.
The White House doesn't plan to attack Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation — at least not directly, several GOP officials said. Instead, expect Bush to unveil a flurry of proposals on subjects from immigration and tax reform to Arab-Israeli peace talks.
"We've got a lot of work to do, and so we don't have a lot of time to sit back and think about" possible indictments, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday, reflecting the strategy. "We're focusing on what the American people care most about, and that is winning the war on terrorism, succeeding in Iraq, addressing high energy prices Â… and helping the people in the Gulf Coast region recover and rebuild."
Republicans outside the White House are pleading with Bush to act quickly and decisively if aides are indicted. "What is of most concern is that the president handle it properly — that he ask [officials who are indicted] to step down; that he not vacillate, not equivocate; that he be decisive," said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), a leading Republican moderate.
"Changing the subject will not work," said David Gergen, a former aide to Presidents Reagan and Clinton. "Giving more speeches about Iraq or the state of the economy doesn't have the weight that action doesÂ…. It's dangerous for the country to have a disabled president for three years, and we're getting close to seeing that happen. I worry that they [Bush and his aides] are in denial."
And GOP pollster David Winston warned that discontent among Republicans in Congress was rising. "This is not the environment that Republicans want to run in next year," Winston said.
Why doesn't this also surprise me? The Bush White House has got a huge credibility problem here. Their public opinion poll numbers have gone south. Much of their agenda is dead--you don't hear anything about Social Security Privitization anymore, health care costs are ballooning, and the budget is a total disaster with looming deficits. Energy costs are starting to increase, even as big energy companies are recording record profits again. Casualties for the war in Iraq has just passed 2000, and there is no end in sight for that disaster. And to top it off, Harriet Miers just withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court, so no confirmation hearings to deflect from the upcoming indictments. And there's even bigger problems looming for the Bush team. If Karl Rove is indicted and forced to step down, the Bush White House has just lost their greatest political strategist. Do you think that President Bush will find someone--or someones--who can replace Rove? Continuing on:
So far, the probe has attracted relatively little attention from the public. One recent poll found that 50% of those surveyed recognized Rove's name; NBC's "Today" show ran a three-minute primer on the case Wednesday morning called "Leak Investigation for Dummies."
But at a time when Bush's standing in public opinion polls has been battered by soaring gasoline prices and rising pessimism about the war in Iraq, the prospect that several White House aides might be indicted was being treated — despite McClellan's public dismissals — as a potentially major political crisis.
"We've had discussions; we've gamed out different scenarios," said one Republican strategist in frequent contact with the White House. "But to try to put together a big binder with 18 different tabs is a fool's errand at this point. There are so many different ways this could play out."
If tstoryimes stor is correct in that the probe has not attracted as much attention to the mainstream American public, it will attract attention once indictments are handed down against the Bush White House. People will start to notice--especially since the electorate is already grumbling about the problems in this country and have reflected this discontent in Bush's poll numbers. Putting together a tab of alternative issues as a means to deflect the indictments may just backfire. But the Bush supporters are taking an alternative view:
White House officials and allies are hoping that intensive news coverage of the Fitzgerald investigation will be short-lived. On Nov. 7, they predicted, attention would shift to the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers.
Miers has already withdrawn her nomination to the court, causing another problem for the Bush White House. Now the president will have to try to find another nominee to replace O'Conner.
Once the controversy begins to subside, they argued, Bush will have an opening to change the subject and call public attention to Iraq and the domestic economy, where the administration says there is good news.
"Because all this other snap, crackle and pop is occurring, it's harder to tell the story of the progress being made on the foreign policy front and the economic front," another strategist said. "When some of these other stories expire, it will be easier to get back on those issues."
Some conservative Republican members of Congress and activists outside the White House agreed with that view.
"The only thing I ever learned from Bill Clinton was that when problems are nipping at the heels of an administration or a party, it's always a good idea to return to the agenda that brought you to Washington, D.C.," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a leading House conservative. "The American people who care about Republican governance in Washington, D.C., will be heartened and encouraged if we put our heads down and return to our agenda."
The problems of Clinton's scandal resulted from Bill Clinton's personal failings. The Clinton sex scandals had nothing to do with his job performance as president, nor did it directly affect the country. The scandals of President Bush are completely opposite. They are not a direct result of Bush's personal failings, but rather they are a result of Bush's management team subverting the law for the administration's political gain--members of the Bush White House broke the law by outing CIA officer Valerie Plame in retribution for her husband Ambassador Joe Wilson's criticisms against the White House arguments for going to war in Iraq. This has directly affected the country--in 2000 American solder's lives lost, in hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in a war, and in the destroyed reputation and stature of the United States in world public opinion. The Bush administration will have a hard time trying to deflect, or casually explain away the destructive effects of this scandal.
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