Dallas Morning News October 01, 2003
Bush gets first taste of scandal, Thrust ... , ... & parry
BY Robert Hillman and Michelle Mittelstadt
WASHINGTON -- The scene at the White House on Tuesday was all too familiar -- reporters running through the hallways, frantic cell phone calls, urgent updates on the news wires and breaking news on the cable TV networks.
It was a scene played out repeatedly over the years, most recently during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals of the Clinton administration. Now it's unfolding for the first time in the Bush White House.
In this case, the Justice Department has launched a full-scale criminal investigation to determine who in the Bush administration might have leaked the identity of a CIA operative -- and why.
In Washington, scandals come and go like the four seasons. Some have blossomed into stories of historic proportions; others have withered quickly.
Just how this one might develop is still anyone's guess. But clearly in the short term, it's another headache for President Bush, who is heading into an election year facing increasingly tough questions about his rationale for war against Iraq and its troubled aftermath.
"It's just other pawn on the game board in this larger pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game about whether there was sufficient intelligence to justify war with Iraq," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-area think tank that examines intelligence and defense policy.
The White House's current discomfort can be traced to the July 14 disclosure by conservative columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA operative.
The media largely ignored the Novak revelation, despite Wilson's oft-repeated claims that the White House was meting out punishment for the criticisms he had stirred over the quality of intelligence used to go to war. But his charges gained new steam last week, with word that the CIA had requested an investigation.
Wilson initially fingered White House senior adviser Karl Rove, Bush's longtime chief political strategist, as the leaker. But the White House has vehemently denied that Rove was involved, and Wilson has toned down his accusation.
Sensing an opening, Democrats on Capitol Hill and the campaign trail ratcheted up their criticisms and demanded that Attorney General John Ashcroft name a special counsel to handle the investigation.
Intent on keeping the controversy in the public eye, House Democrats invited Wilson to address their caucus today. Wilson, according to The Washington Post, makes no secret of being a left-leaning Democrat but says he has no political agenda.
Republicans respond that the Democrats are only playing politics, and political analysts predict the rhetoric will continue to flow along partisan lines.
"Both parties are guilty of selective outrage," said Washington analyst Charles Cook. "If you're a Democrat or a liberal, this just confirms all your worst suspicions. And if you're a conservative or a Republican, you will have selective outrage and just overlook it and move on."
So far, the White House has rejected the calls for a special counsel, though the Justice Department has not ruled one out.
The issue is a sensitive one, not only for the White House, but also for Ashcroft, a former Republican senator from Missouri who once retained Rove as a campaign consultant.
The attorney general was in no mood to elaborate during a news conference Tuesday, where he read a statement promising a full investigation by career Justice Department staff.
Ashcroft cut off questions after he was asked twice by reporters if he could assure the nation his investigation would be independent. "Apparently there aren't any other questions," he said as he stalked out of the room.
Later in Chicago, where he addressed a re-election fund-raiser and met with business leaders, Bush was more patient.
"I want to know the truth," he said, welcoming the Justice investigation, which he said would be carried out fairly.
From Washington to Chicago, the questions kept coming. Chief among them: Just where does this investigation go?
A veteran of the many Clinton scrapes predicts that ultimately there will be an independent investigation.
"The question is when," said Chris Lehane, a lawyer who worked in the Clinton White House and was Vice President Al Gore's press secretary during the 2000 campaign.
Unlike the Clinton scandals of Whitewater, which dealt with personal finances, and Monica Lewinsky, Lehane noted, the investigation of the Bush White House deals with national security issues. And he said they "directly implicate the broader policy decisions by the administration on Iraq."
Copyright 2003 Dallas Morning News
