I think Mr. Bush has at least decided he needs to appear to be interested in ethics. As with everything in the Bush White House, this is poll driven. Bush's numbers are at a historic low for his presidency, and the public has serious problems (finally!) with the ethics, or rather the lack of them, of this Administration. Check this out: Bush Orders Staff to Attend Ethics Briefings White House Counsel to Give 'Refresher' Course By Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 5, 2005; A02 President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe. According to a memo sent to aides yesterday, Bush expects all White House staff to adhere to the "spirit as well as the letter" of all ethics laws and rules. As a result, "the White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations next week that will provide refresher lectures on general ethics rules, including the rules of governing the protection of classified information," according to the memo, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post by a senior White House aide. The mandatory ethics primer is the first step Bush plans to take in coming weeks in response to the CIA leak probe that led to the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, and which still threatens Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff. Libby was indicted last week in connection with the two-year investigation. He resigned when the indictment was announced and on Thursday pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to federal investigators and a grand jury about his conversations with reporters. A senior aide said Bush decided to mandate the ethics course during private meetings last weekend with Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and counsel Harriet Miers. Miers's office will conduct the ethics briefings. The meetings come as Bush faces increasing pressure from Democrats to revoke a security clearance for Rove as punishment for Rove's role in unmasking to reporters a CIA operative whose husband was critical of the White House's prewar assessment of Iraq's weapons capabilities. The five-count indictment against Libby maintains that other government officials were aware of, if not involved in, leaking the identity of Valerie Plame to the media. Bush's domestic woes followed him to a meeting of Western Hemisphere leaders in Argentina yesterday, where he sidestepped questions on whether Rove will keep his job. Speaking to reporters before the official opening of the two-day Summit of the Americas, Bush refused to discuss Rove's future while the probe is ongoing. "We're going through a very serious investigation," Bush said. "And I . . . have told you before that I'm not going to discuss the investigation until it's completed." Bush also refused to address a question about whether he owes the American people an apology for his administration's assertions that Rove and Libby were not involved in leaking Plame's name, when it later became clear that they were. Plame is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who became a vocal critic of the administration's rationale for invading Iraq. "It's a serious investigation, and it's an important investigation. But it's not over yet," Bush said. "I think it's important for the American people to know that I understand my job is to set clear goals and deal with the problems we face." The case has apparently helped erode public confidence in Bush's integrity. Among those responding to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 40 percent said they viewed the president as honest and trustworthy -- a drop of 13 percentage points in the past 18 months. Half of those surveyed said they believed Rove did something wrong in the case, and about 6 in 10 said Rove should resign. But Bush attempted to wave away those findings yesterday. "I understand that there is a preoccupation by polls by some," the president said. "The way you earn credibility with the American people is to declare an agenda that everybody can understand, an agenda that relates to their lives, and get the job done." Some senior aides have privately discussed whether it is politically tenable for Rove to remain in the White House even if he is not charged. Others raised the possibility of Rove apologizing for his role, especially for telling White House spokesman Scott McClellan and Bush that he was not involved in the leak. McClellan relayed Rove's denial to the public. A senior Bush aide said the "mandatory sessions on classified material is a result of a directive by the president in light of the [CIA] investigation." Next week's meeting is for West Wing aides with security clearance, which allows them to view and discuss sensitive or classified material. Information about Plame was classified. Rove is among those aides who must attend. "There will be no exceptions," the memo states. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110402040.html In my opinion, the Bush White House has been knocked back on it's heels by the so-called "perfect storm" of bad news... the on-going war in Iraq, with no end in sight and increasing numbers of casualties, the terrible initial response to Katrina, with the embarrassing, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!" still echoing in the minds of Americans, the incredible record deficits that appear to be never ending, the scandal of the Plame Affair, with the Chief of Staff of the Vice President under indictment on 5 different counts, with the investigation continuing and increasing calls for Rove to leave the White House from Republicans (see Lott, Trent) as well as Democrats... golly, one could go on for a long time. The American people have become fed up. Want proof? Just look at how they're feeling: This isn't an American public that is uncertain about their feelings towards the Administration. An astonishingly low 1% didn't have an opinion and 60% disapproved of the job President Bush is doing. The 39% who approve represents his base, in my opinion. Another question: "Do you think things in this country are generally going in the right direction or do you feel things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track?" The response? 68% feel things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track versus 30% who feel the country is headed in the right direction. Those are amazingly poor numbers for Bush and a Republican Party headed towards the '06 midterm elections. Is Bush honest and trustworthy? 40% say yes, 58% say no. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll110305.htm The worst thing in the poll for Republicans heading into the '06 elections? Among independents, Bush's approval has plummeted since the beginning of the year. In the latest poll, 33 percent of independents approved of his performance, while 66 percent disapproved. In January, independents were evenly divided, with 49 percent approving and an equal percentage disapproving. Wow. Keep D&D Civil.
Why, impeachment means to make the President into a sweet and mellow peach, of course. Sure feels great to be in the majority. USA #1!
Forget impeachment. It will never happen. The last thing Bush's opponents want to see is President Dick Cheney. Personally, I'm surprised the father of a serviceman who died in Iraq hasn't put a cap in Bush's cobweb-filled head by now.
Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions By DOUGLAS JEHL WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document. The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons. The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases." The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mr. Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about Mr. Libi's statements dramatized what he called the Bush administration's misuse of prewar intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq. That is an issue that Mr. Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize, in part by calling attention to the fact that the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to deliver a promised report, first sought more than two years ago, on the use of prewar intelligence. A White House spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the D.I.A. report on Mr. Libi. But Senate Republicans, put on the defensive when Democrats forced a closed session of the Senate this week to discuss the issue, have been arguing that Republicans were not alone in making prewar assertions about Iraq, illicit weapons and terrorism that have since been discredited. Mr. Libi, who was captured in Pakistan at the end of 2001, recanted his claims in January 2004. That prompted the C.I.A. , a month later, to recall all intelligence reports based on his statements, a fact recorded in a footnote to the report issued by the Sept. 11 commission. Mr. Libi was not alone among intelligence sources later determined to have been fabricating accounts. Among others, an Iraqi exile whose code name was Curveball was the primary source for what proved to be false information about Iraq and mobile biological weapons labs. And American military officials cultivated ties with Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group, who has been accused of feeding the Pentagon misleading information in urging war. The report issued by the Senate intelligence committee in July 2004 questioned whether some versions of intelligence report prepared by the C.I.A. in late 2002 and early 2003 raised sufficient questions about the reliability of Mr. Libi's claims. But neither that report nor another issued by the Sept. 11 commission made any reference to the existence of the earlier and more skeptical 2002 report by the D.I.A., which supplies intelligence to military commanders and national security policy makers. As an official intelligence report, labeled DITSUM No. 044-02, the document would have circulated widely within the government, and it would have been available to the C.I.A., the White House, the Pentagon and other agencies. It remains unclear whether the D.I.A. document was provided to the Senate panel. In outlining reasons for its skepticism, the D.I.A. report noted that Mr. Libi's claims lacked specific details about the Iraqis involved, the illicit weapons used and the location where the training was to have taken place. "It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers," the February 2002 report said. "Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest." Mr. Powell relied heavily on accounts provided by Mr. Libi for his speech to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, saying that he was tracing "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda." At the time of Mr. Powell's speech, an unclassified statement by the C.I.A. described the reporting, now known to have been from Mr. Libi, as "credible." But Mr. Levin said he had learned that a classified C.I.A. assessment at the time went on to state that "the source was not in a position to know if any training had taken place." In an interview on Friday, Mr. Levin also called attention to another portion of the D.I.A. report, which expressed skepticism about the idea of close collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda, an idea that was never substantiated by American intelligence agencies but was a pillar of the administration's prewar claims. "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements," the D.I.A. report said in one of two declassified paragraphs. "Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." At the time of his capture, Mr. Libi was the most senior Qaeda official in American custody. The D.I.A. document gave no indication of where he was being held, or what interrogation methods were used on him. Mr. Libi remains in custody, apparently at in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he was sent in 2003, according to government officials. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/p...&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Impeachment doesn't mean the president has to step down. Clinton was impeached by the house but finished his term. The senate didn't kick him out though. It's just one big step of removing a president from office. At this point, the Bush presidency is losing power anyway. It will be interesting to see how an unpopular president can lead a country. Gotta expect the dems to make a strong showing next year - if they don't, man that would be pathetic.
I have a better question- "If Dick Cheney had forknowledge of the 9/11 hi-jackings and was complicite in their success should he be tried as a traitor?"
