Bush Administration Has No Credibility Left

I should qualify the title of this post somewhat. Unless members of the Bush Administration face subpoena power or the risk of perjury charges or other legal ramifications, they have no credibility. When they are caught in their contradictions, it is amazing how fast they begin to backtrack, or rather, give the appearance of backtracking. It takes an enormous dose of arrogance, for example, for a president to promise an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA operative and then discover four years later that no such internal investigation ever took place.

The arrogance just rolls on, without apology and without respect for our constitution or the important checks and balances built into our system of government. Every presidency since the founding of our republic has been subject to accountability. That is how our system of government was set up. But no president, Nixon included, has ever fought harder to avoid accountability nor given so much reason to call for accountability than George W. Bush. The firing of the US Attorneys for political reasons was an act of bad faith, effectively an abuse of power and an undermining the integrity of our government. The Washington Post has the story on US Attorney Carol Lam (a Bush appointee in his first term and respected Republican) and the sudden anxiety months ago within the Bush Administration that Lam was apparently doing her job with too much competence:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a television appearance yesterday that Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants" in a criminal investigation of defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who had just quit as the CIA's top administrator amid questions about his ties to disgraced former GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

The next day, May 11, D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, sent an e-mail message to William Kelley in the White House counsel's office saying that Lam should be removed as quickly as possible, according to documents turned over to Congress last week.

"Please call me at your convenience to discuss the following," Sampson wrote, referring to "[t]he real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."

The FBI raided Foggo's home and former CIA office on May 12. He was indicted along with Wilkes on fraud and money-laundering charges on Feb. 13 -- two days before Lam left as U.S. attorney.

Whether it's Republicans in Congress like Duke Cunningham or Tom DeLay, whether it's people who support the Republican Party like Jack Abramoff or Ralph Reed or Grover Norquist or Ann Coulter, or whether it's people in the Bush Administration like Scooter Libby or Alberto Gonzales or Karl Rove, it's becoming difficult to keep track of the scandals being perpetrated by this generation of right wing Republicans. There are still honest and competent Republicans around but they're obviously not in control of the GOP at the moment. The problem begins at the top where there is a complete lack of leadership. From now on, until there is serious accountability within the Bush Administration, everything these folks touch is going to have an odor to it.