Dishonesty even the media can’t ignore…
The N.Y. Times finally gets some balls!
The following are excerpts from today’s editorial about the White House offer to allow interviews with top officials (including Karl Rove) instead of testifying properly under oath in the attorney purge scandal.
The times slammed Bush’s speech from yesterday, in which he claimed the democrats were more interested in scoring political points than uncovering the truth, then went on to deny that the Bushies should testify properly:
“In nasty and bumbling comments made at the White House yesterday, President Bush declared that ‘people just need to hear the truth’ about the firing of eight United States attorneys…That’s right. Unfortunately, the deal Mr. Bush offered Congress to make White House officials available for ‘interviews’ did not come close to meeting that standard.”
“Mr. Bush’s proposal was a formula for hiding the truth, and for protecting the president and his staff from a legitimate inquiry by Congress. Mr. Bush’s idea of openness involved sending White House officials to Congress to answer questions in private, without taking any oath, making a transcript or allowing any follow-up appearances. The people, in other words, would be kept in the dark.”
“Congress has the right and the duty to fully investigate the firings, which may have been illegal, and Justice Department officials’ statements to Congress, which may have been untrue.”
“…No great surprise that top officials of this administration believe they do not need to testify before Congress,” since “this is an administration that has shown over and over that it does not believe that the laws apply to it, and that it does not respect its co-equal branches of government.”
“The White House notes that making misrepresentations to Congress is illegal, even if no oath is taken. But that seems to be where the lack of a transcript comes in. It would be hard to prove what Mr. Rove and others said if no official record existed..Mr. Bush’s overall strategy seems clear: to stop Congress from learning what went on within the White House, which may well be where the key decisions to fire the attorneys were made.”