Juggling Toxic Potatoes

Bush says he’s going to invoke executive privilege to avoid turning over documents about Harriet Miers’ work in the White House. "It's a red line I'm not willing to cross," Bush claimed. “We are not going to destroy this business about people being able to walk into the Oval Office” and give advice to the President, he said. Okay. That’s what he said. But what does it mean? It means the White House has found a way to deep six the Miers albatross. Salon.com made the argument that this is simply the out that Charles Krauthammer suggested last week: The WH stands firm that they won’t release the documents. The Senators say that without the documents they can’t consider the Miers nomination. And Miers, for the good of the country, withdraws her name as a Supreme Court nominee. It’s a fairly neat way for the WH to get rid of the Harriet Miers curse without having to admit it was wrong. But all of the recent WH fast shuffles won’t get rid of the main problem: The White House is wrong on every major issue facing the nation and the voters know it. It’s the same thing with the Cheney problem re Valerie Plame. Scooter Libby’s notes say Cheney got info about Valerie Plame from CIA head, George Tenet. But the crux of this stinkhole is that disclosing the identity of an undercover agent is only a crime if the person discloses an agent’s identity knows that the person had undercover status. It is impossible to prove what Cheney knew and what he didn’t know. Unless someone comes forward who will swear under oath that he told Cheney that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent, Cheney can swear he only knew she worked in the CIA. The White House crew is scrambling around like high-profile johns looking for the backstairs out of a whorehouse. And yet, the American public knows the truth. The entire Bush administration, the White House Iraq Group and everyone associated with them are beginning to glow in the dark. The spin cannot hide the telltale radioactive decay. But the juggling act this week sure is going to be worth watching.