Saturday, October 15, 2005
GOP Steamrolled by Dem Investigations
Democrats have discovered the tool which they believe will finally wrest control of both Congress and the White House from GOP hands in the next few years - and they may very well turn out to be right.
Scandalmongering.
Just a few short years ago, Dems were complaining about the politics of personal destruction, with friendly pollsters reminding at regular intervals that the public was suffering from "scandal fatigue."
But Democrats and their media friends are fatigued no longer. With Tom DeLay forced to step down over bogus charges of "money laundering," Bill Frist under investigation for the sale of stock in his family business and Karl Rove, according to breathless media predictions, about to be indicted any second now - happy days are here again.
What's wrong with this picture?
Simply this: A little GOP scrutiny directed towards a myriad of alleged crimes perpetrated by Democrats could easily neutralize their ability to wage the current investigative jihad.
Yet the Republican controlled Justice Department and congressional oversight committees refuse to lift a finger.
While a special prosecutor threatens to upend the Bush White House with indictments of top aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, former national security advisor Sandy Berger continues to carry on as a trusted advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton - and remains a respected "expert" in media circles.
Why? Because the Bush Justice Department let Berger off earlier this year with a slap on the wrist plea bargain after he confessed to stealing and destroying top secret national security documents.
If a more serious crime has ever been committed by a senior White House official, we can't think of it.
By copping a plea, however, Berger shut down any further public examination of the serious questions that remain about this episode.
Such as:
• Did he act of his own volition - or at the direction of somebody else? Berger was reportedly on a mission to research the Clinton administration's terrorism record in advance of both his and Mr. Clinton's testimony before the 9/11 Commission. In fact, Berger accompanied Clinton to his April 9, 2004 interrogation by the 9/11 commission.
So it's reasonable to ask whether he was protecting someone else's interests as well as his own by destroying key terrorism documents.
• Who was Berger calling from the Nations Archives? Guards report that he repeatedly asked for privacy so he could make phone calls as he sifted through the archives. Was he calling Clinton or trusted consigliere Bruce Lindsey - who was also brought along for the April 9 session? If so, did those coversations have anything to do with documents that later went missing?
• What did Berger's notes say? National Archive regulations stipulate that anyone reviewing records may make private notes - but must relinquish them to the staff before leaving. Did Berger do that? And if he took his notes home along with the purloined documents, what happened to them? [Removing and destroying those notes would also be a crime.]
By itself, the Sandy Berger scandal dwarfs by a factor of fifty anything currently being probed by Democrats and the prosecutors they're now cheering on. And while the Bush Justice Department may have gone into the tank, that's no excuse for Congress.
Getting to the bottom of one of the most serious crimes in the history of the U.S. government - perpetrated with the obvious intention of subverting the 9/11 Commission's investigation - would seem to be very much in the public interest, not to mention fully within in the purview of Congress' oversight responsibility.
Compare the legitimacy of a congressional Berger probe to the bid by Democrats' to nail Tom DeLay on phantom campaign finance charges. Or even attempts by an otherwise credible prosecutor, Partrick Fitzgerald, to prove that Karl Rove lied about a case where - as now seems likely - no initial crime was committed.
The Berger case isn't the only important scandal GOP'ers have taken a pass on.
Imagine congressional reaction if - six weeks before the 2004 election - Fox News had broadcast forged documents purporting to show that John Kerry had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy. There wouldn't be enough committee rooms on Capitol Hill to hold all the investigations.
Likewise, a Senate Intelligence Committee memo that surfaced in 2003 suggesting that Democrats were prepared to leak classified information in a bid to undermine President Bush's reelection chances bears some looking into.
Still, elected Republicans refuse to act.
Absent any GOP interest in spotlighting alleged crimes that may have genuinely damaged the national interest, Republicans shouldn't be surprised to find themselves surrendering control of Congress in 2006 - along with the White House two years later.
Democrats have discovered the tool which they believe will finally wrest control of both Congress and the White House from GOP hands in the next few years - and they may very well turn out to be right.
Scandalmongering.
Just a few short years ago, Dems were complaining about the politics of personal destruction, with friendly pollsters reminding at regular intervals that the public was suffering from "scandal fatigue."
But Democrats and their media friends are fatigued no longer. With Tom DeLay forced to step down over bogus charges of "money laundering," Bill Frist under investigation for the sale of stock in his family business and Karl Rove, according to breathless media predictions, about to be indicted any second now - happy days are here again.
What's wrong with this picture?
Simply this: A little GOP scrutiny directed towards a myriad of alleged crimes perpetrated by Democrats could easily neutralize their ability to wage the current investigative jihad.
Yet the Republican controlled Justice Department and congressional oversight committees refuse to lift a finger.
While a special prosecutor threatens to upend the Bush White House with indictments of top aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, former national security advisor Sandy Berger continues to carry on as a trusted advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton - and remains a respected "expert" in media circles.
Why? Because the Bush Justice Department let Berger off earlier this year with a slap on the wrist plea bargain after he confessed to stealing and destroying top secret national security documents.
If a more serious crime has ever been committed by a senior White House official, we can't think of it.
By copping a plea, however, Berger shut down any further public examination of the serious questions that remain about this episode.
Such as:
• Did he act of his own volition - or at the direction of somebody else? Berger was reportedly on a mission to research the Clinton administration's terrorism record in advance of both his and Mr. Clinton's testimony before the 9/11 Commission. In fact, Berger accompanied Clinton to his April 9, 2004 interrogation by the 9/11 commission.
So it's reasonable to ask whether he was protecting someone else's interests as well as his own by destroying key terrorism documents.
• Who was Berger calling from the Nations Archives? Guards report that he repeatedly asked for privacy so he could make phone calls as he sifted through the archives. Was he calling Clinton or trusted consigliere Bruce Lindsey - who was also brought along for the April 9 session? If so, did those coversations have anything to do with documents that later went missing?
• What did Berger's notes say? National Archive regulations stipulate that anyone reviewing records may make private notes - but must relinquish them to the staff before leaving. Did Berger do that? And if he took his notes home along with the purloined documents, what happened to them? [Removing and destroying those notes would also be a crime.]
By itself, the Sandy Berger scandal dwarfs by a factor of fifty anything currently being probed by Democrats and the prosecutors they're now cheering on. And while the Bush Justice Department may have gone into the tank, that's no excuse for Congress.
Getting to the bottom of one of the most serious crimes in the history of the U.S. government - perpetrated with the obvious intention of subverting the 9/11 Commission's investigation - would seem to be very much in the public interest, not to mention fully within in the purview of Congress' oversight responsibility.
Compare the legitimacy of a congressional Berger probe to the bid by Democrats' to nail Tom DeLay on phantom campaign finance charges. Or even attempts by an otherwise credible prosecutor, Partrick Fitzgerald, to prove that Karl Rove lied about a case where - as now seems likely - no initial crime was committed.
The Berger case isn't the only important scandal GOP'ers have taken a pass on.
Imagine congressional reaction if - six weeks before the 2004 election - Fox News had broadcast forged documents purporting to show that John Kerry had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy. There wouldn't be enough committee rooms on Capitol Hill to hold all the investigations.
Likewise, a Senate Intelligence Committee memo that surfaced in 2003 suggesting that Democrats were prepared to leak classified information in a bid to undermine President Bush's reelection chances bears some looking into.
Still, elected Republicans refuse to act.
Absent any GOP interest in spotlighting alleged crimes that may have genuinely damaged the national interest, Republicans shouldn't be surprised to find themselves surrendering control of Congress in 2006 - along with the White House two years later.
