White House Stonewall: Day 105
truthout.org
White House Stonewall: Day 105
A Daily Review of the White House's Attempts to Keep America From
Learning Their Secrets
Friday, June 7, 2002
The White House Stonewall goes on, as the Bush administration continues
to deny the non-partisan General Accounting Office's request for information on
who the White House Energy Task Force met with while formulating national
energy policy. What are they trying to hide?
The Latest News on the White House Stonewall
Krugman Criticizes Bush Administration for Answering Questions Never
Asked*
In today's New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman accused the Bush
administration of failing to address the actual questions being posed to them on
Enron communications and terrorist warnings. Krugman wrote, "(White House
counsel Alberto) Gonzales is pulling the same trick on energy policy that Dick
Cheney has pulled on antiterrorist policy: Respond to real, serious questions
about the administration's actions by self-righteously denying charges that
nobody is actually making. Nobody has accused the White House of helping
Enron when it was down, just as no Democratic leader has accused the
administration of deliberately allowing Sept. 11 to happen. * In the case of
energy policy, the administration still won't release information about Dick
Cheney's energy task force. But it's clear that energy companies, and only
energy companies, had access to top officials. The result was that during the
California power crisis - which, it is increasingly apparent, was largely
engineered by Enron and other companies that had the administration's ear -
the administration did nothing. But just as John Ashcroft, who brushed aside
appeals to make terrorism a priority, remains in charge of our effort against
terrorism, Mr. Cheney - who ridiculed conservation and price controls, which in
the end were what saved California - remains in charge of energy policy. * No
such happy outcome seems likely on global warming. After a curious pause,
George W. Bush rejected his own administration's analysis. 'I read the report
put out by the bureaucracy,' he sneered. Clearly, this was a replay of what
happened early last year, when the E.P.A.'s Christie Whitman assured the
public that Mr. Bush would honor his pledge to control carbon dioxide
emissions - only to be betrayed when the coal and oil industries weighed in on
the subject. So the administration learned nothing from the California crisis; it
still takes its advice from the energy companies that financed its campaign
(and made many administration officials, including Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney,
rich). And it's one thing to reward your friends with subsidies and lax regulation.
It's something quite different to let them dictate policy on climate change."
Link to story: nytimes.com
White House Response to Requests on Enron "Is to Shut the Gates"*
Yesterday's Richmond Times-Dispatch criticized the Bush administration for
not encouraging accounting reforms and imposing impediments on anything
that is related to Enron. According to the Times-Dispatch, "The White House
doesn't want tough (accounting) reform either. Its chief response to anything
involving Enron is to shut the gates. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., got a
team of investigators inside the White House to examine some e-mails and
other materials about reported White House contacts with Enron, but they were
not permitted to leave the grounds with anything they didn't bring in. Some of
the material might contain personal information about staffers, like their Social
Security numbers, the White House said. Seldom has there been such
ferocious West Wing concern about employee privacy. There is a constant
stoplight on congressional requests for information in the Enron affair. Even the
Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch - not exactly a bastion of liberal ideology - has
called editorially on Vice President Dick Cheney to give up his strategy of
'stonewalling and claiming executive privilege.' Cheney has refused to turn over
the papers of his energy task force contacts with Enron to the General
Accounting Office. It now appears there were 10 of these task force meetings
with Enron instead of six as originally thought." [Richmond Times-Dispatch,
6/6/02]
Bush Administration Tries To Discredit Esquire Interview with Card*
In an attempt to discredit a damaging Esquire magazine article featuring
statements by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, White House officials
claimed that insignificant aspects of the upcoming article were inaccurate.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer challenged the credibility of the
interview by stating, "We have launched a search to find the so-called
'cobalt-blue wall-to-wall' rug in Andy's office. The last time we checked, the rug
wasn't blue, it was tan. It's still tan. I'm colorblind, and even I can tell it's tan."
Fleischer further denounced the article as fiction, claiming, "We laughed and
we dismissed the article. In fact, we're taking up a collection to buy the author
a tape recorder." Responding to the accusations by the White House, author of
the report Ron Suskind said, "Those quotations are as sound as they could be.
They are accurate to the letter. When I do interviews, I have my notebook out
and I write quotes down in a quick longhand that is, frankly, legible to most
people." Suskind, who won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for his feature writing in the
Wall Street Journal, said the issue of the carpet color was "completely a red
herring. Everything, including the color of the rug in Andy's office, was
fact-checked through Karen Hughes's office."
Link to story:
washingtonpost.com
* Republicans in "Political Shock" By Card's Comments*
Conservatives pundits and Republican Party officials voiced confusion and
frustration over the seemingly bleak outlook White House Chief of Staff Andrew
Card gave Esquire magazine concerning the impact Karen Hughes' departure
would have on the Bush administration. "The idea that Andy Card would talk
about these things in such a goofy way doesn't make sense," conservative
activist Grover Norquist said. American Conservative Union Chairman David A.
Keene said Card's comments were "unusual for this administration because it
has presented to the outside world that it is in lockstep, whatever internal
disagreements may exist. * This is the first time a fight inside has been made
known outside." A Republican Party official said, "I don't know that I've ever
read a story shocked me more than this one. * I'm dumbfounded. I re-read it five
minutes ago and I'm still in political shock."
Link to story:
washingtontimes.com
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