Under Fire, Powell Receives Support From White House
Maybe Gingrich didn't attack the administration, but the administration is fighting back anyway. - Doc
nytimes.com
...
Mr. Powell has been the object of conservative criticism in several past policy battles, but the barrage was renewed with particular bitterness in recent days. Aides to Mr. Powell said they regarded some of the recent attacks as both puzzling and misguided, noting that the secretary had been extremely careful not to undertake any initiatives without explicit approval from the president.
A senior White House official, asserted today that Mr. Gingrich's criticism "was seen at the White House as an attack on the president, not an attack on Powell." There was widespread anger at the White House, the official said, but he declined to characterize the reaction of Mr. Bush himself.
However, the president is said by Republican politicians to have little love for Mr. Gingrich, going back to Mr. Gingrich's savage attack against Mr. Bush's father for raising taxes, a step that ignited the wrath of conservatives generally.
While dismissing Mr. Gingrich's comments, State Department officials said today that they wondered whether Mr. Gingrich might have checked with someone in the administration before launching his attack.
The former speaker serves on the Defense Policy Board along with other prominent conservatives and is known to be close to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney.
But a Pentagon spokesman said that to the best of his knowledge, no one at the Defense Department had seen Mr. Gingrich's speech or was familiar with its content ahead of time. An administration official said Mr. Cheney had also not seen the speech.
Both Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, and Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, dismissed Mr. Gingrich's remarks as misinformed and wrong. Mr. Fleischer called Mr. Powell an "able, able diplomat" who was carrying out "the president's approach" on foreign policy in a successful manner.
... |
