On the podium, more isolated than ever
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
BY JOHN FARMER
Star-Ledger Staff
nj.com
If what transpired yesterday on Capitol Hill and in the federal courthouse in downtown Washington is a reliable omen, President Bush faces a final two years in office under political and possibly legal siege, with his party in shambles.
His sixth State of the Union address, with its message of more troops for Iraq, was received with predictable hostility by the new Democratic-controlled Congress, the first opposition majority Bush has faced. Even many of his domestic initiatives, offered in hope of attracting bipartisan support, got a thumbs-down from most Democrats.
Bad as that was for the president, the opening statements at the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, loomed potentially worse.
Libby's defense attorney, Ted Wells, lifted the curtain unflatteringly on a notoriously secretive White House, puncturing its image as a taut, smooth-running set of team players. Instead, he said, his client has been made a scapegoat to protect Bush's political guru, Karl Rove, from the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to punish her husband, Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and of Cheney.
"They're trying to set me up," Libby told Cheney, according to Wells. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."
Prosecutors, meanwhile, told the jurors that Libby first learned of Wilson's identity from Cheney, not from journalists as he has claimed. The prosecution said Cheney, determined to counter written comments by Joe Wilson, personally directed Libby to chat up reporters and mention his wife. Wells conceded as much, saying of Cheney: "Was he mad? You doggone betcha."
It's not clear whether, if the prosecution's claims are true, Cheney would share any of Libby's legal liability. But it would, at the very least, drive still another stake in the heart of the vice president's already crippled credibility.
A picture, all in all, of a White House and an administration unraveling.
To add to Cheney's woes, Sen. John McCain, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination next year, charged in a television interview yesterday that Bush's dilemma in Iraq is largely the product of "a witch's brew of bad advice" from Cheney.
McCain's attack is something of a surprise because he has been a strong supporter on the war, arguing for even more than the 21,500 troops Bush plans to add to the U.S. force in Iraq. But it is also a symbol of the extent to which Republican lawmakers, especially those facing re-election in 2008, recognize the Iraq misadventure as a lethal threat to them politically.
Pat Buchanan, a fixture in the Reagan White House and a sometime presidential candidate himself, said last night that unless Bush can somehow extract himself from Iraq "the party will be sundered" in 2008 and forfeit the presidency. Such a loss, he implied, would be laid at Bush's feet and form a major part of his legacy.
It's exactly that sort of legacy Bush is battling to avoid, beginning with his speech last night.
He's at the mercy, however, of both the newly empowered Democrats, who will control Congress the rest of his term, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his partner, willing or unwilling, in Bush's new "surge" strategy. It not clear who will be more of a problem.
Democrats almost certainly will use their new power to haul Bush officials regularly before committees to explain past mistakes on Iraq and be grilled on how the war is going. Bush can't avoid this inquisition.
It was perhaps with this in mind -- to soften some of the hostility or just to change the subject from Iraq -- that Bush offered last night to address a list of subject high on the Democratic agenda: health care, global warming and the environment, immigration and education.
He might find some common ground with Democrats, especially on immigration and the environment. But not on much else. Even last night, Democratic interest groups were busy ambushing his health care proposal, saying it would make matters worse. And there's no Democratic support for making his big tax cuts permanent.
In Iraq, Maliki is a suspect. The "surge" strategy cannot succeed unless Maliki commits Iraqi forces fully to the fight against sectarian terrorists, including his Shi'a supporters, something he has balked at doing to date. If he continues to balk, the "surge" strategy seems certain to fail. And Bush's presidency with it.
John Farmer is The Star-Ledger's national political correspondent.
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