Lies. Stealth. Cover-ups. Refusal to admit wrongdoing. All of these closed-door tactics have come to quintessentially characterize the Bush administration over the past several months.
Two weeks ago, Richard A. Clarke, President Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, released a book harshly critical of the Bush administration. The thrust of his book, titled "Against All Enemies," is that prior to Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush White House repeatedly ignored cogent and prevalent evidence that Al Qaida was in the midst of planning major attacks against Americans on our own soil. Clarke details the way in which the White House underestimated the importance of terrorism prior to the attacks, and instead chose to focus on Iraq, which posed no immediate threat. Furthermore, Clarke emphasizes that even after Sept. 11, the Bush administration focused merely on building a case to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks, even though virtually no evidence exists to support this claim.
As a former major player in the Bush administration, Clarke's criticisms of the White House are particularly compelling. By publicly coming forward to denounce his former employer, Clarke bravely placed himself as a lightning rod of controversy in Washington. The White House, however, has not offered any strong argument-based rebuttals of Clarke's accusations. Instead, the Bush team lashed out with an intensely dirty smear campaign on Clarke's personal character, something that has little connection with his well-supported claims. CNN's Wolf Blitzer noted that Bush administration officials have gone so far as to assail Clarke as someone who "wants to make a few bucks, and that [in] his own personal life, they're also suggesting that there are some weird aspects in his life as well."
Clarke's book and his recent testimony to the 9/11 Commission, coupled with the Bush administration's gloves-off response, reveal a horribly secretive administration that seeks to stomp out any attempts by individuals to reveal the truth. While the Clarke episode is the most recent incident, the Bush camp has made a history of this.
Just weeks ago, Medicare's head actuary, Richard Foster, came forward to publicly disclose that the new Medicare law's true cost will exceed the Bush administration's public estimates by 25 to 50 percent. Yet, these new figures are not actually new at all. In fact, Foster had originally calculated the exceptionally higher cost of the legislation months ago, but was ordered by his boss, Thomas Scully, who was then the administrator of Medicare, to withhold the information from Congress. Scully even cited demands from the White House that if Foster divulged his cost estimates to Congress, he would be fired.
For the White House to intentionally hide the exorbitant cost of this legislation from Congress so as to further its own agenda to pass the bill seems almost like a movie subplot. But this is reality. Foster even has solid evidence that members of the Bush administration directly ordered Scully to compel him to withhold his figures from lawmakers. Yet, instead of admitting to obvious wrongdoing, the White House chose to launch "a behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit Richard Foster," according to an Associated Press news analysis.
Since Foster's courageous disclosure, several senators and congressmen have stated that had they known the true cost of the Medicare legislation prior to their vote on it, they would have shot it down. Since the legislation passed Congress narrowly, even a few switched votes in either chamber would have defeated it. The Bush administration's strict policy of duplicity and resulting efforts to silence Foster's dissension led to the passage of a bill that lacks the funds to finance it, and serves as a paradigm of the stealth administration that Bush heads.
How can Americans still have any faith in a President who hides information from us for his own political benefit? Presidents are expected to be leaders, but how can a man whose administration encourages deceit and stomps out dissension serve as a role model for Americans? The covertness of the Bush administration must come to an end so as to restore some shred of integrity back to the Oval Office.
