| According to a memo sent to aides yesterday, Bush expects all White House staff to adhere to the "spirit as well as the letter" of all ethics laws and rules. As a result, "the White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations next week that will provide refresher lectures on general ethics rules, including the rules of governing the protection of classified information," according to the memo, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post by a senior White House aide.
The mandatory ethics primer is the first step Bush plans to take in coming weeks in response to the CIA leak probe that led to the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, and which still threatens Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff. Libby was indicted last week in connection with the two-year investigation. He resigned when the indictment was announced and on Thursday pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to federal investigators and a grand jury about his conversations with reporters. A senior aide said Bush decided to mandate the ethics course during private meetings last weekend with Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and counsel Harriet Miers. Miers's office will conduct the ethics briefings. |
I wonder... do you think he'll have Rove lead the briefings? Or maybe Cheney?
Further into the article we get this gem from the President himself:
| "I understand that there is a preoccupation by polls by some," the president said. "The way you earn credibility with the American people is to declare an agenda that everybody can understand, an agenda that relates to their lives, and get the job done." |
And to think all this time I though credibility came from things like honesty, integrity, and commitment. If I had known all I needed was a simple little agenda...
UPDATE: The more I think about this story the more it pisses me off. Shouldn't Bush have done something like this the moemnt, the very first moment, he heard there might be an investigation into the conduct of senior officials? Why did it take him almost 2 years to get to this point? I honestly don't think attending a seminar on ethics will make even the slightest bit of difference, but nevertheless, it seems a bit late for this, don't you think?
--------
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: A START. A PATHETIC START. BUT A START NONETHELESS....
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blog.alexwhalen.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/815
Subscribe to this blog's feed
Leave a comment