VPW - What Did The President Know...

And why did nothing seem to happen for 11 weeks?

Bill Kristol raises this point in the Weekly Standard:

Surely the president has, as the Washington Times suggested last week, taken "too passive a stance" toward this misdeed by one or more of his employees. Surely he should do his utmost to restore the White House's reputation for honor and integrity by calling together the dozens of more-or-less "senior" administration officials and asking whoever spoke with Novak to come forward and explain themselves. Presumably the relevant officials--absent some remarkable explanation that's hard to conceive--should be fired, and their names given to the Justice Department. The president might also want to call Mrs. Wilson, who is after all a government official serving her country, and apologize for the damage done to her by his subordinate's action.

Paul Krugman took a similar line, saying "let's be clear: we already know what the president knew, and when he knew it. Mr. Bush knew, 11 weeks ago, that some of his senior aides had done something utterly inexcusable."

Critics of the President's seeming lack of urgency will want to ponder this, from the NY Times: [Or here]

At a few minutes before eight on Thursday morning, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, was parked in his usual chair just outside the Oval Office waiting to brief his chief patron, the president of the United States.

The morning newspapers were full of developments in what amounted to a war between the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House, and a Justice Department investigation that was barely 48 hours old into whether administration officials had illegally disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

Angry agency officials suspected that someone in the White House had exposed the officer, Valerie Plame, as a way to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his criticism of the administration's use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.

But after President Bush told his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., that he was ready to see Mr. Tenet — "O.K., George, let's go," Mr. Card called out to the intelligence chief — Mr. Tenet, a rare holdover from the Clinton administration and a politically savvy survivor, did not even bring up the issue that was roiling his agency, Mr. Card said in an interview.

Instead, Mr. Tenet briefed the president on the latest intelligence reports, as he always does, and left it to the White House to make the first move about Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame.

Fine, he was waiting for the President to make the first move. And if one day the President says, "I meet regularly with DCI George Tenet, and I would expect him to raise it with me if he needs my involvement", what will the critics respond?

If we can believe the WaPo, George Tenet was not aware of the first criminal referral, which originated at a routine level.

Now, on a related matter, and in a plea for bipartisan accord, can folks check their calendars and find an excuse to re-date the period of Presidential laxity? It would be much cooler if we could all be asking, what was the President doing for 9 1/2 Weeks?

UPDATE: We elected (or selected) a President, not a PI. I channel Andy Card.

Comments

[Kevin Drum]

Well, McClellan was asked about it around July 21 or so. So he certainly knew by then.

[Swopa]

The official White House statement on the subject is that nobody (apparently including the President) knows when Bush learned of the leak, or what he did about it.

Which leaves open the theoretical possibility, I suppose, that he still doesn't know.

[Brad DeLong]

Well, we do know that Karl Rove was wandering around peddling the "Joe Wilson's wife is fair game" line in late July.

Or do we?

[TM]

I tkink we do. I am off to go apple-picking with the family - perhaps inspiration will strike. Worked for Newton, although he offered a substantially larger target.

I am hoping to spin this up in to a coherent argument folks (including me) can actually reflect on, but the theme for "responsible delay" would be:

- the DoJ and the CIA were treating this as routine;

- the media was ignoring it;

- her status was not clear (the CIA spokesman confusion with Novak and TIME is evidence here);

- if this is a shot in a bureaucratic war, the Wh can't be expected to surrender as soon as the CIA whistles a foul;

- and, yes, there was almost surely a faction in the WH counseling (at some level) delay and deny. My guess is that Libby in not in a hurry to air this out.

Doesn't mean the President took the ideal course, but it argues that his course was plausible.

Or not - that is the outline, though.

Regards,