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Bush Flip Flop Watch – Part V

It is 9/11 Commission day here at the Bush Flip Flop Watch. Mr. Bush’s relationship to the Commission investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks is a poignant example of Mr. Bush’s “steady leadership.” Just about the only issue concerning the 9/11 Commission on which Mr. Bush has not flip flopped is his constant desire that the commission simply go away. Mr. Bush’s positions with regard to the Commission have been steady only in the sense that they have constantly shifted as the political winds have changed.

Mr. Bush has flipped flopped on no fewer than six separate issues with regard to the commission. Yesterday’s post brought our documented list of Mr. Bush’s flip flops to fourteen. The six identified below raise the total to twenty.

Mr. Bush’s first flip flop with regard to the 9/11 Commission concerns the commission’s very existence. Initially Mr. Bush opposed the formation of the Commission but eventually caved into political pressure and supported the investigation. As CNN put it:

In a move applauded by Democrats, President Bush Friday reversed himself and endorsed the formation of an independent commission to conduct a "focused inquiry" of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States that goes beyond intelligence failures already being probed by Congress.

Mr. Bush’s second flip flop involves reneging on a promise to the families of the 9/11 victims to allow them to select one Republican appointee to the commission.

Mr. Bush agreed to the formation of the Commission but insisted on certain restrictions. Mr. Bush insisted that the Commission have a limited time to perform its investigation (more on that later), that the commission have a severely limited budget (see here for the gory details) and limited subpoena power.

In particular, Mr. Bush wanted to make sure that Democrats on the Commission did not have the power to issue subpoenas. To achieve that objective, the Commission was set up to have ten members, five appointed by Mr. Bush and five appointed by Democrats. The President selected the Chairman and the Democrats selected the Vice Chair. The Commission ground rules required agreement of the Chair and Vice Chair or, alternatively, six commissioners to issue a subpoena. Thus, Democrats, acting without the support of at least one Republican appointed Commissioner, could not issue subpoenas.

The trouble with that arrangement was that the families of the 9/11 victims smelled a whitewash and objected. As I have previously written:

The families of the victims were concerned that the Republican appointees would simply refuse to issue subpoenas concerning matters that might be embarrassing to the administration. Without the vote of at least one Republican appointee, no subpoena could be issued.

To win the support of the families, a deal was reached. The proposal would be accepted but the families would have veto power over one of the Republican appointees to the Commission. The families would exercise that power through the two Senators they trusted, Republicans John McCain and Richard Shelby.

That deal gave the families the assurance that the five Democratic appointees and the one Republican appointee they controlled could issue subpoenas even if the investigation began to be uncomfortable for the White House.

The families selected former Senator Warren Rudman.

Once the families selected Warren Rudman, the White House reneged on the deal and refused to appoint him to the Commission.

The Cincinnati Post notes:

Rudman, a former Republican senator from New Hampshire, is a respected thinker on public policy issues and co-author of a remarkably prescient and prescriptive report on terrorism and national security published prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. Further, he is known for both his bluntness and independence, qualities that might have led the White House to intervene.

The third flip flop has to do with the duration of the Commission. The Commission was set to expire at the end of May. The Commissioners determined that they needed additional time to fulfill the Commission’s mandate. The White House opposed the extension of time.

As Newsday reported:

President George W. Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to complete its work by the end of May, officials said last week.

Once again, in the face of political pressure, the White House flip flopped. The Star Ledger reports:

In an abrupt reversal, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday dropped his opposition to giving the 9/11 commission two additional months to issue its final investigative report…

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said aides to President Bush had been in contact with Hastert's office throughout the week to make the president's support for an extension clear.

"We are pleased that everybody seems to support an extension," McClellan said.

The fourth flip flop involves whether or not President Bush will answer all of the Commission’s questions or will insist that his appearance be limited to one hour.

Originally, the White House insisted on the one hour restriction. After John Kerry started attacking the President for having time to visit a rodeo but not enough time to answer all the questions about 9/11, the White House flip flopped. The Washington Post reports:

President Bush will answer privately all questions raised by a federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the White House said Tuesday, softening its insistence that Bush's testimony be limited to an hour…

It was the administration's latest change of heart about the commission. Bush originally had opposed the panel's creation. Then he had opposed its request for a two-month extension of its work but eventually relented. Bush is intent on protecting his standing with Americans on the war on terror, which in polls is his best issue with voters.

Be sure to stay tuned to the issue of Bush's appearance before the Commission. The White House still insists that only select Commissioners be allowed to participate. My guess is that George W. Bush wants no part of having to answer all of the questions Richard Ben-Veniste, a very skilled lawyer, may want to ask.

The fifth flip flop surrounding the 9/11 Commission relates to the production of Presidential Daily Briefings to the Commissioners. Those briefings detail what the President knew about terror warnings and when he knew it.

The Commission says that it needs to see those Presidential Daily Briefings but the White House initially refused to provide them. MSNBC reports:

The documents at the heart of the dispute are the so-called presidential daily briefs, or PDBs—the daily intelligence brief given to Bush by a senior intelligence official, usually the CIA director or his deputy. White House lawyers have guarded the documents as the "crown jewels" of executive privilege.

When the Commission threatened a subpoena, the White House changed its position and negotiated a compromise. The compromise permits three Commissioners and one staffer to see the PDBs, create summaries and provide the summaries to the other Commissioners.

The PDBs also provide us with our sixth flip flop. The White House has not always been so protective of the PDBs. While they are very reluctant to share them with the Commission (under the compromise, seven of the ten Commissioners will not get to see them), they were happy to show them to a friendly journalist.

The MSNBC report continues:

The restrictions are especially infuriating, one source notes, because at least some of the PDBs appear to have been selectively shared by the White House two years ago with author Bob Woodward for his book "Bush at War." White House officials insist they are protecting the principle of confidential advice for the president ...

How does sharing the PDB's with a journalist protect the principle of confidential advice for the president?

It is just fine to let a friendly journalist with no security clearance see the “crown jewels of executive privilege” but the a majority of Commissioners, with security clearances, will not be permitted to see them despite the need to do so in order to report to the nation on the 9/11 attacks. That is a scandal far worse than a flip flop.

With the listing of those six flip flops, our tally is now twenty. I have quite a few more ready to list and others to for which I have not yet found links, so I will be posting about 3-4 per day for a while. In the meantime, here is a list (alas, without links) posted at Kos (the comments have some good examples as well). Greg at the Talent Show has a top fifteen list in pdf ready for easy printing. TR at Compassiongate has a very extensive list complete with links.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at March 10, 2004 03:02 PM | TrackBack