Decider, or Out of the Loop?

by Rich Miles

OK, so let me see if I've got this right:

George W. Bush is the Decider. He doesn't need to read newspapers because he has the best sources of information in the world right there with him - his White House staffers. He knows what's going on everywhere because he has such wonderful people telling him everything.

And now, for the Congress to insist that (at least) two of those advisers - Karl Rove and Harriet Miers - testify publicly and under oath, would mean that he could no longer get full and honest and open counsel from these advisers, because they would constantly be second-guessing themselves for fear they'd be hauled before a congressional committee and forced to justify themselves and tell what they advised the "Decider" to do. That's the current dodge Bush et al. are using to keep the truth from the American people. (Well...that and the bogus claim of executive privilege.)

BUT!!!

Bush knows nothing. Nothing at all, nothing to see here, let's move on.

Despite an incomplete paper trail of emails, which even in its incompleteness shows pretty conclusively that SOMEone inside the White House was deeply involved in the efforts to fire at least 8 US Attorneys and replace them with "good Bushies", or as they're better known "political cronies", the President of the United States was not one of those people. He didn't know about it in advance, he wasn't consulted about this, it was all someone else's fault.

So which is it? Is he the Decider, who has his finger on every pulse on every topic, or is he the guy the WH staff keeps in the dark so they can protect him from his rightful culpability when the shit hits the fan, as it's doing now in ProsecutorGate?

Because he can't be both. He can't know everything and nothing at the same time. So the question boils down to this: what did the President know, and when did he know it?

Why does that sound so familiar?

Remember the Iran-Contra Affair? Google it if you don't, because there are some alarming similarities in the actions of the father and the son. Remember "I was out of the loop"? Remember that Bush the Elder was the first US President EVER to issue a pardon to anyone for any reason on the eve of the start of a trial?

But mostly, remember "I was out of the loop"?

Maybe it's not totally true that Little George won't do ANYTHING his daddy did.