A Tale of Two Felonies

What explains the different White House reactions to the criminal charges lodged against two top aides?

The embarrassed response to felony theft charges against Claude Allen -- President Bush's recently departed top domestic policy adviser -- contrasts sharply with the protective response to the October indictment of former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby on charges of intentionally obstructing the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

Spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday night that if the allegations against Allen are true, "no one would be more disappointed, shocked and outraged" than the president.

Bush spoke about Allen in a Saturday morning photo op . "If the allegations are true," Bush said, "Claude Allen did not tell my Chief of Staff and legal counsel the truth, and that's deeply disappointing. If the allegations are true, something went wrong in Claude Allen's life, and that is really sad. When I heard the story last night I was shocked. And my first reaction was one of disappointment, deep disappointment that -- if it's true -- that we were not fully informed. But it was also one -- shortly thereafter, I felt really sad for the Allen family."

In short, the White House response was entirely reasonable. It's the sort of reaction you'd expect from the chief executive of any enterprise, upon finding out that a trusted lieutenant has been criminally charged by the government.

But it was starkly different than the response to Libby's indictment. In that case, the White House didn't express any misgivings whatsoever. There was no acknowledgement of how serious the charges were, or what it would mean if they were true. There was no expression of even hypothetical disappointment, shock or outrage. There was no suggestion that anyone in the White House might have been lied to. There were no regrets -- except, of course, that Libby had to resign.

Here is the text of Bush's remarks about Libby: "Scooter has worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people and sacrificed much in the service to this country. He served the Vice President and me through extraordinary times in our nation's history."

Here is the text of Vice President Cheney's remarks at the time, not surprisingly even more pugnacious: "Mr. Libby has informed me that he is resigning to fight the charges brought against him. I have accepted his decision with deep regret."

Now that the White House has demonstrated the ability to respond in the conventional way to criminal charges filed against a member of its senior staff, it becomes even more abundantly clear that in the Libby matter, it assertively chose not to do so.

The inescapable conclusion is that either Bush and Cheney think Libby's innocent -- or they don't think what he's accused of doing was in any way wrong.

Actually, scratch that. If they thought he was innocent, they could just say so. Nothing wrong with saying: We don't think he did it, but let's allow the legal system to do its job. So that leaves only option B: They don't think that what Libby is accused of doing was wrong.

Allen's Arrest

The extraordinary story of Allen's arrest was first broken by, of all people, a DePaul University theater professor working on a book about shoplifting in America. Rachel Shteir wrote in Slate: "When Claude Allen, President Bush's longtime domestic-policy adviser, resigned suddenly on Feb. 9, it baffled administration critics and fans. The White House claimed that Allen was leaving to spend more time with his family, while the Washington Times speculated that the 45-year-old aide, a noted social conservative, might have quit to protest a new Pentagon policy about military chaplains. Allen himself never publicly explained the reason for his departure.