Bush's Monica Problem

As for his interaction with the president, Gonzales was full of vague qualifications:

"PETE WILLIAMS: You mentioned the conversations with the president. What role did they play in deciding which US Attorneys would be on the list?

"ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: As far as I know, Pete, they did not play a role in adding names or taking off names."

What Sampson Will Say

Chitra Ragavan writes for U.S. News: "When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee this Thursday about the controversial firings of eight U.S. attorneys . . . [he] will set off some fireworks by contradicting a key assurance that Gonzales made to Congress and the American public last Tuesday that he was not in the loop during the long deliberations leading up to the firings. . . .

"Sampson will testify that the Attorney General not only discussed the idea while he was still White House counsel and signed off at the end, but also was 'aware of the arc of the whole process' in between, says this source. 'The idea that there were no discussions on this overall issue,' says the source, 'the Attorney General could not have meant to say that.' . . .

"Sampson is likely to testify that although he exchanged E-mails and had discussions with then-White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy William Kelley, what happened 'behind the curtains,' in the White House, was largely invisible to him."

How McNulty Diverged From His Script

Jan Crawford Greenburg writes for ABC News: "The firestorm over the fired U.S. attorneys was sparked last month when a top Justice Department official ignored guidance from the White House and rejected advice from senior administration lawyers over his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The official, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, ignored White House Counsel Harriet Miers and senior lawyers in the Justice Department when he told the committee last month of specific reasons why the administration fired seven U.S. attorneys -- and appeared to acknowledge for the first time that politics was behind one dismissal. McNulty's testimony directly conflicted with the approach Miers advised, according to an unreleased internal White House e-mail described to ABC News. According to that e-mail, sources said, Miers said the administration should take the firm position that it would not comment on personnel issues."

Voter Fraud Watch

Jeanne Cummings writes in the Politico about the Republican obsession with voter fraud. She describes how before the 2004 election: "Republican operatives tucked thick folders of newspaper clippings and other fraud tips under their arms and pitched to reporters their claims that the Democrats' registration program would lead to rampant voter fraud. Their passion was clear, but their evidence was slim, consisting mostly of isolated incidents of voter registration irregularities that were handled by local police or election officials.

"What wasn't mentioned in those conversations with reporters was a Republican National Committee strategy, already underway, to work with state parties to identify and challenge questionable voters at the polling precincts. Among those working at the RNC was Tim Griffin, the former Karl Rove aide who recently replaced fired U.S. attorney Bud Cummins. Then, with the vast federal law enforcement community acting as the new sheriff, Republicans hoped to pocket the evidence they longed for: a string of high-profile investigations and convictions.

"Failure of some U.S. attorneys to pursue the final plank in that strategy now appears to have helped trigger an internal debate over whether to fire all or some of them, administration comments and e-mails suggest."

Cummings concludes: "The events surrounding the firing of the U.S. attorneys illustrate how deeply the Bush administration has laced political strategies with governing decisions. Rove, the president's political and policy adviser, represents the very embodiment of the Bush approach."

Poll Watch

Susan Page writes in USA Today: "Americans overwhelmingly support a congressional investigation into White House involvement in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, and they say President Bush and his aides should answer questions about it without invoking executive privilege.

"In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday-Sunday, respondents said by nearly 3-to-1 that Congress should issue subpoenas to force White House officials to testify. . . .

"The poll finds little sympathy for the administration's claim that White House aides shouldn't have to testify to ensure that a president gets candid advice. By 68%-26%, those surveyed say the president should drop the claim of executive privilege in this case."

Here are the complete results.

E-mail Watch

R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post: "A Democratic House committee chairman yesterday told the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign to retain copies of all e-mails sent or received by White House officials using e-mail accounts under their control, raising the political stakes in the congressional inquiry into U.S. attorneys' firings.

"Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said his broadly written request was based on evidence that White House officials -- particularly aides to top political adviser Karl Rove -- have used their politically related e-mail accounts to hide the conduct of official business regarding the prosecutor firings and other matters being investigated by Congress."

For background, see the "E-mail Watch" section of yesterday's column.

Time for a Special Counsel?

Neil Katyal writes in a New York Times op-ed: "Today, the only way to get to the bottom of the United States attorney scandal -- which involved the administration's firing of nearly 10 percent of America's top prosecutors -- is to ...appoint a special prosecutor."

Tony Snow's Terrible News

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post with the sad news: "White House press secretary Tony Snow, who has become the face of the Bush presidency over the last year, has cancer again.

"Snow's deputy, Dana M. Perino, broke into tears at an off-camera briefing this morning as she announced that the cancer has spread to his liver. Doctors discovered it when they operated on Snow on Monday to remove a small growth that had developed in his lower abdomen.

"Snow, 51, who underwent surgery and months of chemotherapy for colon cancer two years ago, plans once again to 'go after it as aggressively' as he can, Perino said, but it was unclear when or whether he would be able to return to work."

Baker was also taking questions about Snow Live Online today.

In a brief Rose Garden statement, Bush said: "His attitude is, one, that he is not going to let this whip him, and he's upbeat. My attitude is, is that we need to pray for him, and for his family. . . . I'm looking forward to the day that he comes back to the White House and briefs the press corps on the decisions that I'm making and why I'm making them."

Cover-Up Watch

Elana Schor writes in The Hill that "four senior Senate Democrats are expanding their probe of the internal discussions that led President Bush to deny security clearances to Justice officials investigating his administration's warrantless surveillance program."

Frankel on Libby and Journalism

Former New York Times executive editor Max Frankel weighed in this weekend with a major retrospective of the Scooter Libby trial and Washington journalism in the New York Times Magazine. He concludes "that the compelled testimony about reporters and their sources [will] end up doing more damage than even the reckless violation of a C.I.A. agent's cover. For given the cult of secrecy that enveloped our government during the cold war and the hoarding of information that always attends the lust for power, a free, unregulated and unpunished flow of leaks remains essential to the sophisticated reporting of diplomatic and military affairs, a safeguard of our democracy. . . .

"It may sound cynical to conclude that tolerating abusive leaks by government is the price that society has to pay for the benefit of receiving essential leaks about government. But that awkward condition has long served to protect the most vital secrets while dislodging the many the public deserves to know."

In fact, Frankel writes, even abusive leaks can lead to good journalism: "Most reporters do not just lazily regurgitate such leaks; they use them as wedges to pry out other secrets. I remember once being shown the draft of a U.S. government 'white paper' documenting the perfidies of the North Vietnam regime; a few more interviews found the news not in those accusations but in the fact that they were being assembled to justify the start of intensive bombing of that country. A few more questions following Libby's leak from the N.I.E. would have exposed it as a deeply flawed analysis, a cut-and-paste collection of stale reports."

But liberal blogger Brad DeLong takes exception to Frankel's argument, pointing out that "most reporters to whom people like Scooter Libby leak do lazily regurgitate such leaks, and they certainly do not use them to pry out other secrets. If Scooter Libby had thought there was any chance that Judy Miller would have used his leak of the N.I.E. to expose it as deeply flawed, Scooter Libby would have kept his mouth shut. Only confidence that the reporter will be a complaisant tool of the source's purposes induces the leak in the first place.

"Reportorial laziness on the part of Judy Miller has nothing to do with it. Reportorial ethics has everything to do with it. Do reporters view their primary task as helping their sources to misinform the public? Or do reporters view their primary task as informing citizens? . . .

"A more honest commentator than Frankel would have written differently: would have written that the long-run survival of journalistic legal privileges depends on the existence of a community of journalists that polices itself, and that rewards journalists who inform the public and punishes those who kneel to their political masters. Frankel had a chance to engage in this task of self-policing this morning. He failed to do it."

Pardon Watch

George Lardner Jr. writes in a New York Times op-ed: "All the talk about a potential presidential pardon for I. Lewis Libby Jr. has infuriated critics of the Bush administration; many feel that a Libby pardon would amount to a whitewashing of the White House's actions relating to Valerie Plame's identity.

"Perhaps they should take heart: Mr. Libby may escape prison time, but if he accepted a pardon, he (and Mr. Bush) would have a hard time continuing to insist that he was an innocent victim of a vengeful prosecutor. It would also undermine the claim that the Plame investigation was a partisan ploy to discredit the White House, and leave another stain on Mr. Bush's legacy.

"Here's why: If Mr. Libby were to accept a traditional presidential pardon - a 'full and unconditional' grant of clemency - he would be admitting that he was guilty of the crimes of which he was convicted: obstructing justice, perjury and lying to the F.B.I. Perhaps it shouldn't be that way, but it is - no ifs, ands or buts about it. So, while many who have been pardoned like to claim they have been 'exonerated,' that simply isn't so."

Wilson's Fantasy

The Associated Press reports from Des Moines, where former ambassador Joseph Wilson talked about the civil suit he and his wife, Valerie Plame, have filed against administration officials who blew her covert status.

"Wilson said he hopes the civil suit brings more information to light about the government's role in the leak. . . .

"'My fantasy is to Web cast Dick Cheney's deposition,' Wilson said to cheers and applause."

Where's the President?

Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post: " An imperiled attorney general, an unpopular war, a hung-over housing market and a presidential approval level of 32 percent: White House officials took all that into consideration and made their decision.

"They would have President Bush do another event promoting cellulosic ethanol. . . .

"It was another milepost in the shriveling of a presidency."

Live Online

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Cartoon Watch

Tony Auth on the final four; John Sherffius on a loyal Bushie.; Jeff Danziger on the true target.; Ben Sargent on the true master.