Bush's Final Year

"The Justice Department, the C.I.A.'s inspector general and Congress are investigating whether any official lied about the tapes or broke the law by destroying them. Still in dispute is whether any White House official encouraged their destruction and whether the C.I.A. deliberately hid them from the national Sept. 11 commission."

Shane and Mazzetti report that "political and legal considerations competed with intelligence concerns in the handling of the tapes.

"The discussion about the tapes took place in Congressional briefings and secret deliberations among top White House lawyers, including a meeting in May 2004 just days after photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had reminded the administration of the power of such images. . . .

"The investigations over the tapes frustrate some C.I.A. veterans, who say they believe that the agency is being unfairly blamed for policies of coercive interrogation approved at the top of the Bush administration and by some Congressional leaders. Intelligence officers are divided over the use of such methods as waterboarding. Some say the methods helped get information that prevented terrorist attacks. Others, like John C. Gannon, a former C.I.A. deputy director, say it was a tragic mistake for the administration to approve such methods.

"Mr. Gannon said he thought the tapes became such an issue because they would have settled the legal debate over the harsh methods.

"'To a spectator it would look like torture,' he said. 'And torture is wrong.'"

And here's a fascinating tidbit from the Times story: "The tapes documented a program so closely guarded that President Bush himself had agreed with the advice of intelligence officials that he not be told the locations of the secret C.I.A. prisons."

But what possible reason would there be for him not to know? Nothing I can think of -- except plausible deniability.

Obstruction

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, who served as chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the 9/11 commission, write in a New York Times op-ed that "the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes -- and did not tell us about them -- obstructed our investigation.

"There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. -- or the White House -- of the commission's interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

"When the press reported that, in 2002 and maybe at other times, the C.I.A. had recorded hundreds of hours of interrogations of at least two Qaeda detainees, we went back to check our records. We found that we did ask, repeatedly, for the kind of information that would have been contained in such videotapes."

Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald writes: "Both legally and politically, it's hard to imagine a more significant scandal than the President and Vice President deliberately obstructing the investigation of the 9/11 Commission by concealing and then destroying vital evidence which the Commission was seeking. Yet that's exactly what the evidence at least suggests has occurred here.

"What possible justification is there for the White House to refuse to say what the role of [vice presidential chief of staff David S.] Addington, [former attorney general Alberto] Gonzales, Bush and [Vice President] Cheney was in all of this? Having been ordered by Bush's new Attorney General not to investigate, are the Senate and House Intelligence Committees (led by the meek Silvestre Reyes and the even meeker Jay Rockefeller) going to compel answers to these questions? In light of this Op-Ed, do Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee think the White House should publicly disclose to the country the role Bush and Cheney played in the destruction of this evidence? If there are any reporters left who aren't traipsing around together in Iowa, it seems pretty clear that this story ought to be dominating the news."

A Surprising Veto

Steven Lee Myers and David Herszenhorn write in the New York Times: "For months President Bush harangued Democrats in Congress for not moving quickly enough to support the troops and for bogging down military bills with unrelated issues.

"And then on Friday, with no warning, a vacationing Mr. Bush announced that he was vetoing a sweeping military policy bill because of an obscure provision that could expose Iraq's new government to billions of dollars in legal claims dating to Saddam Hussein's rule.

"The decision left the Bush administration scrambling to promise that it would work with Congress to quickly restore dozens of new military and veterans programs once Congress returns to work in January. . . .

"Mr. Bush's veto surprised and infuriated Democratic lawmakers and even some Republicans, who complained that the White House had failed to raise its concerns earlier. . . .

"The veto was an embarrassment for administration officials, who struggled on Friday to explain why they had not acted earlier to object to the provision."

Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press: "Bush's decision to use a pocket veto, announced while vacationing at his Texas ranch, means the legislation will die at midnight Dec. 31. This tactic for killing a bill can be used only when Congress is not in session."

But wait! Congress was in session -- sort of.

Feller explains: "The House last week adjourned until Jan. 15; the Senate returns a week later but has been holding brief, often seconds-long pro forma sessions every two or three days to prevent Bush from making appointments that otherwise would need Senate approval.

"Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, 'The House rejects any assertion that the White House has the authority to do a pocket veto.'

"When adjourning before Christmas, the House instructed the House clerk to accept any communications -- such as veto messages -- from the White House during the monthlong break."

And what's the advantage of the pocket veto?

"A Democratic congressional aide pointed out that a pocket veto cannot be overridden by Congress and allows Bush to distance himself from the rejection of a major Pentagon bill in a time of war."

Signing Statement Watch

Amy Gardner writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush signed a bill Monday allowing states, local governments and private investors to cut investment ties with Sudan as a way to pressure the Khartoum government into ending violence in the country's Darfur region.

"But Bush qualified his support by saying that the measure could allow state and local actions to interfere with national foreign policy. The president said he has instructed his administration to enforce the law in a manner that prevents that outcome."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "The measure, called the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act, is aimed at pressuring Sudan to end the violence in the Darfur region, where 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million driven from their homes in a four-year conflict that Mr. Bush has termed a genocide.

"The bill, which passed both houses of Congress unanimously, makes it easier for mutual funds and private pension fund managers to sell their investments and allows states to prohibit debt financing for companies that do business in Sudan. It also requires companies seeking contracts with the federal government to certify that they are not doing business in Sudan. . . .

"But the administration has expressed reservations about the bill, and Mr. Bush's signature was accompanied by a proviso known as a signing statement, in which he said he was reserving the authority to overrule state and local divestment decisions if they conflicted with foreign policy. The statement said the measure 'risks being interpreted as insulating' state and local divestment actions from federal oversight."

Spokesman Scott Stanzel's explanation at Monday's press briefing was less than enlightening. Said Stanzel: "[W]hile the legislation has an admirable objective of seeking to improve conditions and end suffering in Sudan, certain provisions of the bill do raise constitutional concerns. Under the Constitution, the federal government is entrusted with a full and exclusive responsibility for the conduct of foreign affairs.

"So to the extent that any actions taken pursuant to the act interfere with the federal government's foreign policy aims, that action would be unconstitutional. So as the signing statement makes clear, the administration will take appropriate measures to ensure that the United States, through the federal government, speaks with one voice in foreign policy matters."

Q: "Could you give us an example?"

Stanzel: "I can take that question and probably provide you more guidance from some of our attorneys, who have obviously very closely examined this law. But those are our general concerns."

Unpardonable

The Washington Post editorial board writes: "Mr. Bush continues his run as one of the stingiest presidents in American history when it comes to pardons. . . .

"It is curious that a president as enthusiastic as Mr. Bush is about flaunting his presidential powers in affairs both domestic and foreign refuses to use one of the most noble to recalibrate the machinery of justice when it dispenses punishment that does not fit the crime. It is sadder still when this kind of corrective is withheld by a self-described 'compassionate conservative.'"

Happy New Year

The New York Times editorial board writes: "There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. . . .

"The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat -- and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could. . . .

"[T]he next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them."

Top Ten List

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick weighs in with "The Bush Administration's Top 10 Stupidest Legal Arguments of 2007."

Among them: "The NSA's eavesdropping was limited in scope. . . . Nine U.S. attorneys were fired by nobody, but for good reason. . . . The United States does not torture."

Countdown

Rupert Cornwell writes for the Independent: "For the millions of Americans who are ticking off the days until deliverance, it is the perfect present -- a 2008 calendar countdown until George Bush leaves the White House, its every page adorned with a quote from the President who has mangled not only the country's image, but also the English language, as no other in the history of the Republic.

"Novelty calendars are always a staple of the holiday season, but this one is a best-seller. The Bush Out of Office Countdown, it is called, January 2008 Through the Bitter End. Priced at $11.99 it includes some of the verbal gems that have adorned the past seven years. 'They're edgy and a way to mark the days, so it's a perfect tie-in,' a spokesman for the distributors Calendars. com says. 'The intensity of dislike [for Bush] is driving these sales.' . . .

"[T]he last entry for the slightly stretched 2008 diary -- for Tuesday, 20 January 2009 when his successor will be inaugurated -- perhaps best sums up the preceding eight years of incoherence. Thus the 43rd President of the United States at a 2004 campaign event in Oregon: 'I hope you leave here and walk out and say, "What did he say?"'"

Live Online

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Cartoon Watch

Tony Auth on Bush's foreign dilemmas; Rex Babin on Bush's Christmas lights; Tom Toles on Bush's global warming record; Jeff Danziger on Bush's dollar; Stuart Carlson on Bush's congress; John Sherffius on Bush's nightmares.