Bush Ends With a Whimper

"Obama learned key details of the CIA's interrogation practices in a closed-door meeting last month, and afterward made clear that he was more interested in protecting the country from terrorist attacks than investigating the past, the outgoing CIA director said."

But Paul Krugman writes in his New York Times opinion column: "I'm sorry, but if we don't have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years -- and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama's remarks to mean that we won't -- this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don't face any consequences if they abuse their power.

"Let's be clear what we're talking about here. It's not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation's security. The fact is that the Bush administration's abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies. . . .

"[L]et's also not forget [Iraq's] failed reconstruction: the Bush administration handed billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to politically connected companies, companies that then failed to deliver. And why should they have bothered to do their jobs? Any government official who tried to enforce accountability on, say, Halliburton quickly found his or her career derailed. . . .

"And then there was the biggest scandal of all: Does anyone seriously doubt that the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into invading Iraq?. . .

"Now, it's true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those who acted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot of friends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If we whitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we'll guarantee that they will happen again."

And House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "I understand that many feel we should just move on. They worry that addressing these actions by the Bush administration will divert precious energy from the serious challenges facing our nation. I understand the power of that impulse. Indeed, I want to move on as well -- there are so many things that I would rather work on than further review of Bush's presidency. But in my view it would not be responsible to start our journey forward without first knowing exactly where we are."

Legacy Watch

The USA Today editorial board writes: "Perhaps future generations will be kinder to George W. Bush than today's harsh critics.

"Perhaps. But, at least from today's vantage point, it is hard to see Bush making a Truman-like comeback in popular standing. . . .

"Bush has often spoken about not leaving difficult problems to his successors, yet Barack Obama inherits a plate stacked higher with them than any president since FDR. To review some of Bush's early campaign themes -- limited government, a humble foreign policy, a different tone in Washington -- is to see a president who lost his bearings.

"For these and other reasons, Bush's record, at least for now, does not lend itself easily to a positive assessment. History isn't likely to regard him as the worst president ever, as some liberal historians have declared. But with only a slight reservation about not knowing what the future will bring, as he departs it is hard to place him anywhere but in the lower tier."

The White House assigned former staffer Peter Wehner to write a rebuttal for USA Today: "Like other presidencies, Bush's two terms in office were far from flawless; human imperfection, an untidy and dangerous world, and a vast federal bureaucracy ensured that," Wehner writes.

"But facing unprecedented challenges to our nation -- including three a once-in-a-century crises (the attack on our homeland, Hurricane Katrina and the financial meltdown) -- George W. Bush kept a steady hand on the wheel.

"He guided us through turbulent waters. He is also a man of grace and good character. Like Harry Truman before him, Bush will be honored in history."

Ken Bode writes in the Indianapolis Star op-ed: "Last week, the White House issued a report titled, '100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration.' Bush did 12 press interviews, one final press conference and a final speech to the nation Thursday night. The number one assertion in all of these: 'I kept America safe.'

"Well, the number one fact Americans need to remember is that on Aug. 6, 2001, Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were given an intelligence report headed, 'Osama Bin Laden Is Determined to Strike in the U.S.' Rice was warned that instigators might already be in place. What did The Decider do? He handed back the report to the CIA analyst and said, 'All right, you've covered your ass now.' . . .

"'We kept America safe' is their first great lie."

Washington Post opinion columnist Charles Krauthammer writes that Bush will be vindicated by Obama continuing so many of his policies. Mind you, in Krauthammer's view, Bush has also been an extraordinary martyr.

"In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size 10 shoes for his pains," Krauthammer writes.

"Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country."

Bob Woodward writes in a Washington Post opinion piece about "10 lessons that Obama and his team should take away from the Bush experience." Three of them are basically identical: "The president must insist that everyone speak out loud in front of the others, even -- or especially -- when there are vehement disagreements"; "Presidents need to draw people out and make sure bad news makes it to the Oval Office"; "Presidents need to foster a culture of skepticism and doubt."

Pardon Watch

At yesterday's briefing, White House Pres Secretary Dana Perino told reporters asking about pardons to "talk to the hand."

She added: "I don't anticipate that you'll have any, necessarily, on the 20th, but I can't say that for sure because a President always holds that power and that right up until the time that they're not -- no longer President. So I'm not going to restrain him and that power in any way."

Nevertheless, it's not too late for one last round of furious speculation over who Bush will pardon on his way out the door -- and when. Will there be some sort of blanket pardon for members of his own administration involved in his controversial interrogation and surveillance programs? Will Scooter Libby get a full pardon to go along with his commutation? What about Marion Jones? Or Conrad Black?

Come over to my discussion group, White House Watchers, and weigh in.

Those Missing E-Mails

Pete Yost writes for the Associated Press: "A federal court tore into the Bush White House on Thursday over the issue of millions of apparently missing e-mails, saying the administration failed in its obligation to safeguard all electronic messages.

"In a four-page opinion, Magistrate Judge John Facciola said the White House is ignoring the court's instructions to search a full range of locations for all electronic messages that may be missing. . . .

"The Justice Department says the government has finished a search that entailed spending more than $10 million to locate 14 million e-mails thought to be missing in 2005, when White House technical experts discovered a problem with the system.

"But in a court filing following Facciola's ruling, the administration revealed it has made almost no use of disaster recovery backup tapes. They are the one source that would make it possible to determine for certain whether any e-mails are missing e-mails and if so, how many."

R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post: "The dispute over recovery of the missing e-mails was provoked by the disclosure four years ago that the White House, in switching to a new internal e-mail system shortly after President Bush's election, had abandoned an automatic archiving system meant to preserve all messages containing official business. Under the new system, any of the 3,000 or so regular White House employees could access e-mail storage files, enabling them to delete messages.

"In a further sign of judicial concern, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the White House yesterday to continue to preserve records related to its decision-making about the e-mails."

Daniel Schulman writes for Mother Jones: "Facciola remarks on the true urgency of the situation: 'The issues that have now arisen are now confronted in true emergency conditions. As this is being written, there are two business days before the new President takes office and this case deals with the records created by the administration that is leaving office.' He notes that there is a 'profound societal interest' in preserving the Bush administration's email records."

FISA Watch

James Risen and Eric Lichtblau write in the New York Times: "In a rare public ruling, a secret federal appeals court has said telecommunications companies must cooperate with the government to intercept international phone calls and e-mail of American citizens suspected of being spies or terrorists.

"The ruling came in a case involving an unidentified company's challenge to 2007 legislation that expanded the president's legal power to conduct wiretapping without warrants for intelligence purposes.

"But the ruling, handed down in August 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and made public Thursday, did not directly address whether President Bush was within his constitutional powers in ordering domestic wiretapping without warrants, without first getting Congressional approval, after the terrorist attacks of 2001."

Del Quentin Wilber and R. Jeffrey Smith write in The Washington Post that "independent experts said it is unclear whether the ruling would have a broader effect. The case involved the Protect America Act, a surveillance law that Congress has since altered. The court also declared that its review addressed only how the law was applied in 2007, not its underlying constitutionality.

"Since then, Congress has approved new foreign intelligence surveillance legislation. It does not require, for example, that agencies have 'probable cause' to believe that the person being targeted is a foreign agent, but instead allows more wide-ranging surveillance. It also does not limit the intelligence-gathering to a 90-day period, as previously required."

On Letting Go

Sally Quinn writes in The Washington Post: "Giving up power is never easy. That's the only thing that might explain the Blair House episode.

"Yesterday President-elect Barack Obama and his family moved into Blair House, the guest house for official visitors to Washington. They had asked to move in earlier this month when they came to Washington to enroll their two daughters, Sasha and Malia, in Sidwell Friends School on Jan. 5. They were turned down because of 'previously scheduled events and guests.' . . .

"[T]he Bushes are about to relinquish the most powerful position in the country, maybe the world. And over the years, as that transition approaches -- no matter which party is in power -- there is always a last grasp, a moment when the outgoing first family tightens up on the reins of power as if to say: Not so fast. Until Jan. 20, we still call the shots.

"Different people have different ways of expressing that reluctance to let go. For the Bushes it has been Blair House."

Froomkin Watch

White House Watch will resume on Tuesday, Inauguration Day -- with a new president, and a new format. Stay tuned!

Lists Watch

Time Magazine picks Top 10 George W. Bush YouTube Moments.

Thinkprogress.org picks the top 43 worst Bush appointees.

Cartoon Watch

Stuart Carlson on Cheney in retrospect, Mike Luckovich on Cheney in retirement, Adam Zyglis on Bush's big mistake, Garry Trudeau on the exit interview, Mike Keefe, Pat Bagley, and John Darkow on Bush and bin Laden.

And parting thoughts from Ann Telnaes, Stuart Carlson, Robert Ariail, J.D. Crowe, Steve Greenberg, Clay Bennett and Matt Davies.