WASHINGTON— Now six plus years into the presidency of George W.
Bush, I think we can discern a theme in his administration, one
that the historians will pass on to future generations. I write as
a historian myself here, in fact as a “presidential historian,” if
I may appropriate a title used in modern historiography. Some will
scoff at my claim, but in recent years I have written about as many
books on presidential high jinks as Michael Beschloss, who is
frequently called a “presidential historian” though he is not as
amused by the presidency as I am.
Perhaps this is because I have mostly written about President
Bill Clinton, the modern presidency’s closest approximation to the
late and laughable President Warren G. Harding. At this point in
Clinton’s administration several themes were discernible. There was
the administration’s effort to avoid the prosecutors — as many as
seven different officers of the court were out to get the
President, his wife, and various cabinet officials. There was the
President’s effort to avoid impeachment and, worse, conviction.
Less celebrated, but surely a long-standing theme of President
Clinton’s presidency (and for that matter of his whole adult life),
was his effort to avoid various ghastly sexually transmitted
diseases. It is increasingly likely that in the years to come the
Clinton administration will figure as prominently in high school
history classes as in high school sex education classes, and the
lessons to be derived from the latter will probably be more
beneficial to the commonweal.
Now in the spring of 2007 I think a perceptible theme has
emerged in the Bush administration. Dramatists might entitle it
“The Hunt for Karl Rove.” Since the 2001 inauguration, multitudes
of journalists have set out to snare him. Entire congressional
staffs have pursued him. Wily fellow that he is, Rove has evaded
every trap. Called five times before the grand jury in the Valerie
Plame burlesque, he never lapsed into a serious misstatement and
certainly not into the perjury that cooked President Clinton’s
goose. Back he went to the White House every time with a smile on
his face and doubtless a head full of stratagems with which to
flummox the Democrats further. I would not be surprised to read in
Rove’s memoir that he actually enjoyed the grand jury appearances.
They filled the liberal Democrats with such hope. They left them in
such despair.
At this very minute there are at least two congressional
investigations hot on his trail. One is investigating whether the
Republican National Committee set up separate e-mail accounts for
Rove and his henchpersons in the White House to use. Another is
investigating whether these desperados arranged political briefings
for political appointees in the government. Both investigations
will probably find that Rove and his cronies did precisely what
they are suspected of doing. Yet once again Rove will go scot-free.
The problem the investigators have is that there is nothing wrong
with Rove’s actions. They are perfectly legal and, at least in the
case of the e-mail accounts, required by law.
What we have here is the criminalization of politics. Nothing
Rove has done is criminal, but by dragging him before congressional
hearings and even better grand juries his political opponents hope
that they will catch him in a misstatement that can be prosecuted
as perjury. Fred Barnes, writing in the Weekly Standard,
put it just so: “The Democratic strategy now is to criminalize that
success [Bush’s election triumphs] by treating normal political
conduct by the Bush Administration, spearheaded by Rove, as a
series of criminal acts.” Barnes goes on to cite the chairman of
the House Democratic Caucus, the Hon. Rahm Emanuel, declaiming that
the Bush administration’s crimes surpass those of the Nixon
administration in Watergate. “In many ways, what we have seen from
this administration,” says Emanuel, “is far more extensive than
that scandal.”
There is a brazenness for Emanuel, who gamely served in the
scandalous Clinton administration, to harangue the ethics of either
the Bush administration or even the Nixon administration. Emanuel’s
boss lied under oath, obstructed justice, and was found in contempt
of court. He paid fines, had his law license suspended, and signed
affidavits admitting to wrongdoing. No one forced him to lie under
oath or to obstruct justice. Even the heinous Nixon never lied
under oath.
Meanwhile, the crafty Rove continues to outfox those who wish to
make it a crime to practice politics adroitly and successfully.
Frankly, “The Hunt for Karl Rove” might make a very good title for
a history of the Bush administration. It is vastly more amusing
than “How the Democrats Deserted Our Army in the Field.”
