NYT: "from the questionable to the ridiculous"

[nostamj]

<snip>

Mr. Bush's reluctant and restrictive cooperation with the panel is consistent with the administration's pattern of stonewalling reasonable requests for documents and testimony and then giving up only the minimum necessary ground when the dispute becomes public. Today's testimony will be in private in the White House, away from reporters or television cameras. The session will not be recorded, and there will be no formal transcript. The president's aides have defended this excessive degree of secrecy with the usual arguments about protecting highly classified information and not wanting to establish dangerous precedents.

The idea that the panel may wring from Mr. Bush some comment that may endanger national security is ridiculous. The commission, led by the respected former Republican governor of New Jersey, Thomas Kean, has already heard, in public, from the leaders of the nation's top intelligence agencies, the secretary of defense and Mr. Bush's national security adviser. It seems highly unlikely that the president knows secrets more sensitive than they do. If he did, he would certainly be free to go off the record while discussing them.

The president's aides have also been arguing that making the event anything more than a "meeting" or informal discussion would establish a pattern that future chief executives would be forced to follow. That is true, in a way. If Mr. Bush or any of his successors have the tragic misfortune to be in command at a time when terrorists strike the country, killing thousands of innocent civilians, they should be expected to cooperate with the official investigations, and to do so in a way that puts their statements on the record and into history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/opinion/29THU1.html

[mopaul]

1. dick will be there to hold the president's dick

how embarassing

[buddy22600]

2. Nah, Cheney is only there so when he has

another heart attack it will look like the dems on the commission caused it

[tabasco]

3. Funny cartoon!

Yesterday Terry Moran asked Bush why he and Cheney had to appear together. Once again he dodged the question. "I'll be glad to answer questions...freedom...terror...9-11...help get to the bottom of this..." They must have rehearsed dodging this question. They have simply refused to answer it. That tells me that they have no excuse other than Chimpy is a huge coward, and Cheney is the de facto President.

[nostamj]

4. ann telnaes...