TOO MANY 'YES' MEN SPOIL A POT
Recent events surely have not done wonders for President Bush's already minimal international credibility. Hasn't built much trust domestically either. You can tell a lot about a leader's character by how he (in this case) handles adversity. When the going gets tough, does he say 'I'm in charge, it was my decision' or does he blame underlings?

The flap over the misinformation the president presented in his state of the union address is revealing. The moment the administration realized the tiff wasn't going to disappear overnight and they needed a fall guy. The first time I heard National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice say that if the CIA director had said don't include this information, the information wouldn't have been included, it was clear to me that the scapegoat was going to be George Tenet. Tenet was originally a Clinton appointee. But he's also a loyal soldier who isn't going to turn on his boss. Tenet is thus the perfect guy to push on to his sword.

By sacrificing Tenet to the political gods, the administration thus hopes to avoid the larger, and more important, question. Was there so much pressure within the administration to find information to fit the pre-arranged conclusion that dubious information was part of the dossier against Iraq? And if so, how much more dubious information was there? In other words, are there too many 'yes' men in the White House?
To wit, an Associated Press article reported, "Tenet told members of Congress a White House official insisted that President Bush's State of the Union address include an assertion about Saddam Hussein's nuclear intentions that had not been verified, a Senate Intelligence Committee member [Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin] said Thursday."
According to the report, Durbin told Good Morning America, "[Tenet] certainly told us who the person was who was insistent on putting this language in which the CIA knew to be incredible, this language about the uranium shipment from Africa," and added, "The more important question is who is it in the White House who was hellbent on misleading the American people and why are they still there."

On Friday, Tenet issued a statement accepting responsibility. His immediate superior (Rice) continues to deflect all blame from the president to her subordinate, Tenet. As does the big boss (Bush himself). At least Tenet's showing leadership.

Almost as bad, they are pointing fingers at (perhaps overly) loyal allies the Brits. They're saying "Well, the information shouldn't have been included but it's not the our fault because the Brits were the one who thought this." When the Brits passed it on, I wonder if it was intended for public consumption. I wonder if it what degree of credibility the Brits themselves ascribed to the report. Either way, Prime Minister Tony Blair is caught in the middle. He's under fire at home for allying himself too closely with a president derided abroad as a reckless cowboy. Now, his intelligence service is one of the scapegoats feeling the heat from conservatives eager to make sure anyone but the president is blamed, despite the hawks' earlier canonization of Blair.

There is no good way out for the president. Either he told a baldface lie to the American people (which I seriously doubt) or he was badly served by his subordinates. Either way, it seriously damages his credibility. Even if he didn't consciously lie, the next time he talks about some supposed imminent or distant threat to our national security, can we trust what he's saying? Will we wonder if the information he's using is accurate or made to fit whatever course of action he wants to support or simply out of date?

At best, even if our perception of the president's personal integrity isn't damaged by this scandal, our faith in his judgement will be.