It’s been a bountiful couple of days for people interested in the inner workings of the Bush administration. The information pouring out of the famously secretive network of current and former White House staff and related employees may not be particularly surprising but is rich in detail.
Robert Draper’s new intimate Bush biography, Dead Certain, paints the president as a gung-ho competitive, over-confident dude-bro who can only hear good news and who keeps tally of the number of books he reads like a grade schooler on summer vacation. On his bike rides with the secret service, he’s all testosterone-fueled agroman, intent to show them, in his words, “who’s the man”…
Even better will be The Terror Presidency, Jack Goldsmith’s long-delayed report of his brief pained tenure as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Goldsmith— an arch-conservative law professor— who wanted and still wants all of the things the administration wants, simply couldn’t conscience the grasping short-sighted approach taken by the administration to accomplishing those things.
Best are Goldsmith’s recollections of his clashes with David “the bully” Addington, Cheney’s Chief of Staff.
Example: In 2003, a few days into the job, Goldsmith warily heads to a meeting with the White House “war council” of attorneys and advisers. In preparation, Goldsmith has studied the Geneva Conventions— the one that concern prisoners of war but also the one on treatment of civilians.
Goldsmith has found the administration logic weak and tendentious. He knows, in sum, that the Bush approach to civilian detention in the War on Terror won’t stand the scrutiny of the courts.
He tells the room what he thinks, to which Addington blows up in response: “The president has already decided that terrorists do not receive Geneva Convention protections. You cannot question his decision.”
Goldsmith lasted only nine months in his job, resigning as part of a strategy to withdraw the infamous torture memo penned by his predecessor, John Yoo. The New York Times magazine, in an interview with Goldsmith, reported these conversations and others, including the infamous Ashcroft death-bed scene, which in Goldsmith’s recounting includes the amazing image of Ashcroft’s wife sticking her tongue out at White House thugs Alberto Gonzalez and Andrew Card as they exited the room empty handed.
If you want the real “superbad” story of the summer, it’s in the pages of these two books.
Images: Addington, left; Goldsmith, right. The warring, conservative, graying lawmen.
Tags: dead certain, jack goldsmith, robert draper, terror presidency