I suggest to you that the there has been a relentless series of leaked official goverment documents and analyses that directly contradict White House’s public proclamations. So many, in fact, that it virtually constitutes a coup – launched by many independent career government employees who feel they can no longer stand aside and watch George Bush and his cronies devastate America’s future. They are an army of leakers who never march together and don’t know who each other are, but they’ve decided to bust up the Republican hold on power in Washington by the simple expedient of not allowing the bad news to be buried.
I thought of the name “truth coup” for it, and I would argue that the flood of leaks began in the aftermath of hurricane Karina. (Yeah, bad pun.) I think it opened up a lot of eyes within the government to how badly the government’s ability to act and serve the public was being eroded They began to see this asministration as not just another bunch of hot air bags, but actively dangerous.
The first leak that I can recall along these lines was the recording of a videoconference of the President with Mike Brown and other disaster officials, being briefed on Katrina and the threat of catastrophic levee failure. This was not long after Bush specifically denied that senior emergency people were anticipating any such thing.
Since then there have been any number of National Intelligence Esttimates, Pentagon studies, and leaked memos. The number of leaks is not so surprising as the very existence of the documents. One of the “arts” of successul governments is to control what gets investigated, what questions get asked, and who gets to answer the questions. It’s something that both parties practice, and it worked extremely well for Bush prior to the Iraq invasion. Arguably the invasion was only possible because he was able to control information comtradicting his claims so tightly. He has lost the ability to silence the bureaucracy.
The latest leak is the Index of Civil Conflict. It is rather shocking graph of Iraq’s acceleration toward civil chaos – shocking at least if you believed what the White House has been saying,
The “coup” analogy would hold water better if there was some evidence demonstrating that leaks from dissatisfied bureaucrats are significantly more common now than in previous Administrations.
What the OP refers to as “leaks” are in some instances reports from governmental organizations that do not meet the definition of “leak”.
A coup implies a direct and more or less immediate change in power. This is more along the lines of speaking truth to power, the power being, us. Think of it as a rough and tumble, vigilante version of the Freedom of Information Act.
Now, being a newspaper guy now I realize there’s an element of self-interest for me here, but leaks out of the bureaucracy (though usually from people above the worker-bee level, trust me) are a means of self-correction for government. They can, when things are best, allow for light to shine where those in power wish to keep something hidden from the electorate.
Are they politically/employment security/ what-have-you motivated? Or course. But that’s just the market at work.
Leaks have been around forever; it’s not as if it’s unique to Bush. Career bureaucrats often have views at odds with the Presidents they serve and thus will leak information in an effort to discredit the President.
Everyone here knows that “leaks have been around forever.” The question (one of them, anyway) is, have the Bushco leaks been greater in number than in previous adminstrations.
Well, that would seem to be a matter that could be examined objectively. You could start by counting the ones you can find (obviously, access to LexisNexis would help) or by going to a news agency and asking them.
On the other hand, even if the number of leaks is greater, one needs to determine whether this administrration is simply in a position to be in conflict with more bureaucrats than previous admistrations. If there are more leaks in 2006 than in 1996, is it the result of bureaucrats trying to “overturn” the administration? Or is it simply that a situation with multiple regional conflicts and changes in Law provides more points at which the administration will be in conflict with the bureacracy–with no actual intent by the bureacracy, coordinated or otherwise, to overthrow the (power of the) administration?
It’s not just a matter of sheer numbers of leaks. It’s also about the nature and timing and “quality” of the leaks.
Like the Katrina conference. The president lies, somebody in know the realizes it and looks on the document shelf, and BOOM out comes an irrefutable rebuttal of the President claim.
Or the NIE on how Iraq has increased terrorism. How did the report even get aprroved to be written? At worst I would expect the administration to be able to spin out the editing and revision process until after the election. I do recall one story saying an earlier draft of the NIE contained an analysis of specific US missteps contributing to the mess today. And the administration successfully managed to get that section expunged as beyond the scope of the report.
I admit that an extensive statistical analysis would be beeded to give weight to my claims, which is why I didnt put in GD. I deliberately put it in IMHO because that’s what it is. There are so many extraordinary things happening of late that tell me the governemt is fighting the President. Even aside from leaks. Military officers testifying, in substantial numbers, against the White House “terror” bills, come to mind.
The public and private struggles between Executive branch political appointees on the one side and career civil servants on the other, seem to me to exceed anything in my life time. (FYI - Johnson was the first President I had any real awareness of)
Yeah yeah yeah. Now that would be an error of transposition, rather than omission, Mr. I Wouldn’t Know An Ass If It Jumped Up And bit Me On The … , now wouldn’t it?
I just don’t really feel that this is any different than the conflicts that past past Presidents have had with the bureaucracy.
The bureaucracy is called by some political scientists the fourth branch of government, and they probably aren’t far off. Some of the most damaging “releases” for the administration aren’t “leaks” they are legally mandated reports that agencies are required by law to distribute to the public. The President is the “Chief Executive Officer” ostensibly all power in the executive branch flows from him and all the other executive branch employees are simply there because it is not feasible for one man to do everything that the responsibilities of the executive entail.
But over the years the bureaucracy has achieved a great deal of independence from the President and the White House, some agencies more so than others, obviously. The IRS is more independent than the DoD, for example. A lot of this stems from the fact that Congress gets to structure these executive branch offices, such that they can hard-code a certain degree of independence in. So no, in many cases the President is more or less powerless to stop publication of things that may be critical of his administration.
Reports have come out of the federal bureaucracy for every President in my lifetime that in some way presents evidence critical of their administration and policies, and many of these have been in the form of congressionally mandated annual or periodical publications that the bureaucratic agency in question is legally mandated to publish to the public.
Bush is the first President, however, in a very long time that has been involved in something as big and controversial as the Iraq war. Clinton’s Presidency despite a few hiccups is more akin to that of Calvin Coolidge.
The Press has also, through the years, become more pervasive and has established a stronger relationship with the government bureaucracy. It was difficult to investigate the Watergate scandal because many government employees just simply would not divulge information to a reporter. But even back then, some did (Woodward was helped extensively by persons within the federal government) and that ultimately led to the downfall of Nixon completely. One has to wonder if you consider Nixon’s downfall a coup by the FBI since it was an FBI official who assisted Woodward in his investigation.
Perhaps mutiny or whistleblowing is a beter word. From what I hear, no previous administration in recent memory has reached down as deep to affect the actions of the mid-level carreer government employee. Many people in government really think of themselves as public servants, and while this usually just mean that you get lower pay than you would get in the private sector it also means that you have a much greater level of autonomy than private sector workers because you work for the people. Either that or the fact that the governemnt has a LOT of babyboomers on the verge of retirement that are just too senior to take any shit from anyone.
I see these leaks as being the Republic doing what it should do when the system is being undetermined by the power hungry. The People are the good guys. We have a government of the People. When someone in a position of power lies to us and takes away our rights without due process, that person is the one attempting a coup.
One difference I see with respect to previous presidents, is how worked up this whitehouse gets over the leaks.
By getting so worked up over the warantless wiretapping story, accusing reporters of aiding terrorists, etc. they keep reminding the public of the story, and the degree of retaliation serves as an ipso facto confirmation of the accuracy of the stories.
Previous administrations mostly realized that the damage was already done, and the less said the better.
I think you may have to factor technology into this as well. It is much easier nowadays to beam some information from an anonymous account to whoever you want. You also don’t have to send it to reporters anymore, just to some reasonably popular blogger (or start your own blog). If the material is explosive enough, the mainstream media will eventually pick it up. Less risk to spread info and more opportunities to do so means more leaks.
Another example, slightly different but related: global warming. Four years ago, the concept of global warming was somewhat controversial, and hotly contested by the Bush administration and its scientific spokespeople. It seems now to be accepted widely as a given: any reference to GW in the media will be in a “it’s here, what do we do about it” context.
It’s as if the populace has moved *past * the debate, leaving Bush (and Michael Crichton) in the dust, without ever trying to *win * the debate.