Inside the White House Bunker

Interupting my series on Repuglican Liars

From the Washington Post and David Ignatius

The Oval Office Bunker

By David Ignatius
Wednesday, April 25, 2007; A17

The disconnect that is destroying what's left of the Bush presidency was clear in an image from the Oval Office this week. President Bush was sitting warily in his chair, pursing his lips as if he had just eaten a bad radish, as a reporter asked about the performance of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in recent congressional testimony concerning the firing of U.S. attorneys.

Prominent Republicans had criticized Gonzales's testimony as evasive and inadequate. But Bush responded blandly that his attorney general had given "a very candid assessment and answered every question he could possibly answer . . . in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job."

Now, say what you like about Gonzales, but only a visitor from another planet would describe as "very candid" the responses of a man who, by one count, repeated 64 times during his testimony the phrase "I don't know" and similar variants. It was as if Bush didn't know or care that everyone in Washington had watched Gonzales duck questions before a Senate committee a few days earlier.