Stuck

Dedicated to secrecy, the Bush administration reveals itself mainly through scandal. Yesterday’s most amazing discovery was the inflexibility of the administration’s political tactics. Who could have imagined that, as recently as the week before last, a DOJ official would have been threatening the fired U.S. Attorneys with public humiliation if they didn’t keep their mouths shut? (For those who haven’t seen Bud Cummins’s e-mail to other former U.S. Attorneys describing his conversation with Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, find it here, courtesy of Talking Points Memo.) Not that anyone would have expected scruples from these people—we’re long accustomed to this sort of behavior from them. But how could they have expected this threat to work with the opposition in control of Congress, an investigation underway, and hearings scheduled? It turns out that the administration’s political game is as inadaptable as its policies.