Republicans Anonymous

The Administration's standard "just ignore it and hope goes away" approach to reality having failed, Bush Orders Staff to Attend Ethics Briefings. Too little, much too late.

I find particularly interesting the person running these seminars: Harriet (Bush is Intelligent) Meiers.

A senior aide said Bush decided to mandate the ethics course during private meetings last weekend with Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and counsel Harriet Miers. Miers's office will conduct the ethics briefings.
(Source: Washington Post Bush Orders Staff to Attend Ethics Briefings, Nov. 5, 2005. Emphasis added.)

An appropriate response immediately after the Plame affair started, this feeble response smacks of Karl Rove's weakening influence on policy. After all, Karl apparently wasn't at those meetings and has always been of the "don't apologize, just tell more outrageous lies about the opposition" school of crisis management. (There's an old joke about a politician in a close race ordering a naive campaign aide to start a whisper campaign about his opponent's carnal attraction to barnyard animals. The aide was shocked: "We can't accuse our opponent of being a pig-f**ker - besides, nobody will believe it!" "I know" the politician replied, "but let's make that idiot go on TV and deny it!" Karl Rove's success stems from viewing this story as a template rather than as a joke.)