Bush Press Conference on Attoney Purge

Talking Points Memo has a video of the Bush press conference on the U.S. Attorneys purge. It's a horrible performance even by Bush standards. It really is something when Bush cheerleader Kathryn Jean Lopez feels the need to say so.

Instead, the president has now gone before the press and while delivering his remarks lost his place at least once, and sounded like an exhausted lame duck lamely reading his unconvincing statement..

Of course K-Lo quickly was back in pom pom-waving mode. Scott Horton of the must read email newsletter No Comment brilliantly summed up Bush's performance.

I just watched Bush deliver his response to Congress' request. The cable news commentator instantly described Bush as "firm and vigorous," and I couldn't suppress a laugh. In fact he was Nixonian from the shaky, teetering final days.

Bush is doing himself no favors with his official stance. The Fred Fielding letter to Congress puts the White House on a collision course with disaster.

Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony, or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas.

That way Karl Rove can lie without fear of legal repercussions. Fat chance of that happening. John Conyers probably read that letter and wondered who are these people kidding.

What will probably happen is White House and Justice Department officials will be subpoenaed and lie under oath. Which sets up the possibility of criminal prosecution. These people learned nothing from the Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial. Bush would do himself and his party a favor by purging officials involved with the U.S. Attorneys scandal. Tony Snow told Brian York that the White House has the upper hand.

Finally, I asked whether the White House believes this is a battle the president can win. "Yes," Snow said. "In terms of presidential prerogative, in terms of preserving confidential communications with your staff — yes."

Snow's interview with York gets even more bizarre.

I pointed to the recent Libby trial, in which there was great dispute over what had been said in unrecorded, untranscribed interviews with the FBI. You need a transcript to know an interviewee's precise words, I said. Snow argued that that wasn't necessary because there will be members of Congress from both parties, staff, and others at the interviews. "There will be a whole lot of people there [at the interviews] to be witnesses to what's going on," he said.

Even a talented spinmeister like Snow can't make that not sound laugh out hysterical. Snow wants the public to believe that people remembering conversations is as accurate as recordings and transcripts. That's just plain bullshit.

Bush has a dismal approval rating and a Democratic Congress. Republicans are telling him to fire Gonzales. Bush will lose.