Semi-Daily Journal

Ashcroft, in the unglorious tradition of former members of the Senate, is simply shameless. As a nameless Baltimore politician once put it 'It's not a conflict of interest-- it doesn't conflict with any of my interests'.

Isn't talking about conflict of interest an M-type argument?

Zizka,

No, talking about conflicts of interest is not the same as making a type M argument. We generally like to limit conflicts of interest because we think its good operating procedure - that the probability of bad behavior is higher when the principals have incentives to engage in bad behavior.

Its altogether different to speculate that a single individual is corrupt because he has a conflict of interest. That is to ascribe motives to the individual that you cannot see. We might still want the conflict of interest removed - we should want the conflict of interest removed - because we recognize that allowing the conflict to fester creates a risk of bad behavior. But that's entirely different from inferring bad behavior from the mere presence of a conflict of interest.

Say in any given situation the probaility that someone will act corruptly is 10%. Where there's a conflict of interest, that probability jumps to 50%. That's way too high, so we want to limit conflicts of interest. But saying someone with a conflict must be corrupt is to tar the 50% of people who would act rightly, even in the presence of a conflict of interest, with the bad actions of the other 50%.

Personally I hope Ashcroft stays on the case and they do try to cover it up. It would be unbelievably stupid for them to do so, but that hasn't stopped them from doing a lot of things.

Remember, we still have 6 reporters and God knows how many other folks out there who do know the actual truth. What would it take for one fo them to leak the truth to the Post to resurect the story once again, except that next time it would be bigger due to the cover up and we could add Ashcroft to the list of senior agency officials to be frogg-marched out in chains.

Unless 6 prominent Washington journalists die from mysterious deaths in the near future, I'm not too worried about the real story eventually getting out. I don't think many Washington journalists could sit still for long knowing that the White House and Justice department have conspired to cover-up wrong doing at the highest levels. That's just too juicy of a story to sit on forever.

That Aschroft should recuse himself is the ultimate no-brainer. That is assuming he wants an unbiased and thorough inquiry.

That Aschroft should recuse himself is the ultimate no-brainer. That is assuming he wants an unbiased and thorough inquiry.

A leak by one of the 6 is exactly what the administration is praying for. That way they can fire the leaker for an unauthorized leak, and create fear among those who might leak something without approval from the top. This 1) establishes the administration as being in further control of information than they were before, and 2) gets them off the hook by creating a happy ending - the administration "does the right thing" by firing the leaker, and wins points with the public for integrity. If they name the leaker without the press naming him first, there will always be accusations that some higher-up was the actual leaker, and they are just covering it up. This is true with Ashcroft, or an independent council named by Justice, in charge, and whether they "out" the actual leaker or a scapegoat. (Even if they out a scapegoat, the "6" can't directly say that, because they would thus out the leaker, which they want to avoid to "protect their sources".)

This assumes that Rove or Bush isn't the leaker. I think this is a reasonable assumption - and everyone else - including Cheney - is expendable. Especially if they are doing unauthorized leaks. (This is, after all, an administration where you need a hall pass from higher ups to get away with leaking.)

My guess is that Ashcroft will have his associates continue to say the questions of recusal and special prosecutor are "wide open" to leave him some wiggle room. The risk that a real investigation could do catastrophic damage is simply too great to countenance, unless the risk of a tainted investigation comes to seem large, too. Objective thinkers close to Ashcroft and Bush (those who realize Clinton's troubles were largely manufactured) understand that there is simply too much at stake in the credibility game (Iraq, economy, environmental regulation, energy package) to risk a steep slide in credibility. You don't step away from these things. You manage them.

When you characterize what happened as a "leak" you are inadvertently furthering Bush admin spin. It is not the "leaking" that is so objectionable here. As the Pentagon Papers episode shows, under some circumstances "leaking" may even be patriotic.

It is not patriotic, however, to "blow the cover" of our top-level spies, especially those who are trying to prevent al-Qaida from obtaining WMD.

"A leak by one of the 6 is exactly what the administration is praying for. That way they can fire the leaker for an unauthorized leak, and create fear among those who might leak something without approval from the top."

I very much doubt this is the case. Especially if the story results from a leak by one of the six reporters and not from one of the six going on Larry King to spill all.

Basically they are screwed. They can't lie or cover-up the story because too many people already know the truth. The fact that they haven't already outed the culprit suggests to me that it is someone at a very high level that would take a personal decision by Bush to fire.

I think they are searching for a way out and not finding one. So they are going to delay and smear for as long as possible and hope the story goes away. If the press does their job, it won't.

The most politically astute thing would have been to fire the culprit on day 1 and then haul Mrs. Wilson into the White House to give her a personal apology from Bush and a big medal or commendation for her loyal service to the country.

Of coure the most politically astute thing for Clinton to have done would have been to fess up about Monica on day 1, say "yes, I had an affair, I regret it, it was a mistake, but now we need to move on."

They never learn.

So at least we assume that Ashcroft is corruptible, and thus at risk of doing wrong in case of a conflict of interest. The standard response in the case of such conflicts of interest is "I think that I've shown that I can be trusted". The counter-response is, of course, that avoiding conflicts of interest is a "general principle". This prevents you from having to say, "No, Mr. Ashcroft, I don't trust you personally". My bet is that people are far more likely to evoke the general principle in cases when they have an M-type argument at the back of their minds about a certain individual.

In politics, in fact, the **general rule** is not to trust anyone whatsoever. Doublecrossing is routine in that biz, even between allies.

So the error of making an M-type argument about an individual is that you are just stating a truism. There's also a certain etiquette about talking about the worst aspect of politics; in the Mafia movies everyone knows that in case of conflict any individual in the family might end up killing any other individual, but they don't bring this up every time they say hello.