It's a sad day when...

In his statement on the resignation of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, President Bush noted that “we’re all saddened by today’s news.” While I can understand the President’s feelings of sadness, I am disturbed by what the President did not bring himself to say.

Yes, it’s a sad day when a trusted and hard-working colleague, with whom you have labored for nearly five years, is indicted for multiple felonies. But that sadness needs be put in context.

It was a sad day when members of the Bush Administration chose to respond to the whistle-blowing op-ed column of Joseph Wilson by retaliating against his wife.

It was a sad day when Libby and, presumably, other unnamed individual(s) chose to “out” an undercover CIA agent, putting into danger her life and the lives of her contacts.

It was a sad day when the Administration chose to react to Wilson’s column instead of attending to his warnings about faulty intelligence.

It was a sad day when the Administration chose to act on that faulty intelligence, intelligence asserting that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat to the United States of America.

It was a sad day when the Bush Administration refused to allow United Nations inspectors to search for said nuclear weapons, choosing warfare instead of diplomacy.

It was a sad day when the United States engaged in preemptive warfare against a threat that turned out to be nonexistent.

It was a sad day when the first of thousands and thousands of soldiers and civilians began dying, and suffering devastating injuries, as a result of that war.

It was a sad day when each of thousands of American families, when each of tens of thousands of Iraqi families learned that the life of a son or daughter had been lost.

It was a sad day when the “liberation” of Iraq was undone because the Administration chose to disregard the advice of senior military officers concerning the number of troops required to secure the peace and safeguard the stability of Iraqi society.

It was a sad day when the same Administration chose to disband the Iraqi army and the Baath Party, alienating the very parties in Iraq whose help could have been so helpful.

It was a sad day when the Republican-controlled Congress chose not to conduct investigations into the faulty decision-making processes that led to the present catastrophe.

“We’re saddened by today’s news,” said President Bush. Yes, but the sadness of today comes at the end of a series of many unfortunate choices made during many sad days. It is a sad day when the life and career of a highly intelligent and devoted lawyer and public servant comes crashing down as a consequence of choices he made. It is a sad day when any individual finds himself or herself in legal trouble because of lapses of judgement, because of unethical acts, because of untruthful words, because of a lack of candor when testifying to a Grand Jury.

But the saddest case of all is that of Mr. Bush who, to date, has not understood or appropriated the lessons of the Nixon and Clinton presidencies: The President must admit mistakes and accept responsibility if he wants to be able to move on. Otherwise his Administration will be trapped in a growing morass from which there is no escape. These are the words I would like to hear him say:

“The leaking of the name of Valerie Plame to the press was an unthinkable, unethical, and presumably criminal action. It violated the first amendment rights of Ambassador Wilson, ended the career of a devoted CIA employee, and put at risk the lives of her contacts. Any members of my Administration who were responsible for perpetrating this leak, or attempting to protect the identities of those who did, or for failing to be completely truthful and forthcoming to me or to the Grand Jury will be brought to justice. That is the lesson of today’s indictment and of any future indictments. It saddens me personally, but I take responsibility.”