I just caught a minute of Ari Fleischer’s daily briefing today. And what caught my attention was the back-and-forth on Army Secretary Thomas White.
Fleischer ‘defended’ White against new charges that he had not divested himself of Enron holdings, as he had promised he would during his confirmation hearing. But he ‘defended’ him only in that highly circumscribed Washington sense of the word that might be loosely translated into the American vernacular as ‘hung out to dry.’
In any case, to my ears, the defense sounded distressingly weak. It sounded to me like ‘we’re sure White’s trying to fulfill his promise, we’re sure he wants to, he’d better, don’t ask me any more questions.’
If I were Thomas White, I’d be quite nervous right now. Not only does it look like he’s in quite a good bit of political trouble. But you have to figure also that he’s beginning to look a rather convenient scapegoat to Karl Rove and the rest of the folks at the White House political office.
To date, White is the only senior member of the administration that we know was deeply enmeshed in Enron wrong-doing. Not illegality, mind you. At least not necessarily. But the sort of corporate bad practices, while an executive at Enron, which at the very least everyone seems to agree are blameworthy.
Perhaps we’ll find that other members of the administration are similarly tainted. But thus far we just have not seen proof of that. I’d imagine that the administration would like nothing better than to demonstrate zero-tolerance for Enron-type shenanigans by tossing some bad-actor overboard — particularly if they could find someone who fit the bill and yet was utterly expendable.
Just off the top of my head, I think they’d be looking for maybe, say, a 2nd level appointee at a major department, someone of some consequence, but not anyone with deep connections to the principals (or principles) of the administration.
Like I said, if I were Thomas White …
