Wave of Public Criticism Rises From Former Bush Officials
By Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer
Dick Cheney says President Obama's policies will make it easier for terrorists to kill Americans. Alberto Gonzales says the new attorney general could be undermining the morale of U.S. intelligence officials.
And Andrew Card, George W. Bush's first chief of staff, took Obama to task for allowing shirtsleeves and loose collars in the Oval Office -- arguing it was a clear departure from Bush's sterner sartorial rules.
"There should be a dress code of respect," Card told "Inside Edition," a syndicated show usually focused on Hollywood celebrities. "When you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it's appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the president."
The knives are already out just two weeks after Bush left the White House, as some of his closest friends and former aides begin lobbing sharp criticisms at the Obama administration.
The comments mark a departure from the general rules of decorum that held sway during the final weeks of the Bush administration, when the departing president and his aides made a point of fostering a cordial relationship with the Obama team. Bush himself has refrained from criticism so far, making no public remarks since returning to Texas.
"It's certainly unbecoming, especially for a former vice president," Thomas E. Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, said in reference to the remarks by Cheney and others. "It reinforces the fact that there's a lot of bitterness about the low public standing of Bush and the administration as they left office, and the soaring standing of Barack Obama. A lot of these people are still caught up in these ideological battles and can't let go."
But Brian Darling, the Senate relations director for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the criticism "is part of democracy and the free exchange of ideas."
"President Obama has taken actions that are opposite of what the Bush administration worked for over the last eight years," Darling said. "This is part of defending their legacy."
He said the situation would be different if the criticism came from Bush, given that ex-presidents have generally exercised restraint in criticizing current White House occupants. One clear exception was Bill Clinton during the 2008 campaign, Darling noted.
Other historians and political experts say that, in general, former presidents and their senior aides tend to withhold public criticism during the start of a successor's term, although there have been anomalies. While a defeated Al Gore laid low in 2001, former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton -- a new senator from New York -- publicly attacked Bush in March of that year for allegedly attempting to "turn back the clock on the Clinton administration."
This year, the hard feelings among some Bush supporters began to flare immediately after Obama's inaugural address, which included some implicit criticism of Bush and his tenure. GOP consultant and former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon wrote in a blog posting after Bush's trip home Jan. 20 that some felt Obama took "unnecessary shots" and used "borrowed ideas," although he also stressed that Bush himself expressed no concerns. Longtime Bush advisers Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett offered similar views in interviews and appearances.
Then Gonzales, who resigned as Bush's attorney general under a cloud of scandal in 2007, told National Public Radio that he disagreed with testimony from attorney general nominee Eric Holder, who said the CIA interrogation technique called waterboarding was torture.
Holder "needs to be careful in making a blanket pronouncement like that," Gonzales said, because it could affect the "morale and dedication" of intelligence officials.
Another longtime Bush adviser, Karl Rove, has been particularly outspoken in his criticism of Obama, primarily through his regular appearances as a Fox News commentator. Rove has assailed Obama's proposed economic stimulus package, attacked his record on ethics and accused the new administration of putting America "more at risk" by banning waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.
But the strongest criticism so far has come from Cheney, the former vice president, who said in an interview with Politico on Tuesday that there is a "high probability" of a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack by terrorists under Obama. Cheney also attacked several key Obama policies, including new interrogation rules and the decision to eventually close the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an al-Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," Cheney said, adding that counterterrorism is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business."
"These are evil people, and we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek," he said.
The comments reprised Cheney's familiar role as doomsayer during the Bush administration, when he routinely warned of imminent danger from terrorists and portrayed Democrats as soft on national security. During the 2004 campaign, Cheney warned that the nation would be at risk of terrorist attack if it made the "wrong choice" by picking Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).
Even so, the tenor of the comments is remarkable so soon after the start of a new administration. Presidential historian Robert Dallek said the wave of criticism "speaks to their defensiveness," noting that Bush spent much of his last two months in office defending his rocky White House tenure.
"This was an administration that left so much under a cloud," Dallek said. "They're just continuing a pattern of aggression in defending their failed record, which is what the current judgment is among most Americans."
The remarks by Card, meanwhile, also suggest that no issue is too small to escape notice. Obama has attracted attention for ditching his suitcoat while in the Oval Office and letting others do the same. Although Bush did on occasion work in his shirtsleeves, he generally enforced a more formal dress code for the presidential office.
"I'm disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker-room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office," Card told talk show host Michael Medved last week. He did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
