I'd have to agree with Walter Shapiro of USA Today:
Washington and the reporters who cover it adhere to a curious definition of what constitutes a full-blown scandal.Dating back long before Watergate, the ingredient usually needed to trigger breathless scandal coverage is that some law, no matter how minor, may have been broken. All that are required are a few key words like ''Justice Department'' and ''investigation'' -- and suddenly the press and the politicians are caught up in a furor of righteous indignation and desperate spin control.
In the past week, three major Iraq-related developments should have, in theory, caused lasting embarrassment to the Bush administration. But because none of these flaps touched on illegality, they have been treated as one-day stories....
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Joe Allbaugh, Bush's 2000 campaign manager, and two top Republican lobbyists have formed a new firm to advise companies on how to win contracts to rebuild Iraq. This legal buck-raking -- along with the contracts awarded to Halliburton, the company that Dick Cheney headed before he was picked as Bush's running mate -- suggests an eagerness to turn Iraq into a profit center.
But under Washington's excessively legalistic definition of scandal, these worrisome developments have been overshadowed. This week's uproar revolves around charges that the administration leaked the name of a CIA agent to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, who had publicly challenged the president's State of the Union claim that Saddam had tried to buy African uranium. Because an obscure 1982 law makes the disclosure of a covert agent's identity a crime, the White House announced Tuesday morning that the Justice Department has launched a full investigation.
Senator Edwards is watching Allbaugh, but is anyone listening to Edwards?
Senator John Edwards Tuesday called on President Bush to crack down on former administration officials lobbying for sweetheart government contracts and proposed a new independent panel to oversee the nearly $20 billion in funds to rebuild Iraq."This is an administration of the insiders, for the insiders, and by the insiders. Learning that George Bush's campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, has started his own consulting firm to profit from the war in Iraq proves this point,” Edwards said. “First, Vice President Cheney's Halliburton receives more than $2 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts and now this.”
“It is an outrage and disrespectful to the young men and women who are serving in Iraq today. President Bush should start addressing this credibility gap by calling on Joe Allbaugh and his friends to stop using their influence to secure government contracts in Iraq, and by agreeing to an independent oversight panel to ensure that contracts in Iraq are administered fairly.”
Allbaugh, Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and his former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, created a consulting firm to help clients take advantage of business opportunities in Iraq. New Bridge Strategies advertises on its Web site, "The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C., and on the ground in Iraq."
"In this enormously expensive mission, the American people ought to be assured that any dollar we spend there is for the rebuilding of Iraq, and not just the building of profit for the president's friends and political supporters," Edwards said.
Edwards Tuesday proposed an independent oversight panel to ensure that U.S. government contracts in Iraq are administered fairly. After World War II, Congress created a special joint committee to oversee funds spent under the Marshall Plan. Similarly, the watchdog panel Edwards proposed would:
Review of the execution and administration of contracts in Iraq to ensure that these contracts are awarded fairly and through a competitive process, not used for political payoffs;
Ensure that the Iraqi people are involved in these programs to the greatest extent possible.
Issue ongoing public reports on the status of the contract bidding process as well as the implementation of the contracts.