I'm sorry to have to say it, but it's true.
Milbank nails Leahy.
[The White House has] stalled or ignored Leahy's requests as his committee looks into the wiretapping program and the travails of Gonzales. They have calculated — accurately so far — that the Dynamic Duo of Leahy and Schumer would deliver harsh words but no punishment of consequence.
“The time is up. The time is up,” Leahy announced yesterday. “We've waited long enough.”
But what would Leahy do about it? The first questioner riddled Batman with this.
“The full Judiciary Committee will have to sit down and determine whether to seek contempt from the full Senate,” said the noncommittal action hero.
Does that mean he would seek a contempt-of-Congress citation? “What I want to do is get the response to these things,” Leahy demurred.
Rebecca Carr of Cox News tried again to pin him down, but Leahy continued to escape. “What we have to find out is what happened here,” he answered.
How about withholding money from the administration? “Let's take it step by step,” he proposed.
Holy incrementalism, Batman!
Weak, weak, weak. Weak tea.
The best spin that can be put on this — and the spin Leahy would no doubt put on it — is that the Senator was careful, even cagey, and displayed a statesmanlike refusal to tip his hand.
The rest of the world saw this: He's got nothin'.
I understand, of course, that Leahy wants — needs — to proceed with caution. But then why not just do that? Why not issue your non-statement from Vermont? Why fly to DC to say you have to fly home and then fly back again when your colleagues get into town, then meet with them and decide what to do?
The White House spin machine even sent out signals yesterday that August 20th was never supposed to be any kind of deadline. Leahy showed up to insist that it was.
And a deadline for what? Apparently for him to hold a press conference to announce that he would have to wait until September to confer with his colleagues about what to actually do about the White House missing the “deadline.”
Which in the real world means September was the deadline. And yesterday's performance did nothing but reinforce the appearance of a Congress unwilling to stand up for itself.
It may well be that Leahy has the resolve to move forward with contempt charges. And why wouldn't he? It's risk free. The “administration” has already said point blank that this Department of Justice will not prosecute such charges. But he couldn't say so, because he knows he can't count his chickens before they're hatched. And when your “chickens” are people like Arlen Specter, it's probably quite wise not to count them for anything. Specter collapses so often, I wouldn't even feel comfortable counting him as an egg, quite frankly.
So yes, it's a difficult line to walk. But when you know how squishy your troops are, you've got to include that in your calculus. Don't set deadlines you can't enforce, and for God's sake, don't have press conferences to announce you can't enforce them. Although to be honest, a presser to announce that would have at least been more concrete than the thin gruel we got yesterday. At least it would have been definitive on something.