W. House Staff Schooled On Ethics
White House staffers began attending mandatory briefings Tuesday on ethical conduct and the handling of classified materials. The sessions come in the wake of the CIA leak investigation and the indictment and resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
President Bush ordered everyone in the White House with a security clearance to attend the ethics briefings to be held this week.
Everyone would include the president's chief political strategist Karl Rove, who is still under investigation by the special prosecutor but has not been charged with anything, CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports.
Senior Democrats, though, are calling on the president to revoke Rove's security clearance, and even some Republicans are saying perhaps its time for Rove to step aside or at least reduce his role here at the White House.
These ethics and intelligence briefings are mandatory; attendance will be taken. They're going to be offered three times on Tuesday and Wednesday and twice on Thursday so that everyone can attend. They will include a discussion of federal ethics rules and specifically the rules on the handling of classified information. Those rules include, says Plante, lesson number one: do not under any circumstances speak to the press. Lesson number two: refer to lesson number one.
The briefings began as President Bush got back to business after his trip to Latin America. He'll have less than a week to tend to problems at home before taking off for distant lands again.
Mr. Bush returned from Panama late Monday at the end of a five-day trip that included a hemispheric summit in Argentina and was leaving for an eight-day trip to Asia on Nov. 14. That gives him precious little time to work on his domestic agenda, help win support for replacement Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito and deal with the fallout from the CIA leak case that involved two of his top aides.
Between his foreign visits, a trip home to Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday and other domestic travel in between, Mr. Bush will spend roughly two-thirds of November away from the White House.
The trips largely will keep Mr. Bush's focus overseas while problems are mounting at home. But the president does not get to escape his woes by traveling abroad, as was obvious in Latin America. Protesters in Argentina drew attention to anti-Bush sentiment in the region, and leading South American nations were reluctant to move ahead with Mr. Bush's call for opening trade.
Meanwhile, reporters traveling with Mr. Bush dogged him about the CIA leak case that is contributing to his all-time low approval rating.
On his trip, Mr. Bush would not respond to reporters' inquiries about whether he should apologize to Americans for his administration's assertion that Rove and Libby weren't involved or answer questions about whether Rove told him the truth or should remain in his job.
While there is an ongoing investigation, he will not comment, the president said.
Mr. Bush refused even to say whether he had lived up to his 2000 campaign promise that, "We will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves."
Mr. Bush's foreign travel on this month's calendar were scheduled long ago to coincide with vital international summits. The Asia visit surrounds the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting and the Latin American trip began with the Summit of the Americas.
During his Asia trip, Mr. Bush plans stops in Korea, Mongolia, China and Japan. He will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Mongolia.
The APEC summit is in Busan, South Korea, and will include discussion on economic growth, security cooperation and once again the thorny issue of free trade.