With friends like these...
Rob Price

Eric Massa came close to beating Congressman Randy Kuhl, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out Kuhl's support of the Bush administration's policies in the Iraq war played a major role in his near defeat.

Massa was heavily critical of the Iraq war, while Kuhl steadfastly insisted the country should stay the course. The bedrock conservatism of Kuhl's district, combined with voters' familiarity with the candidate, allowed Kuhl to prevail by a whisker, but the election, I suspect, would have been a waltz for Kuhl had he permitted himself a few criticisms of the administration's Iraq policies.

Would that have been difficult? Surely, in his heart of hearts, Randy Kuhl knows the administration has led the country into a major foreign policy disaster. What circumstances would have afforded him more flexibility - by his own reckoning - on the Iraq issue?

Surely one such circumstance would have been the resignation of Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld months - if not years - before the election. I would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall beside Randy Kuhl when he first heard the news Rumsfeld was stepping down, pushed into traffic by a president who less than a week before the election had insisted Rumsfeld would stay on at Defense through the remainder of his presidency.

"Now he tells us," I can hear Kuhl muttering.

Kuhl's support of the war may have been nothing more than the playing out of a bad hand, calculating the odds gave him a reasonable chance of squeaking through. Had he criticized the administration's handling of the war, he would have jeopardized his relations with the Republican establishment, both in Washington and at home. Playing the loyal freshman congressman preserved his political connections for future uses - as long as the Election votes came through. Which they did, just barely.

How would Rumsfeld's earlier departure - firing - have changed those calculations? Easy: Kuhl could have registered his dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and blamed everything on the former Defense Secretary. "The president is looking for new ideas, new leaders for this botched effort, and I for one and not going to kick him during this challenging period," Kuhl could have proclaimed.

It's stunning therefore that President Bush was so blithe in his dismissal of Rumsfeld, not to mention downright deceitful. Bush may have told reporters "I do" when asked whether he saw Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney staying with him until the end of his presidency, but according to every media account I've read, Bush already had been considering former CIA Director Robert Gates as Rumsfeld's replacement. A cynic would speculate Rumsfeld's fate was sealed by the Republican loss of Congress; had the GOP held onto the House and Senate, Rumsfeld now would have his two years worth of job security.

There has been no end of media speculation regarding Rumsfeld's resignation and Gates's promotion. A lot of it has concerned the emergence of former President Bush's advisors as the new power brokers in the administration of the hapless younger Bush. A lot of it has concerned the shifting power relations between the White House and Congress. But there has been very little media comment on the simple fact Bush lied when asked a straightforward question about his Defense Secretary.

You can look for ways to justify the president's lying, but why bother? Successful politicians know how to sidestep difficult questions without committing bald-faced lies. At the very least, they maintain some rationale that will give them future cover. What is striking about Rumsfeld's resignation is the fact the White House never even bothered with a rationalization. It's as if everyone assumes there are occasions for outand out lying and the question about Rumsfeld's future was one of them.

Where does the lying end? If it's okay to lie about Rumsfeld's future, is it okay to lie about weapons of mass destruction? Is it okay to lie about the federal response to natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina? Is it okay for the president to say, "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job," when the fact is then- FEMA Director Michael Brown was doing a heckuva bad job?

Finally, is it okay to withhold crucial information that would help members of your own party secure reelection? I would like to know the answer to that one, and I bet Randy Kuhl would too. Is Randy Kuhl a sucker for the president? I suppose it depends on how you define "is."