What is the White House Thinking?

Faced with the prospect of impending congressional subpoenas for Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and other White House staff in connection with the U.S. Attorney probe, the White House responded today in a manner that can only be described as bizarre.

First, White House Counsel Fred Fielding went to Capitol Hill to present the terms under which the President will allow his staff to testify. Rove and other members of the President's staff will testify if 1) the hearing is closed to the public, 2) their testimony is not under oath, 3) their testimony is not transcribed or recorded, 4) questions are limited in scope, and 5) Congress agrees not to subsequently subpoena them.

Following the unveiling of this "offer," the President appeared in a hastily-convened press conference in which he was visibly angry, accused Democrats of trying to score political points, and warned that he would not stand by while the Democrats held "show trials" and went on "partisan fishing expedition[s] aimed at honorable public servants." He also made clear that his terms were final and non-negotiable.

Needless to say, if you're genuinely interested in reaching some sort of compromise with your political opponents, this is not the way to go about doing it. The White House chose terms that it knew Congress would never accept, and it delivered the offer in a way that guaranteed it would be summarily rejected (which it was). It reminds me of the scene in Braveheart where William Wallace offers the English "Scotland's terms":

William: Here are Scotland's terms. Lower your flags, and march straight back to England, stopping at every home to beg forgiveness for 100 years of theft, rape, and murder. Do that and your men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today.

Cheltham: You are outmatched. You have no heavy cavalry. In two centuries no army has won without--.

William: I'm not finished. Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse.

Unfortunately for Bush, I don't see the fight he has picked ending quite as well as it did for Wallace. Indeed, I'm entirely baffled as to what the White House thinks it's doing here. The Democrats in Congress smell blood in the water and they're not going to just back down because a president with a 32% approval rating and virtually no Congressional allies refuses to cooperate. They're going to keep pressing this issue, and as Glenn Greenwald points out, the law and past precedent are not on the White House's side.

Moreover, from a purely political standpoint, do the folks at the White House really want to get embroiled in a public debate about the reasonableness of their "terms"? They're insisting that Rove and others be allowed to testify in private, without being sworn in, and without their testimony being recorded or transcribed. Is it not obvious to them how bad that looks? To any reasonable voter it will seem obvious that the White House is trying to hide something.

Does the White House really think that Congressional Democrats will shrink away from that fight? The White House's "terms" are a political gift to the Democrats.

As I wrote the other day, it's as if the Bush administration has grown so accustomed to the low-gravity environment of Republican congressional control that their political instincts have atrophied and left them unable to function in a universe where Congress is controlled by Democrats. It's a lot harder to bluff when your opponents can easily call that bluff and make you show your cards.

Perhaps there is some brilliant strategy behind the White House's bluster and the Democrats will be caught off guard like the English were by William Wallace. I doubt it, though. This just strikes me as stubborn and self-defeating recalcitrance on the part of an embattled and inept administration.