Thursday, January 11, 2007

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

Lieberman’s reversal underscores the new role that he is seeking to play in the Senate as the leading apostle of bipartisanship, especially on national-security issues. On Wednesday night, Bush conspicuously cited Lieberman’s advice as being the inspiration for creating a new “bipartisan working group” on Capitol Hill that he said will “help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror.”

But the decision by Lieberman, the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to back away from the committee's Katrina probe is already dismaying public-interest groups and others who hoped the Democratic victory in November would lead to more aggressive investigations of one of the White House’s most spectacular foul-ups.

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Still, Lieberman’s more accommodating position is likely get more attention, especially because of the Connecticut Democrat's increasingly close relationship with the White House. No sooner did President Bush finish his speech Wednesday night than Lieberman put out a statement applauding Bush for his “courageous course”—a notable comment, given the lukewarm response the president’s speech received from many leading Republicans.

The “bipartisan working group” on national-security issues that Bush cited in the speech was inspired by a proposal that Lieberman and Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins made late last year. The plan: to have top committee chairs and ranking members meet regularly with the White House, according to Marshall Whitman, the chief spokesman in Lieberman’s office. Whitman says Lieberman is trying to take on the role that Henry (Scoop) Jackson played in the 1960s and 1970s—a tough “national security” Senate Democrat who was willing to cross party lines to work closely with Republican presidents like Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. “That’s the tradition he is following,” Whitman said.