The Lovefest is on shaky grounds: Lieberman to give the chimpster a pass on Katrina

Earlier this week, it looked like congressional Dems would finally get some long-sought after answers about the Bush administration’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. In particular, there’s a still-secret videoconference held shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans in which Michael Brown allegedly warned presidential aides that 90% of the city was being “displaced,” a dire warning which was greeted with “deafening silence.”

Republicans refused to push the White House to divulge its Katrina materials, but Democrats, anxious to get the whole story, have been gearing up for a fight with the Bush gang. Newsweek noted that presidential aides “indicated that if Congress pressed harder, the White House was likely to claim such material was covered by executive privilege.” Against a subpoena, that may not matter.
That was earlier in the week. Now, the plans have been scuttled. Take a wild guess who’s decided to give Bush a hand.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat [sic] 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.”