# Posted 12:50 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

THE COVER UP IS ALWAYS WORSE THAN THE CRIME: Nixon and Watergate. Reagan and Iran-Contra. Clinton and Monica. None of them was punished for what they did. They were punished for lying about it.

All of them were second-term presidents, re-elected by a landslide. None of them learned the lessons of the past, thus condemning themselves to relive it. And now George W. Bush has brought himself to the brink of another major embarrassment because he has refused to learn from the mistakes of his predecessors. The editors of the WaPo observe that

The testimony of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice before the federal Sept. 11 commission justified President Bush's decision to authorize her exceptional appearance.

In other words, if Bush had dispatched Rice to Capitol Hill before being forced to do so, her testimony would have become a footnote, not a banner headline. Even though nothing that Rice said was new or interesting, her simple presence in the spotlight has motivated the administration's critics to pick up charges that had once been dropped.

We have known for almost two years that Bush was warned in August 2001 about Al Qaeda's intention to launch a major attack on US territory. Even back then, Condoleeza Rice didn't want to give an honest account of the the warning's exact contents. The WaPo reported at the time that

New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6 memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S. airliners.

In earlier comments this week, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials stressed that intelligence officials were focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests overseas. But sources made clear yesterday that the briefing presented to Bush focused on attacks within the United States, indicating that he and his aides were concerned about the risks.

Perhaps because she wasn't punished for misleading the public the first time around, Rice has chosen to do so again. She told the 9/11 Commission that the August briefing consisted of "historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States." Yet

Several Democratic commissioners said in yesterday's hearing that the briefing also includes significant details about suspected al Qaeda sleeper cells and their plans to carry out domestic hijackings. The commission has demanded that the briefing be made public, a step that White House officials said yesterday was likely. "We hope to be able to make it available," communications director Dan Bartlett said.

And the WaPo is already reporting as fact that the Aug. 6 briefing contained specific information about Al Qaeda plans in progress. Even so, the publication of the full contents of the briefing may not embarrass the President:

Republican John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary, is one of seven commissioners who have seen only a summary of the PDB. He said the current information within it is not particularly specific.

"On the FBI's part of it, it says don't worry about it, we've got 70 field investigations going," Lehman said. "That's the tone of it. . . . I found it to be net favorable to the president, which is why I can't understand why they were so restrictive in the first place [about] letting us have access to it."

Why was the administration so restrictive? Simple. Because it has learned nothing from the examples set by Nixon, Reagan and Clinton. The cover up is always worse than the crime.

But more important than the similarity between Bush and his predecessors is the difference: Bush is up for re-election. What if 2 or 3 percent of the electorate -- independent voters, not Democratic partisans -- stop trusting the President's because of his unwillingness to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? What if Thomas Kean, the Republican chairman of the 9/11 commission declares that the attacks on New York and Washington could have been avoided? Reagan and Clinton had nothing to lose but their reputation. Bush may lose his job.

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