Dan Froomkin's five-part "Ask This" series in NiemanWatchdog.org on questions reporters should ask as Bush leaves

The next president inherits as many as 140,000 troops in Iraq -- and two obstinate generals in high places: David Petraeus, right, and Raymond Odierno. (AP)

Reporters should be keeping a sharp eye out for things Bush officials are doing to make their policies stay in effect after they leave office. In the first of a five-part series: Putting Iraq on autopilot, risking war with Iran, and purging the military.

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

As we enter the twilight of the Bush era, with the distinct possibility of a Democrat moving into the White House next January, it's reasonable to suppose that top administration officials are spending a lot of their energy trying to make it as difficult as possible for their successors to roll back their policies.

What are the Bushies doing to lock in their current course - even if it's Barack Obama in the Oval Office on inauguration day? What agreements and contracts are they committing the country to? What rules, line-items, and executive orders will live on beyond their creators? What Trojan horses, landmines and Manchurian Candidates have they put in place throughout government?

In any number of ways -- some overt, some covert - Bush, Vice President Cheney and their loyalists are assuredly taking steps to assure that their successors will find themselves hemmed in by limited options, balky subordinates, and inescapable obligations. Journalists should be looking for them and exposing them for what they are.

PART I: Iraq, Iran, and the Military

Iraq: The Petraeus Factor

The Bush legacy that has the most inertia, of course, is Iraq. The next American president will take office with as many as 140,000 troops still in harm's way in Iraq, inheriting a war that will be hard to end even in the best-case scenarios. And while Obama is committed to a rapid pullout, there are ways the Bush administration can make it even more difficult than it has to be to change course. Among them: Putting stubborn loyalists in key military positions; continuing to build near-permanent bases until the last minute; letting out multi-year contracts; and committing to long-term agreements with the Iraqi government. In fact, the Bushies are doing all those and more.

For example, in the recent decision to promote Generals David H. Petraeus and Ray Odierno -- putting them in charge U.S. forces in the entire Middle East and Iraq, respectively -- Bush was clearly trying to put the war on autopilot. (See my April 24 column for washingtonpost.com, Putting the War on Autopilot.) As Julian E. Barnes wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "By naming Petraeus to a job that lasts into the next administration, Bush ensures that the new president will confront the military's strongest voice for maintaining a big force in Iraq."

Civilians are technically in charge of the U.S. military, but recalcitrant generals can make change hard to achieve. And as Spencer Ackerman wrote for the Washington Independent on April 24, despite the clearly stated intentions of the Democratic presidential candidates, "at his congressional testimony earlier this month, Petraeus conspicuously declined to say whether he would, as Iraq commander, plan for withdrawal."

Any military officer of course can be removed and replaced by the commander-in-chief, but doing so in the middle of war is more difficult, both militarily and politically.

Q. What other personnel decisions are being made in the Pentagon that could make it harder for a Democratic president to begin a withdrawal?

When Bush fired Admiral William J. "Fox" Fallon in March from his position as Centcom commander, it was just the latest example of how high the cost has been for officers who don't share Bush's philosophy. Indeed, Bush's purge of his military staff has been relentless.

And as Ann Scott Tyson reported in The Washington Post on May 15. Petraeus has deepened his imprint on the army in his role as head of the promotions board choosing the next crop of one-star generals.

Q. How many top-level military officials are there left who value diplomacy over conflict and see the war in Iraq as an unnecessary strain on military manpower? Enough for a future Democratic president to put together an effective leadership team?

Long-Term Accords

There are lots of other ways Bush can try to make it easier to stay in Iraq than to go. One particularly effective way is to make long-term commitments before he leaves office. To that end, two accords are currently being negotiated between the White House and the Iraqi government: a status of forces agreement and a separate "strategic framework."

Administration officials insist that the new agreements will not specify troop levels or otherwise tie the hands of the next president - but a "Declaration of Principles" signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in November describes "a long-term relationship of cooperation and friendship" and calls for the U.S. to help Iraq defend itself "against internal and external threats."

Negotiations on both accords are being held in secret, and the White House has said it does not intend bring the agreement before the U.S. Congress.

Some elements of the American negotiating position were recently leaked to Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, who wrote that Bush wants to retain the use of more than 50 military bases in Iraq and is insisting on immunity from Iraqi law for U.S. troops and contractors, as well as a free hand to carry out military activities without consulting the Baghdad government. At the same time, Iraqi resistance to such an accord is apparently on the rise, with many Iraqi lawmakers saying Bush's terms would infringe on Iraqi sovereignty and perpetuate the violence there. For more, see my June 5 column for washingtonpost.com, Bush's Secret Iraq Deal.

And here's one possibility Bush is likely to fight tooth and nail: Karen DeYoung wrote in the Washington Post on Friday that the Iraqi government may request an extension of the United Nations security mandate authorizing a U.S. military presence, due to expire in December, which would leave the negotiations over a future U.S.-Iraqi relationship and the role of U.S. forces in the country to the next American president.

Q. What are the White House's goals in negotiating these two agreements? How are the negotiations proceeding? Why isn't there greater transparency? Will Congress at least exercise its oversight power to find out what's going on?

One particularly contentious issue is that of "permanent military bases." It should be clear to everyone by now that when Bush administration officials deny that they are building permanent military bases, that doesn't mean a thing. See, for instance, this exchange last month between Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) and Assistant Defense Secretary Mary Beth Long. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a permanent military base. So even as Bush officials insist they have no intention of establishing  permanent bases in Iraq, they have spent the last five years doing just that.

Q. So how many "enduring" bases are there in Iraq? How much construction is ongoing? What will it take to close these bases down?

It's also notable that the Bush administration continues to make major capital expenditures for detention facilities.

Q. What new contracts are being let out, and under what terms?

Walter Pincus wrote in The Washington Post on June 2: "The depth of U.S. involvement in Iraq and the difficulty the next president will face in pulling personnel out of the country are illustrated by a handful of new contract proposals made public in May.

"The contracts call for new spending, from supplying mentors to officials with Iraq's Defense and Interior ministries to establishing a U.S.-marshal-type system to protect Iraqi courts....

The proposals reflect multiyear commitments."

Q. What sort of detention facilities are currently being built and why? How far along will things be when the new president takes over?

The New York Times recently reported: "The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan."

Even more fundamentally, there are widespread concerns that the military has been so damaged by the strain of fighting two wars at once that the next president will have to spend money and attention simply on getting it back to fighting trim?

Iran

Even dwarfing the impact of anything they could do in Iraq, the one thing Bush and Cheney could do that would most dramatically and disruptively narrow the options available to their successors would be to attack Iran.

There have been plausible reports for months that the vice president in particular has been mulling a variety of ways to justify military action. Last year's National Intelligence Estimate on Iran made a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities politically impossible. But In a February essay on NiemanWatchdog.org, for instance, Leon Hadar speculated that the Bush administration might create a new casus belli, possibly by encouraging Israel to launch its own strike on nuclear facilities or by escalating a (possibly trumped-up) provocation in the Persian Gulf. Another increasingly possible provocation: A U.S. raid on alleged training bases for Iraqi terrorists across the Iranian border. Just last week, it was reported that beleaguered Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was encouraging Bush to launch an attack.

Administration critics, who in this case represent almost the entire foreign policy establishment minus the neocons, warn that an attack on Iran would backfire even more spectacularly than the invasion of Iraq. Military action against Iran would likely have massive, messy and long-term repercussions throughout the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, other Muslim countries -- and potentially within our own borders. The fallout would inevitably occupy much of the next president's term in office.

Q. Are administration actions intended to provoke Iran into a confrontation? Are administration advocates of an attack on Iran gaining the upper hand? What sort of military planning is taking place?

Q. Is there anything stopping the Bush White House from launching some sort of strike against Iran after the election? Is there anything Congress could do to stop it?

Tomorrow: Midnight rulemaking, last-minute hires and executive fiats
Wednesday: Pardons and the courts
Thursday: Vice President Cheney
Friday: Trying to keep the GOP in control

Monica Goodling, a former top Justice Department aide, testified in May that she hired career employees based on their political beliefs. (AP)

How are Bush officials using their executive branch powers to entrench their policies in the bureaucracy and make it harder for their successors to change course? Part two of a five-part series on questions for the twilight of the Bush era.

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

I wrote in part one of this series that it's reasonable to suppose that top administration officials are spending a lot of their energy trying to make it as difficult as possible for their successors to roll back their policies.

And as it happens, there are many ways to entrench people and policies within the executive branch. Indeed, it's traditional for presidents to work until the last minute to hire and promote amenable civil servants, establish rules, and issue orders intended to outlive them. There are some persuasive reasons to suspect Bush will set a new record.

Senior-level career civil servants have a lot of incentives to talk to reporters about many of these topics, particularly as they see the light at the end of the Bush tunnel.

Q. Are Bush loyalists burrowing into the civil service? Will political appointees engage in a last-minute flurry of hiring and promoting Bush loyalists into key civil service jobs? Will political appointees try to make the jump into the civil service?

Agency burrowing can happen in two ways. Political appointees can hire and promote like-minded people into key civil-service positions; or political appointees (who by definition are hired and fired by the administration in power) can actually attempt to convert their jobs to civil-service positions (from which they can only be fired for cause.) The latter tactic happens to be illegal, but not entirely uncommon.

That the Bush administration has politicized civil-service hiring like never before became abundantly clear during last May's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee by Monica Goodling, a former top Justice Department aide. As David Johnston and Eric Lipton reported in the New York Times at the time, Goodling acknowledged an open secret at Justice: That applicants were asked political questions in their interviews, and that those with Republican credentials were favored for a whole host of civil-service positions, contrary to federal law.

Q. Are political appointees continuing or even accelerating their attempts to drive key civil servants out of their jobs?

A recent example of such behavior comes from Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune, who reported in early May that Mary Gade, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Midwest office, was forced out of her job after turning up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean up dioxin contamination in Michigan.

A particularly unique facet of Bush's approach to the executive branch has been a pattern of driving out competent, senior-level civil servants - often by removing their decision-making power - and replacing them with unqualified Republican loyalists. As Princeton University Professor David E. Lewis wrote on NiemanWatchdog.org, the effect of that can be profound:

Driving out career employees can result in a loss of expertise, institutional knowledge, long term perspective, and break up networks of relationships that facilitate governance across agencies.  Career employees at the management level have worked their way up through the agency and know how it works, its routines, its culture, where the power is, and the ins and outs of policy.  They often know and have ongoing relationships with key stakeholders.  These stakeholders are key for implementing any agency policy.  When careerists leave or get forced out it becomes harder to manage the agency.

FEMA's incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina will of course be one of the lasting legacies of the Bush term. The White House's disregard for scientific findings that don't support their political beliefs is another hallmark. But there is also reason to believe that by removing people who know how to make government work, Bush political appointees have presided over a stealthy but steady erosion of government competence across the board. The question now is how bad have things gotten, and will they keep pushing good people out until the last minute.

Q. Are Bush political appointees working on last-minute reorganizations within the federal government?

Another way Bush political appointees can tie the hands of their successors is to reorganize departments, divisions or sections in such a way that favors functions they support, at the expense of functions the incoming administration supports. Reducing the size of particular staffs, changing an office's organizational chart, altering its reporting structure, or changing its physical location can all have profound and hard to reverse effects on an agency's mission.

Q. Are major contracts being let out that have long-term ramifications? And are any of those related to outsourcing?

Another way to fundamentally change the government a new president inherits is to replace civil servants with contractors.

Q. Are advisory boards being stacked with Bush loyalists?

The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Board, just as one example, plays an important role in establishing such things as ozone standards. Will Bush appointees purge such boards of dissenters from the party line?

Q. Will a White House memo banning last-minute rulemaking be heeded?

Last-minute rulemaking is another longtime White House tradition, and one Bush was widely expected to continue, or even accelerate.

University of Michigan Law Professor Nina A. Mendelson, in a seminal 2003 New York Law Review article entitled "Agency Burrowing: Entrenching Policies and Personnel Before a New President Arrives," examines a variety of tactics including midnight rulemaking.

In an interview, Mendelson explains: "One thing that nearly every departing president has done is encourage administrative agencies to issue rules." Agency rules, if properly issued, have the effect of law. For instance, private parties can challenge an agency in court for failure to comply. And such rules can be far-reaching, for instance establishing the rights of consumers or legal conditions for workplaces.

The advantage of issuing rules is that "rules, once they are issued, are comparatively difficult to change," Mendelson says. To issue a rule, an agency must publish a proposed rule in the Federal Register, solicit comments, then issue a final rule, also in the Federal Register." That's a process that takes several months at best. "An incoming presidential administration that wants to change a rule has to go through the exact same process," Mendelson says, and even then the Supreme Court has ruled that regulations cannot be reversed without an extra explanation for the agency's change in position. "This is a big burden to impose on an upcoming presidential administration," Mendelson says.

The process by definition is a public one, however, with all those notices in the Federal Register. And the Bush administration is now on record saying that it will not be trying to push anything through at the last minute.

In fact, as Matt Madia recently wrote for OMBWatch.com: "White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten sent a memo to the heads of federal agencies outlining the administration's policy on rules those agencies want to finalize by the end of the Bush administration. The memo states, "˜Except in extraordinary circumstances, regulations to be finalized in this Administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than November 1, 2008.'"

That said, Madia offers up a "sampling of rules the Bush administration may push to finalize in its waning days of power, in the event a new administration disagrees with its policy positions:

• A rule revoking the 25-year-old ban on carrying loaded weapons in national parks (proposed by the National Park Service in April 2008);
• Changes to the enforcement of the Family and Medical Leave Act that would make it more difficult for employees to claim leave time in certain situations (proposed by the Department of Labor in February 2008);
• A rule to exempt farms from reporting air pollution caused by animal waste (proposed by EPA in December 2007);
• A rule to ease air pollution control requirements on industrial facilities operating near national parks (proposed by EPA in June 2007).

Robert Pear wrote in the New York Times in December:

Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year's elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

Hoping to lock in policies backed by a pro-business administration, poultry farmers are seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure. Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. And electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements".

The Federal Register typically grows fat with regulations churned out in the final weeks of any administration. But the push for such rules has become unusually intense because of the possibility that Democrats in 2009 may consolidate control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time in 14 years.

Other critics, in a theory noted by Cindy Skrzycki in the Washington Post on June 3, think the administration's November deadline is for real - and is actually a move to shut down the regulatory apparatus early. So the corrollary question would be:

Q. How many key regulatory processes have been suddenly shut down?

Here's something else to be mindful of: Permits for such things as authorization of timber sales, Mendelson says, are "reviewable and not completely secretive, but also quite difficult to revise."

Q. Will the administration issue many last-minute permits?

And:

Q. Will the administration suddenly settle major litigation on different terms than what a new administration might prefer?

While rulemaking is reversible with difficulty, litigation settlements can have profound policy implications and are not reversible.

Q. Is Bush intending to issue many last-minute executive orders?

Presidents also routinely issue executive orders on their way out the door. It's one of the easiest ways of making mischief for their successors.

Executive orders typically change the way an agency does business. They can be reversed fairly easily - all the new president has to do is issue an alternate order. But Mendelson says that's still "a pain for the new president."

If nothing else, it takes time to write an executive order. And if the new president's staff is grappling with several dozen that need to be countermanded in several different areas, "it's a drain on the president's own agenda." Sometimes it's easier just to leave them in effect indefinitely.

Bush will undoubtedly be under considerable pressure to sign executive orders that would benefit business interests and social-conservative groups. For instance, Stephanie Simon writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that conservative activists are renewing a drive for Bush to sign an order that would deny federal subsidies to clinics that provide abortions or counsel women about the option.

Q. Are appointees in federal agencies trying to cover their tracks? Are documents being properly retained?

As Steven Aftergood recently wrote on NiemanWatchdog.org:

The next President will have the authority to declassify and disclose any and all records that reflect the activities of executive branch agencies.  Although internal White House records that document the activities of the outgoing President and his personal advisers will be exempt from disclosure for a dozen years or so, every Bush Administration decision that was actually translated into policy will have left a documentary trail in one or more of the agencies, and all such records could be disclosed at the discretion of the next President.

But that, of course, depends on appointees not destroying key documents.

In This Series

Monday: Introduction and Iraq, Iran, and the military
Wednesday: Pardons and the courts
Thursday: Vice President Cheney
Friday: Trying to keep the GOP in control

Former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby, whose 30-month prison sentence Bush commuted last year. (AP)

If President Bush pardons members of his own administration in a blatant attempt to avoid judicial review, what would the consequences be to his legacy - and to the country? Also: Bush's longterm effect on the judiciary. Part three of a five-part series on questions for the twilight of the Bush era.

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

(Also see part one of this series, Do we really expect the Bushies to go quietly; and part two, Midnight rulemaking, last-minute hires and executive fiats.)

A president's power to pardon is vested in Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution, which says "he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." So he can pardon anyone, even conceivably himself. It's a power that cannot be taken away or even limited, and there's no way to take a pardon back once it's granted. But if there aren't any legal limits, are there moral ones? The time for a national conversation on such issues is before pardons are issued, not after.

Q. Are there any pardons that would be out of line for the president to grant? What about blanket pardons or amnesty covering anyone in his administration?

Bush could conceivably say something to the effect that anyone involved in the creation or implementation of the CIA's interrogation program, or the Defense Department's treatment of detainees, "is hereby pardoned from any criminal charges that might be brought against him or her for their participation" etc. But wouldn't such a pardon - so clearly intended to stymie future investigations and accountability - be an insupportable affront to the rule of law?

Q. Would a full pardon for Scooter Libby be blatantly hypocritical and self-serving?

When Bush decided last July to commute Libby's 30-month prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case, he said in his statement: "I respect the jury's verdict." He added: "My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby."

The next day, he was asked if he was ruling out an eventual full pardon. He responded: "I thought that the jury verdict should stand. I felt the punishment was severe, so I made a decision that would commute his sentence, but leave in place a serious fine and probation." But then he added: "As to the future, I rule nothing in or nothing out."

In my July 3, 2007, washingtonpost.com column, I called Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence "Obstruction of Justice, Continued." And U.S. District Court Reggie B. Walton recently pointed out that his sentence for Libby was at the low end of the federal guidelines and that Bush's decision to commute the sentence fed some people's notion that justice isn't equal. A pardon would only exacerbate both of these critiques.

Establishing some sort of consensus on what sorts of pardons would irretrievably tarnish Bush's (admittedly already badly stained) legacy might at least give him pause.

The Courts

The most significant and powerful way in which Bush's legacy will outlive his presidency, of course, is through his Supreme Court nominations. Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts have noticeably tilted the court, hugely increasing for years to come the likelihood of decisions sympathetic to the Bush worldview on such issues as civil rights and voting rights, executive power, abortion, capital punishment, affirmative action, and the like.

Bush appointees have had a significant effect at the appeals court and district court level as well. But there are many appointments currently stalled on Capitol Hill by Democrats who are hoping for a Democratic president.

Q. Will Bush make one last attempt to install conservatives in key judicial positions?

Gerald F. Seib recently reported in the Wall Street Journal that social conservatives such as J.C. Willke, president of the antiabortion Life Issues Institute and former head of the National Right to Life Committee, consider it a top priority for Bush to compel the Senate to vote on the federal judges he has nominated: "Mr. Bush ought to instruct Republicans in the Senate 'simply to close up shop until this constitutionally correct set of people is given a shot at a vote,' Dr. Willke said. 'And he's done nothing.'"

Vice President Cheney (AP).

Vice President Cheney is the least likely member of the Bush administration to give up power without a fight. He's also a master of the federal bureaucracy. So what are he and his loyalists up to in the waning days of the Bush presidency? Part four of a five-part series on questions for the twilight of the Bush era.

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

(Fourth in a five-part series. See also part one, Do we really expect the Bushies to go quietly; part two, Midnight rulemaking, last-minute hires and executive fiats; and part three, The time for a national conversation on pardons is before, not after, they're granted.)

A key question reporters should be asking is:

Q. What is Vice President Cheney up to?

I'm not being facetious. Last June's Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post series on Cheney -- even though it only skimmed the surface and focused on actions in the fairly distant past -- nevertheless made it clear that the conspiracy theories about Cheney secretly pulling the levers of power were, if anything, understated. Since then, even more has come out about the central role he and his chief enforcer, David S. Addington, have played in Bush's most excessive overreaches of executive power, including the adoption of torture techniques for the interrogation of detainees and the bulldozing of legal limits on government eavesdropping.

If you're looking for motive, nobody is more threatened by a potential rollback at the hands of a Democratic president than Cheney, who has invested every fiber of his being in assertion of executive power and the execution of a muscular foreign policy - both in the name of trying to keep America safe.

According to Cheney's neoconservative philosophy, the exercise of power itself projects strength and leads to impregnability. By contrast, too much diplomacy, restraint and most particularly withdrawal invite attack. Cheney has repeatedly said that a withdrawal from Iraq would not only be an "act of betrayal and dishonor" but would provide terrorists with "a staging area for further attacks, with America as the target." If he truly believes his country will be attacked if we withdraw, then to what lengths will he go in order to prevent that from happening?

Q. How are Cheney loyalists spending their time these days?

Q. What is Cheney doing to prevent a future administration from undoing what he considers all his good work in Iraq and the war on terror in general?

Q. What is Cheney doing to prevent a future president from restoring the pre-Bush separation of powers?

Even presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has promised to take a more restrained approach to the powers of the presidency. But are we really to believe that Cheney is sitting around idly, waiting for everything he has done to be undone? That's just not the Cheney way.

Cheney is notoriously secretive, but reporters should be doing everything possible to find out who he and his people are talking to, where they're going, and what they're saying in public.

Just yesterday, in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney indicated that he doesn't intend to let a future administration dismantle all his good work. Asked what he considered the most important achievement of the past seven years, he replied; "I would point to what we've done with respect to the global war on terror... [I]t is not an accident that it's been now nearly seven years since 9/11 and we haven't been hit again."

And he spoke of how important is it that "we do whatever's necessary to defend the American people here at home. We can do it. We've proved it now for the last seven years and the next government, both the legislative and executive branches will be tested in terms of whether or not they're willing to continue on that vein or buy into the proposition that somehow we ought to dismantle it all and that we shouldn't be doing what we're doing. I think we did exactly the right thing and I plan to do everything I can to defend it."

Tomorrow: Trying to keep the GOP in control.

Gone but not forgotten: Karl Rove's legacy of using the powers of government for political gain is presumably alive and well. (AP)

For administration officials trying to avoid a rollback, the best way, of course, would be to get a Republican elected president. Are they already aiming grants, announcements and visits at swing states? Last in a five-part series on questions for the twilight of the Bush era.

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

There are lots of ways that President Bush and his loyalists can entrench their people and policies in such a way that a Democratic president won't find it so easy to reverse course. I've examined some of those in the first four parts of this series.

In part one, I focused on Iraq, Iran and the military; in part two, I examined ways Bushies could burrow into the federal agencies; in part three, I looked at the possible effect of pardons and judicial appointments; in part four, I suggested a closer look at what Vice President Cheney is up to.  

But let's not forget the obvious: The best shot Bush loyalists have at averting a rollback is getting John McCain - and as many congressional Republicans as possible -- elected in November. Despite some divergence on issues like global warming and Guantanamo, McCain is in lockstep with Bush on most major issues including Iraq, tax cuts and health care. Furthermore, he's much less likely to air Bush's dirty laundry.

Q. How far are Bush aides going to using their executive branch powers to help Republicans in November?

We can reasonably expect the Karl Rove-trained political appointees throughout government to be coordinating and staging official announcements, high-visibility trips and declarations of federal grants in a way that helps McCain and the GOP as much or more than legally possible.

For a refresher on how Rove did this in 2004, study How Rove Directed Federal Assets for GOP Gain, Washington Post, Aug. 19,  2007:

The staging of official announcements, high-visibility trips and declarations of federal grants had to be carefully coordinated with the White House political affairs office to ensure the maximum promotion of Bush's reelection agenda and the Republicans in Congress who supported him, according to documents and some of those involved in the effort".

To lead the charge, Rove had his "asset deployment team." It comprised the chief White House liaison official at each Cabinet agency. The team members met -- sometimes as often as once a month -- to coordinate the travel of Cabinet secretaries and senior agency officials, the announcement of grant money, and personnel and policy decisions. Occasionally, the attendees got updates on election strategies."

[A]dministration officials said .. the essence of Rove's approach [consisted of]  making sure that political appointees at every level of government pushed a uniform agenda in key media markets and on behalf of White House-backed candidates. That meant resisting the natural tendencies of the federal bureaucracy to cater just to congressional purse-string holders, officials said."

The White House briefings also frequently identified key media markets where Republicans most wanted their message out. A Post review of trips announced by several Bush Cabinet members during the 2004 election showed that their travel fell neatly into the markets listed on a slide included in briefings that year.

Another way to help Republicans win in November would be to make it harder to vote. Establishing barriers to voting, such as the Indiana Voter ID law recently upheld by the Supreme Court, disproportionately affects Democratic voting blocs, such as minorities and the elderly. Rampant voter fraud, the ostensible motivation of those who favor restrictive voting rules, has repeatedly been proven to be a myth.

Q. In the run-up to the election, what kinds of cases are being pursued by the Voting Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division? Is the section trying to make it easier or harder for people to vote? Is it pursuing voting rights cases or voter fraud cases? Is the White House pushing states to tighten their voter identification policies or purge their voter rolls?

Entrenchment, the Series:

Part One: Do we really expect the Bushies to go quietly?
Part Two: Midnight rulemaking, last-minute hires and executive fiats
Part Three: The time for a national conversation on pardons is before, not after, they're granted
Part Four: What's the vice president up to these days?
Part Five: How far will Bush loyalists go to help McCain win?