Jet-setting Bush has a few days to deal with problems
By Associated Press
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - Updated: 01:44 PM EST
WASHINGTON - White House staff members began attending mandatory briefings Tuesday about ethical conduct and the handling of classified information in the wake of the CIA leak investigation and the indictment and resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.
In the coming weeks, some 3,000 employees in agencies under the Executive Office of the President will attend the hour-long sessions conducted by the White House counsel’s office. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the classes were refresher courses and that the first attendees were staffers with security clearances.
The briefings began as President Bush got back to business after his trip to Latin America. He’ll have less than a week to tend to problems at home before taking off for distant lands again.
Bush returned from Panama late Monday at the end of a five-day trip that included a hemispheric summit in Argentina and was leaving for an eight-day trip to Asia on Nov. 14. That gives him precious little time to work on his domestic agenda, help win support for replacement Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito and deal with the fallout from the CIA leak case that involved two of his top aides.
Between his foreign visits, a trip home to Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday and other domestic travel in between, Bush will spend roughly two-thirds of November away from the White House.
The trips largely will keep Bush’s focus overseas while problems are mounting at home. But the president does not get to escape his woes by traveling abroad, as was obvious in Latin America. Protesters in Argentina drew attention to anti-Bush sentiment in the region, and leading South American nations were reluctant to move ahead with Bush’s call for opening trade.
Meanwhile, reporters traveling with Bush dogged him about the CIA leak case that is contributing to his all-time low approval rating.
While he was away, Bush ordered mandatory ethics briefings for all staff with security clearances. The sessions come in the wake of the indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney’s now-resigned chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
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President Bush, right, throws a pitch as Panama’s President Martin Torrijos looks on during a baseball event with Panamanian youth. (AP) |
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