February 10, 2006 - It has not been a good news day for the Bush Administration. First US Fitzgerald announced that Scooter Libby had testified before the Grand Jury that "his superiors" had authorized him to leak classified information to Judith Miller. Next Michael Brown testified before the Senate committee investigating the hurricane Katrina boondoggle that claims that no one in the White House or the Department of Homeland Security knew before Tuesday that the levees in New Orleans had failed was "just baloney". Then someone in Malaysia let the word out that the President's dramatic announcement of the foiled plot to bring down " Liberty Tower " in Los Angelis was also packaged by Oscar Mayer. Jack Abramov declares that President Bush did indeed "know the man", leaving Scotty McClellan to parse what is really meant by the word "know". I don't think there has been a day in which the credibility of the Bush Administration has been so badly damaged since January 20, 2001.

Contrast the Bush Administration performance in all of these affairs with that of Jack Kennedy when the CIA's Bay of Pigs fiasco came crashing down about the new President's ears. That President stood up and took personal responsibility for the failures and the nation respected him for it. This President looks for scapegoats and sends his toadies out to employ massive distraction to avoid responsibility for their multitude of failures and the job approval ratings reflect the level of respect that the public holds for this President as a result.

Is it too late for the President to redeem himself by being scrupulously honest in his public statements? Probably. With five years of polluted water flowing under the bridge it is unlikely that he can undo the damage. Those floods of falsehoods, half truths, evasions and scapegoating have had an effect far beyond domestic politics and have polluted America 's international relations as well. When the credibility of the Administration is sullied, as it is now, the credibility of American foreign policy is damaged as well - and perhaps beyond repair in the short term. It will take a dramatic turn around to restore it in the long term.

In this era of instant communications in which the foibles of the world's only super power in front page news in Tokyo ; in Karachi ; in Kandahar and in Katmandu the credibility of the President of the United States and his Administration has to be the Gold Standard by which its acts are tested. It may be, as George W. Bush has said, that you can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones we have to concentrate on but there are not enough of them and the time is not long in coming that the rest figure it out.