2004-03-30 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The White House worked quietly Monday to find a compromise with the Sept. 11 commission that would end a standoff over whether national security adviser Condoleezza Rice should testify under oath about the Bush administration's efforts to prevent and combat terrorism.
In public, White House officials continued to stand on the principle of executive privilege, saying that Rice is willing to talk to the commission privately but not to testify under oath in public.
"Our position remains where it is," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One, as President Bush returned to Washington after a weekend on his ranch in Texas.
But privately, White House officials said they were looking at various options -- short of public testimony -- that they hoped would satisfy the commission.
"We've been looking for compromises and solutions," one official said. "We've been trying to be as cooperative as we can be within the confines of executive privilege."
Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the Sept. 11 commission, said no formal compromise offer from the White House was "on the table" but indicated that the commission is discussing the matter with the White House.
"We do talk to them routinely," Felzenberg said. "I would be surprised in the course of that if (compromise proposals) didn't come up." He reiterated that all 10 commissioners -- both Democrats and Republicans -- want Rice to testify publicly.
Two Democratic senators, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Charles Schumer of New York, planned to introduce a formal resolution today in the Senate calling on Rice to testify under oath.
Republicans, too, have urged the White House to consider waiving its right of executive privilege, a legal principle that holds that the president's White House staff members report directly to him and are not required to answer summonses from Congress. The idea behind the principle is that the president's personal advisers should be free to give him unfettered advice; public officials who are confirmed by the Senate, however, cannot claim executive privilege.
Some Republicans say they fear that the controversy, if it lingers, could undermine Bush's chief rationale for re-election: his leadership of the fight against terrorism. But two new polls released Monday suggested that Bush has not suffered significant damage from the controversy.
A nationwide poll over the weekend by the Gallup organization showed Bush's approval rating holding steady at 53 percent. Three weeks ago, 50 percent of Americans said they approved of his performance as president, a result within the poll's 3 percent to 4 percent margin of error.
Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey showed Bush gaining on his presumed Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
According to Pew, Kerry held a 52 percent to 43 percent lead over Bush earlier this month. By the weekend, the two were statistically even, 46 percent favoring Bush and 47 percent favoring Kerry. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percent to 4 percent.
The Pew poll contained some worrisome news for Bush: He may be losing some support from swing voters. Earlier this month, 72 percent of those Pew identified as swing voters, or people so far uncommitted to either Bush or Kerry, said they believed Bush could best defend the country from the threat of terrorism. By the weekend, that had fallen to 50 percent. Kerry, however, failed to make up the difference, only 13 percent giving him their preference on the issue of terrorism, statistically even with his 11 percent result earlier in the month.
In the search for resolution to the Sept. 11 commission controversy, several possible compromise scenarios of uncertain origin wafted around the Capitol. One would have Rice speak to the commission privately but then release text of some or all of her remarks afterward. Another would be for the White House to release or declassify her previous comments to the commission.
It was unclear whether anything short of sworn testimony in public would satisfy the commission. Felzenberg declined to comment on how the commission might view such offers, saying the scenarios were hypothetical. He noted that in the case of classified discussions with Rice or others, the commission does not have the authority to declassify material.
Rice has already spent four hours with the commission behind closed doors. White House officials say Rice is eager to meet with the commissioners again to rebut charges by Richard Clarke, the former Bush administration counterterrorism chief, that the administration failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington. Clarke's new book, "Against All Enemies," ignited the current firestorm, which was further fanned by his testimony before the commission last week.
A senior national security official who worked alongside Clarke on Sept. 11, 2001, is disputing central elements of Clarke's account of events in the White House Situation Room that day, declaring that it "is a much better screenplay than reality was."
The official, Franklin Miller, who acknowledges that he was often a bureaucratic rival of Clarke and is one of Rice's most senior aides, said in an interview on Monday that almost none of the conversations that Clarke recounts in the dramatic first chapter of his book match his recollection of events.
Efforts to reach Clarke on Monday through his publisher were unsuccessful.
