Karl Rove

Harry Shearer is a genius!

Since Rove's influence over McCain's campaign seems to be growing by the minute, I wonder how FOX can get by with labeling him as such? Oh wait - it is FOX, so they aren't news, they are the propaganda station. These are the same people who called the rest of the media "fear mongers" when they were warning about the pending collapse of our economy.

You can tune into FOX news and their new contributor - Karl Rove. I am sure he will give a fully impartial view of what's going on. Sure he will - just trust him.

For years we heard people talking about how brilliant Rove was when it came to politics. I always disagreed with that. What Rove is good at is dirty tricks, spinning and lying. Calling him a "great political mind" is like calling a bank robber a "great businessman" or a rapist an "artful seducer of women". It's flat out lies.

To show what I am talking about let's look at what Rove said this week:

You got to love it when the man who ran the White House for six years debunks the man who ran the President for six years:

SCARBOROUGH: We have to start with something that we all are talking about a couple of days ago where Karl Rove went on Charlie Rose and he blamed the Democrats for pushing him and the president into war. Is that how it worked?

CARD: No, that’s not the way it worked.

SCARBOROUGH: What the heck? Seriously, what the hell was that about?

CARD: Democrats pushed us a lot of stupid things, but they didn’t push us into war.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, yeah. You worked with Karl. Is that just Karl spinning beyond the White House?

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Spinning out of control?

CARD: Well, Karl is very smart. He’s — sometimes his brain gets ahead of his mouth. And sometimes his mouth gets ahead of his brain.

His mouth gets ahead of his brain? That is a really good characteristic for a man who had clearance to classified information, and we all know how that went.

Apparently not:

You are not going to believe this, well, actually you will... According to Karl Rove (on Charlie Rose), the Bush Administration did not want Congress to vote on the Iraq War resolution in the fall of 2002, because they thought it should not be done within the context of an election. Rove, you see, did not think the war vote should be "political".

Moreover, according to Rove, that "premature vote" led to many of the problems that cropped up in the Iraq War. Had Congress not pushed, he says, Bush could have spent more time assembling a coalition, and provided more time to the inspectors.
If you are like me, you have stopped reading/listening, and are rushing to get your anti-emetic.

When the war was going good it was all because of Bush. When it became a problem it was because of Congress. Damn! Everyone should be as flawless as Bush (excuse me while I got puke my way back into reality).

Old Turdblossom is leaving the White House:

Karl Rove, the political adviser who masterminded President George W. Bush’s two winning presidential campaigns and secured his own place in history as a political strategist with extraordinary influence within the White House, is resigning, the White House confirmed today.

In an interview published this morning in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Rove said, “I just think it’s time,” adding, “There’s always something that can keep you here, and as much as I’d like to be here, I’ve got to do this for the sake of my family.”

Mr. Rove said he had first considered leaving a year ago but stayed after his party lost the crucial midterm elections last fall, which put Congress in Democratic hands, and as Mr. Bush’s problems mounted in Iraq and in his pursuit of a new immigration policy.

He said his hand was forced now when the White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, recently told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day he would expect them to stay through the rest of Mr. Bush’s term.

Sounds like there may be more to this than meets the eye. Even though he is quitting, he isn't off the hook in the DOJ purge.

Sometimes you hear praise from the most unlikely of places. Today it comes from Joe Scarborough:

I spent Saturday with Sheryl Crow and Laurie David. No fist fights. No verbal insults. Just a couple of Hollywood heavyweights and a red state guy talking about saving the planet.

Whether you agree or disagree with their environmental message, I suspect you would be impressed with these women's dedication if you got the chance to spend the day with them.

On the tour bus after Crow and David's University of Maryland concert, I told Laurie she had the passion of a Southern Baptist preacher.

This is a woman on a mission from God.

Read on

A little, unknown federal agency called the "Office of Special Counsel" is preparing to investigate Rove. The LA Times gives us this description of the OSC:

Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.

In other words, they make sure federal employees are following the rules laid out in the Hatch Act.

So what are they looking for? It appears everything over the past six years, involving the aggressive politicizing of the White House:

But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.

First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.

Reading through the entire article, it appears that Rove's now infamous Power Point presentations was the final straw. If you get a minute, read the LA Times article to get an idea of how much these presentations were used and how they violated the law in terms of federal employees engaging in political activities while on the tax payers payroll.

The more we hear about Rove getting into trouble, the more you got to wonder what he has on Bush. There has to be something big, or Bush would have eliminated this liability a long time ago.

OK - this is priceless.

I can just picture Rove running away with his fingers in his ears and stomping his feet yelling; "Don't tell me about it. If I don't hear it then it isn't real!!!!".

And with that we now see we have a White House of pussies!

This will certainly become a big thing at this week's hearings:

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Now we have Bush directly involved in this, as well as Karl Rove. Now why would the White House's "political adviser" be involved in something that isn't supposed to involve politics, and why was the President allowing this? Only one answer makes sense - Bush knew and allowed a political firing of a U.S. attorney.

To make this issue stick even more, it looks like people in Domenici's own office are getting scared and now talking:

The Journal confirmed the sequence of events through a variety of sources familiar with the firing of Iglesias, including sources close to Domenici. The senator's office declined comment.

Good thing for Pete he has already lawyered up. With this big story coming out, it is no wonder why Fred Feilding is starting to be a little more cooperative with Congress. He must think this White House is worse off than Nixon's.

Josh has more on this.

Now reports are saying that 4 years of Rove email may be missing:

A lawyer for the Republican National Committee told congressional staff members yesterday that the RNC is missing at least four years' worth of e-mail from White House senior adviser Karl Rove that is being sought as part of investigations into the Bush administration, according to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

GOP officials took issue with Rep. Henry Waxman's account of the briefing and said they still hope to find the e-mail as they conduct forensic work on their computer equipment. But they acknowledged that they took action to prevent Rove -- and Rove alone among the two dozen or so White House officials with RNC accounts -- from deleting his e-mails from the RNC server. Waxman (D-Calif.) said he was told the RNC made that move in 2005.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Waxman said the RNC lawyer, Rob Kelner, also raised the possibility that Rove had personally deleted the missing e-mails, all dating back to before 2005. GOP officials said Kelner was merely speaking hypothetically about why e-mail might be missing for any staffer and not referring to Rove in particular.

That is an awful lot, but the White House feels that they don't even have to turn over emails on RNC accounts, as Think Progress notes:

White House Counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter today, told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, that the White House has not budged in its refusal to allow the panels to question several White House aides, including Karl Rove, about what they know regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, moving the two sides closer to a constitutional battle over the scandal.

Fielding also appears to be trying to head off an attempt by Conyers to obtain e-mails and documents from the Republican National Committee regarding the firings. … Fielding also said that “it was and remains our intention to collect e-mails and documents from those [RNC-controlled] accounts as well as the official White House e-mail and document retention systems” as part of a broader deal with the two committees on staffer testimony.

Color me stupid, but I believe they threw any chance of executive privilege out the door when they decided to break the law and use outside email addresses. I don't think even the Republican leaning Supreme Court will side with Bush now.

From the Muckraker:

White House political director Sara Taylor is out the door at the White House, according to Washington Wire. Taylor came up a number of times yesterday during the Kyle Sampson hearing as having worked closely with Sampson (along with another Karl Rove aide Scott Jennings) to install Rove's former aide Tim Griffin as the U.S. Attorney in eastern Arkansas.

"Barry Jackson, a longtime aide to Karl Rove, also is thought to be leaving soon.... All the departures appear to be more-or-less routine turnover," reports the Washington Wire.

It's always the subordinates, but never the bosses with this administration. If I were a subordinate, I would certainly be walking, just so I don't end up with the blame for something coming from higher ups.

In the eyes of the White House:

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sought more information yesterday about a presentation by a White House aide given to political appointees at the General Services Administration that discussed targeting 20 Democratic congressional candidates in the next election.

In a letter to White House political affairs director Karl Rove, the committee chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), asked about the Jan. 26 videoconference by Rove deputy J. Scott Jennings, which was directed to the chief of the GSA and as many as 40 agency officials stationed around the country.

Jennings's 28-page presentation included 2006 election results and listed the names of Democratic candidates considered beatable and Republican lawmakers thought to need help. At a hearing Wednesday about the GSA, Waxman said the presentation and follow-up remarks allegedly made by agency chief Lurita Alexis Doan may have violated the Hatch Act, a law that restricts federal agencies and employees from using their positions for political purposes.

In yesterday's letter, Waxman asked Rove who prepared the presentation and whether Rove or Jennings consulted with anyone about whether it might be in violation of the Hatch Act. Waxman also asked whether Rove or any members of his staff have given the same or similar PowerPoint presentations to political appointees at other government agencies.

Considering how much grief Rove has given Bush, why hasn't he just fired him? Well that is simple. Because if Bush fires Rove, the Bush looses his brain and his brain might even get pissed and decide to talk.

Perhaps this from the WSJ Blogs gives a good reason:

If there’s any doubt about the importance of getting a record of Senate investigative interviews, consider the case of J. Steven Griles.

Griles, the former deputy Interior secretary, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington today to lying to Senate investigators when he was asked about the nature of his relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was trying to help clients on matters before the Interior Department. Abramoff, in prison after pleading guilty to felony charges, has been aiding a wider investigation that has netted eight convictions or plea deals for the Justice Department.

A transcript of the Senate interview is what helped get Griles in trouble. (See the plea agreement.) Former White House aide David Safavian found himself in similar hot water, and was convicted earlier this year on charges that included lying to Senate investigators.

So we have a conviction based upon administration officials lying to Senate and with that we should just "trust them"? Sure and I bet Bush has a war he wants to sell us also!

(h/t TPM)