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July 18, 2005

The Deadly Question

George W. Bush is really not a hardass, and his Compassionate Conservatism is real, but like everything else about this Administration, it is overshadowed by larger questions. Still there are small questions that became very important in his election and the top of those small questions was something to the effect 'Do you expect George W. Bush to restore dignity to the office of the President?'

It is a small question for me in the end I must admit. I found nothing particularly appalling about Bill Clinton except, upon retrospect, his smarmy way of being a bad boy in all our faces. It wasn't the content, it was the attitude. But I know for a lot of Republicans, the question wasn't quite so small. I think it is now fair to call all of those die-hards hypocrites. I don't think anyone can honestly ask the question about the dignity of the office of the President and see the person of Karl Rove as anything but a liability.

Boot Rove.

We know that Rove has mastered the art of deniability. He is the master of clean handed dirty tricks. He makes sure that the butterfly flaps its wings just so his enemy may reap the whirlwind. In the world of politics, he is untouchable. But that's the kind of person I would expect a Bill Clinton to hire for his campaign. GWBush is my War President. I don't really give a rat's ass about his political capital, now in his second term. Losing Rove does not stray us from the course in Iraq. As far as I'm concerned Rove is expendable.

Since Rove's fingerprints are all over this Plame scandal, I have no doubt that he has calculated well enough to be exonerated from crime. That's beside the point. I see no honor in this dodgeball; it may be political genius, but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for somebody to take one for the team, and I mean the United States Intelligence Services, or whatever they are called under the reorg. You don't out spies. Simple. Not for political capital, not for expedience, not for loyalty to the guy in the office. This is the issue that draws the line between partisans and patriots. Which side are you on?

By raising the bar to a legal presumption, Bush has made this entirely a matter of politics and no longer one of honor, and in this he has demonstrated to me that he wants to play by the same rules as his immediate predecessor in the White House. That's OK by hardcore partisans, but I think I'm a bit more of a patriot than that.

Ask the deadly question. Is Karl Rove worth it?

Posted by mbowen at July 18, 2005 11:05 PM

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Comments

Good breakdown. Maybe Bush and company are handling this in a way to distract the Democrat's from other things, or is that just wishful thinking?

Posted by: matt at July 19, 2005 10:33 AM

Ask the deadly question. Is Karl Rove worth it?

The easy answer is no; if Rove has actually outed a spy, he should be fired, or worse.

The harder answer is, that's a pretty big "if." You can't out an agent who serves openly, and whose own identity you learned not from any classified documents but from the press corps, as well may be the case here. If all the reporters knew all along who non-covert agent Valerie Plame was and who she worked for, then the only thing for Rove to out was the fact that her even less covert, non-CIA husband was lying through his teeth when he claimed that Dick Cheney had been the one to select him for his nepotism junket in Niger. There is a reason why we have a statute to protect covert CIA agents but not lying ex-ambassadors.

Also, to fully appreciate the deadly question, sometimes you have to think like the enemy. From the Democrats' perspective, Karl Rove is Public Enemy No. 1, for reasons having nothing to do with Valerie Plame. He's credited with engineering three consecutive electoral spankings thus far, with Lord knows how many more to come. To a Democrat partisan, is Karl Rove worth concocting a phony "scandal" where none existed? You betcha. Notice how many Democrats used to argue for Miller & Cooper's freedom in part on the basis that there was no underlying crime. You don't hear them advancing that argument anymore, and it's not because any new evidence arose that a crime was committed. All that changed is that one of the anonymous non-criminals turned out to be Karl Rove, so there must be a crime lurking in there somewhere, dammit.

Posted by: Xrlq at July 19, 2005 11:55 AM

I, too, do not see this as black and white as you seem to. If Rove were legitimately (i.e. not based upon partisan hyperbole) under suspicion of illegal activity I'd say cut him loose now. But he isn't, and even the NYT and WP agree. So the real crux is did he do something bad (or bad enough) to merit dismissal. On this question I side with Xrlq, that the worst he could be accused of is falling for the old "confirming a reporter's statement" trick. There is no known situation in which Rove initiated discussion on the subject, which makes him the most inefficient leak in political history.

One of GWB's strengths (and some may argue weaknesses) is his steadfast loyalty to those who work for him. Rolling over on a very dedicated and loyal staffer on a non-issue like this is a bad example and precenent for everyone else in the Administration who supports him.

Posted by: submandave at July 19, 2005 03:54 PM

I don't doubt that the Democrats have their slimy reasons, and I'm not moved one way or another by any weight attached to Niger or uranium. I'm more concerned with the level of defense given to Rove or any White House staffer given that Plame has been outed. I expect that there are interests within the Intelligence community that are being thwarted - the last thing I heard was that Plame was on NOC which is as deep cover as cover goes. I have a very hard time swallowing that this was a lucky guess - which is to say that I don't believe that Cooper, Miller or Novak are capable of finding out on their own who is an American spy and who is not. The consequences of that are rather unthinkable, though stranger things have happened.

I think it is precisely because of the immateriality of Niger that GWBush ought to be well rid of the whiff of scandal. To my ears, "cooperating fully with the investigation" is just stalling. If the Chief of Staff wanted to know, he'd know. This is not the kind of thing that requires a lot of thought. The bottom line is that the White House is on the defensive, and that a whole truth that shows Wilson to be a liar was due months ago. And yet here we are at this late date still learning things.

I've heard the whole conspiracy on DeLay and the accusations against his associates regarding Indian Gaming, so I know how partisans play, but this appears a bit more substantial, and I've been waiting patiently for full disclosure for a long time. The independent investigation by the DOJ better be as convincing as that surrounding Vince Foster's death, or else Bush is in deep doo doo.

Posted by: Cobb [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 19, 2005 08:25 PM

As I noted here, Plame reportedly outed herself to then-boyfriend Joe Wilson on the "third or fouth date" during a "heavy makeout session". I've worked around collection activity and this is certainly not the way one stays undercover. NOC or not, considering the number of people who reportedly knew this "secret" long before Novak wrote the first word I still say that the person who originally outed Plame was either her husband or herself.

Posted by: submandave at July 21, 2005 03:40 PM