Rove is formally Deputy White House Chief of Staff. Lautenberg and a private ethics watchdog group have asked Bush to suspend Rove's clearances, shutting him out of classified meetings--which must mean he's got 'em.
1. Provides an example of a "victory" for people opposed to Bush and Rove to rally around and motivate future battles. I put victory in quotes for the reason that the only actual victory would be a repudiation of Rovian political attacks and shennanigans, and of Rove himself, by a majority of the (voting) American populace.
1 (another version). Rove may (should) go to jail. Rove will then, as the deputy chief of staff and a hugely important campaign strategist, be tied to as many Republicans as possible in the 2006 midterms and in other elections.
2. What office did Rove hold at the time of the disclosure? If it was deputy chief of staff, West Wing would have me believe that Josh had access to a great deal of infomation while holding that position.
Note also that "Bush fires malefactor" would only fly if all the non-Foxy media let him get away with it. If Rove goes, they should headline it "Key Bush advisor loses job in big scandal." They also might want to look into the real story behind the faked WMD intel. And a pony.
Those bastards stonewalled on this since before the 2004 election. This could have tilted things to Kerry.
So much for the cover-up is worse than the crime.
Note also that "Bush fires malefactor" would only fly if all the non-Foxy media let him get away with it.
Which they almost certainly will.
CORRECTION! According to this TPMCafe post, Rove only became DWHCS this February. Everything I've read seems to indicate that Rove had clearance before, but I don't know of what kind.
5,6: yeah, that's kind of what I meant by "and a pony."
If any concrete punishment is meted out to Rove, it will have been revealed before hand that he is a partisan liberal working undercover.
A to tha P (via Eschaton). What a pleasant surprise.
The networks and major papers still appears to be unwilling to run the story, "Scott McClellan has repeatedly made assertions which he knew to be false, he is a liar," as opposed to the story, "Reporters (meaning us) today accused Scott McClellan of repeatedly making false assertions to them/us." I'd really like to see the story, "The correllation between a statements truth and Scott McClellan's willingess to assert it as truth is negative."
Would you say that Bush is very loyal? There was a lot of pressure on his father to dump Quayle on re-election, and he wouldn't do it. Bush II seems very unwilling to fire even incredibly incompetent people. So he may have that quality, too. It would be nice if it does him some damage, not just with Rove, but with Gonzalez too.
1) My gut says if the heat is high enough, Rove will be booted from his current position but reassigned to another, less visible profile quietly.
2) No idea, but that would be an interesting way to dodge a charge, no? "I didn't think that Valerie Plame's identity was secret because I had heard it openly from Scapegoat XYZ."
I think Bush is stubborn, not loyal. He's unwilling to fire incredibly incompetent people, but he's fired a lot of people who tell him things he doesn't want to hear. Thomas White, secretary of the Army and former Enron exec, should've been fired when the Enron scandal broke--had to have been incompetent or criminal--but stuck around until he agreed with Shinseki's reality based troop estimates and scrapped with Rummy over the Crusader artillery (admittedly I think Rummy was probably right on that). Shinseki's another who was moved out.
Which means, I think, that there's no way in hell Bush will fire Rove. I hope it does him damage. But I wouldn't be surprised to see Rove get pardoned.
Cranky, over at Digby's place, says that we have to push for Rove to lose his security clearance. Otherwise, if he's fired, he'll just go over to K street, take some private job and continue to advise Bush as a consultant.
My feeling is that in the short-term getting rid of Rove accomplishes little, but we can't let the pukes think that they're invulnerable. We need to chip away at their confidence, and getting rid of the personification of chutzpah that is Rove would be a good start.
I think Bush is stubborn, not loyal.
Alternatively, he's just a slick manipulator, or, in other words, a good Texas politician. Your critics pelt you with hail, yet the very objects of their ire go unpunished or are rewarded. To the averge voter who's only halfway paying attention, you win. If your critics' charges had be founded, punishment should have ensued. No punishment, ergo the charges were unfounded.
sometimes the person who doesn't understand the poker hands at all wins the biggest, because he or she plays absolutely crazy. There is no predicting crazy behavior when you assume that everyone at the table knows the basic rules of the game. The ignoramus-gambler wins big until everyone else realizes that the person doesn't understand the hands, at which time, all bluffs will be called.
I know this well as a once and future ignoramus-gambler.
That moment should have occurred a long time ago for GWB.
ignoramus-gambler wins big until everyone else realizes that the person doesn't understand the hands
Unless everyone at the table is an ignoramus. Just saying.
that is what I was getting at, or trying to.
But I think it isn't so much that they all are ignoramuses as that they are paying no attention at all to the game. Which may not be any kind of distinction.
sometimes the person who doesn't understand the poker hands at all wins the biggest, because he or she plays absolutely crazy. There is no predicting crazy behavior when you assume that everyone at the table knows the basic rules of the game.
There was dude at the 2004 tournament (or 03) who explained that he could psych out and play strategically with good players, but not bad players, because they just don't know what they're doing. Doyle Brunson?
What would probably be best right now is if the newsweeklies, in response to this story, decided to do some front-cover reporting on Who Rove Is. There's more than enough material out there for them.
According to this week's NYer, pro poker players sometimes move cautiously in the early rounds of a tournament because the other players there are less good, and sometimes clean you out by taking stupid chances. Other pros apparently take the opposite strategy by trying to build up a huge chip advantage.
Any chance Judith Miller gave Rove the information? How sweet that would be.
>Bill Miller, former owner of the Riviera nightclub in Fort Lee, N.J., which hosted shows by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, had moved to Vegas in 1953. He bought a 10 percent interest in the Sahara Hotel and took over as entertainment director. Besides booking the big room, he is credited with inventing the "lounge act" as a highly profitable niche. Later he worked at the Flamingo and the International Hotel, where he booked one of Elvis Presley's famed 1969 shows. A survey of the top 100 people "who shaped Southern Nevada" by the Las Vegas Review-Journal dubbed Miller, who died in 2002, "Mr. Entertainment."
There is no evidence that Judith shared poker tournament strategy tips with Rove, but these links are suggestive.
That was a fascinating New Yorker article.
I've been working on the assumption that nothing would ever happen with the Rove thing, and it looks like I'm being proven wrong. I wonder if it's because people (including journalists) are sore about being lied to about the reasons for the war, and they want someone to take the fall for it, even if by proxy. They're not yet ready to point the finger at Bush directly, but they want someone to blame. Since Cooper was the first one to say "Fuck Rove, we're taking him out," everyone else piled on.
It shocked me to find out that the reporters slapping Scottie around yesterday weren't the usual suspects (Helen Thomas and the like), but David Gregory and Terry Moran. I don't even know if Helen Thomas is still part of the gaggle, now that I think about it.
My hope is that Bush and Cheney are both called to testify in a public setting. Then, we'll see where we are. There's no way that sort of thing elevates an administration.
My hope is that Bush and Cheney are both called to testify in a public setting.
...together, right?
The reporters yesterday seemed to be mad at Scottie about being lied to about Rove. It didn't seem like a proxy anger. It seemed to be a straight forward direct anger.
I think Helen Thomas is still around, but I haven't really seen her lately.
...together, right?
I envisioned them holding hands.
I envision Bush on Cheney's lap. Cheney holds the string coming out of Bush's neck.
Marshall Wittman has the same thought, with Rove for Cheney. (Though won't a lot of the kids be saying, "Edgar who?")
So, let's think about this from Fitzgerald's point of view.
If I have Rove, what questions am I going to ask him, and how am I going to expect him to respond?
This is pure speculation, but probably something along these lines:
Q: At the time you disclosed Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper, were you aware of her status as a covert operative?
This is tricky, and Rove may say "no", in which case the next question is:
Q: How did you obtain knowledge of Plame's occupation without becoming aware of her status as a covert operative?
And here he's sort of fucked. If someone else (Bolton, say) passed her name to him, then he has to admit it or lie. If he lies, what does he say? If he found it himself (by, say, obtaining some sort of classified dossier on Wilson), how could that possibly reveal Plame's occupation but not her covert status?
Let's suppose he says "yes", though, to the first question, which seems to me to be an admission of guilt. It wouldn't stop there; Fitzgerald would have to dig deeper to find out who else knew about this -- before, during and after the fact. This is where it gets interesting, and here's how it would likely go:
Q: Before leaking Plame's identity and occupation to Mr. Cooper, did you have any conversation with any other member of the administration, up to and including the president, about your intended course of action?
And he'll answer
Q: No.
Then Fitz will ask
Q: In the two years subsequent to your leaking Plame's identity and occupation to Mr. Cooper, did you have any conversation about your guilt in this matter with any member of the administration, up to and including the president?
And again he'll answer
Q: No.
Then Fitz might ask
Q: Did any member of the administration ever ask you whether you knew who was responsible for the leak?
And here he'll be in a tough spot, because he'll have to either admit that he lied to someone internally, or say that there was no internal investigation. My guess is that he'd choose the former, to take the bullet.
A: Yes.Q: And what was your response?
A: I denied involvement in or knowledge of the incident.
Q: Who was the administration official conducting the interview in which you issued your denial?
And anyone he says will sort of be screwed, because Fitzgerald will likely subpeona them to testify about the interviews and the investigation they conducted, potentially opening them up to perjury as well.
But Fitz would almost certainly ask this question:
Q: Did you ever have a conversation with the president in which you denied involvement in or knowledge of the leak?
At which point he has to say "yes", and admit he lied to Bush, or else say "no" and make it look like Bush never asked him about it. I suspect he'd choose "yes", once again falling on his sword for the administration. In either case, Bush himself would likely get called to testify.
Again, these are just speculations, but once the questions start coming, they can lead all sorts of interesting places. The Lewinsky impeachment began as a real estate investigation, after all.
My thought is that Rove is sort of fucked once he takes the stand. He has no good options.
Another truly weasely option would be for Rove to answer the first question "no", but then say that her occupation at the CIA (but not her covert status) were passed along to him anonymously.
It would be a transparent lie, but an almost totally irrefutable one.
Rove, Rove, Rove your boat,
Gently up the creek,
Verily, verily, verily, verily,
He denied the leak.
Yes, if he limits himself to answering yes or no he is screwed. What about if he adds, "The answer to that is protected by executive privilige," "F i F," and "National security forbids me to answer that" to his repetoire, as well as more devious things which I'm not thinking of. Of course Joe, I hope that you're right and I'm wrong.
Can Rove claim executive privilege?
He could also take the 5th.
What's F i F?
You may now be eligible for the fellowship when it becomes available (scroll down).
The more I think about it, the more it seems likely that he'll take the 5th. But that opens the door to other subpoenas inside the administration, to determine Karl's guilt...
I don't think this has to be so complicated for Rove. "I can't recall where I heard that Joseph Wilson's wife works for the agency. It might have been at a party a few years ago, but I just can't recall." If he says that, it doesn't matter who told him that Wilson's wife was responsible for sending Wilson.