All right, I admit I am disappointed. Karl "The Unelected President" Rove somehow escaped indictment by the Grand Jury in the CIA leak case . That doesn't mean he has been left unscathed. Like many others who have read about and observed Rove's political tactics, I truly believed that the sort of smarmy payback meted out to Joseph Wilson through the outing of his wife as an agent was a typical Rove operation. So did James Moore and Wayne Slater, authors of "Bush's Brain", which I have referenced before, in updated material in the latest edition of the book.
"No one who knows Karl Rove has been surprised to hear his name as a prime suspect in the scandal involving the leak of a CIA agent's name. That is how Karl Rove has operated in the political arena for his entire career...The greater shock for Washington, and journalists who have reported on Karl Rove's career, would be if he were not involved in outing undercover agent Valerie Plame.
Well, we know from two sources that he was involved. I don't know what sort of deal he made with the Special Prosecutor to save his hide, but even if Rove wasn't the primary source for the leak, a pertinent question must be asked. What was the President's political advisor doing with information about clandestine CIA agents in the first place? Who ever cast a single vote for this guy other than the Young College Republicans in 1973, when he was accused of stealing the election? His opponent was the chairman of the College Republicans for Nixon in 1972 at the University of Michigan. I remember well the Republican Convention of 1972, after Nixon paraded out Henry Kissinger to say "Peace is at hand." That was his last trick to get re-elected. Rove and his fellows were the young people so incongruously packing the galleries in their straw boaters and neckties chanting "Four More Years." What must go through a young person's mind when he is draft eligible, his President has bombed and destabilized two adjacent countries to the already ravaged Vietnam, his fellow students are being gunned down on college campuses for war protests, and he wants four more years of Nixon's plan. It wasn't that they were so pro-Nixon, as anti-hippie. So was G.W. Bush, who's cheerleading career at Yale was disrupted by those shaggy war protesters. This is where the "culture war" began.
It was still a mistake for the Democrats to have put all their eggs in Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald's basket. Although there are revelations to come, Karl Rove has been unleashed. Now that Rove is free to publicly question the patriotism of the administration's critics, the Democrats need a bold voice to counter the vitriol that will only build as the mid-term election grows near. The Democrats take Rove's bait every time and it is entirely possible that they could blow this election despite the President's and Congress's record low approval ratings. Gary Hart wrote a piece this week in The Huffington Post, that the public should be alerted to the possibility of an "October Surprise." Hart surmises that even though the mantra is still "stay the course," Rove will find a way to declare victory in Iraq, or at least enough progress to begin plans to withdraw troops. Rove knows Iraq is the albatross around the Republicans neck and he must address it. Hart warns that whatever the administration promises are only plans to get them through this election. Rove trades principle for politics every time.
I hope the electorate sees through the cynical attempts of this bankrupt Republican administration to hold on to its power. It was reported yesterday that Rove contacted Joe Lieberman with an offer to help him in his independent run for Senate Spoiler. Is there any better validation for Lieberman's loss to an unknown in the primary? Only a change in Congress can begin to inquire why Karl Rove was in possession of classified and sensitive information. Does he even have a security clearance, and if so, why? And how did one political operative that G.H.W. Bush hired as his special assistant at the Republican National Committee come to accrue so much power after this article from The Washington Post from 1973?
"Republican National Committee Chairman George Bush (the first) has re-opened an investigation into allegations that a paid official of the GOP taught political espionage and "dirty tricks" during weekend seminars for College Republicans during 1971 and 1972. Some of the 1972 seminars were held after the Watergate break-in. Bush said he will urge a GOP investigating committee to "get to the bottom" of charges against Karl C. Rove, 32, who was executive director of the College Republican National Committee."
Bush's Brain, Ibid
It is a continuous line from Karl Rove to Lee Atwater, Donald Segretti, G. Gordon Liddy, John Mitchell, and Richard Nixon. Karl Rove may have escaped indictment from the Fitzgerald jury, but he may yet face it from the American public. The people got wise to Nixon. They will ultimately see through his disciples as well.
