Karl Rove
Most Popular Posts in This Category
08.23.06
Philadelphia Daily News journalist and blogger Will Bunch has the low-down on CNN’s latest obsession: Rockey Vaccarella, the “plain-spoken guy” whose house was destroyed after Hurricane Katrina. Vaccarella travelled from New Orleans to D.C. in his FEMA trailer, with a documentary film crew trailing him, on the off-chance that Dubya would meet with him to discuss the recovery efforts.
And whaddya know? As “luck” would have it, Bush did. At a joint press conference, Vaccarella sung Bush’s praises, noting ruefully that “I just wish the President could have another term in Washington.”
Turns out he’s a Republican shill.
And that will surprise no one except the employees of CNN.
Update: Vaccarella’s trailer is just as “real” as the photo-op (via The Rude Pundit). First Draft has the pictures.
Share This
06.13.06
Having your blog on hiatus can be a wonderfully cleansing experience. You’d be surprised how dramatically your world-view improves when Karl Rove, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist aren’t around to taint it.
They were always there, of course, but it was easy to ignore them. For seven months, I lived a blessed life — American politics receded into a wall of vague background noise, and I slipped into the gloriously apathetic mindset that is the birthright of every patriotic American. Things that used to make me outraged soon made me shrug. I unglued myself from the computer, and walked into the sunshine. It was bright, and it felt good. I was happy.
I wish I could say that the announcement that Karl Rove will not be indicted in the Plame case found me in that blissful state, and passed through me like a breeze, but the truth is that it was a remarkably uncordial welcome-back-to-the-blog on the part of Mr. Fitzgerald, especially after all of the wonderful sentiments expressed around these parts yesterday. It frustrates me to no end that Rove has slipped through the prosecutor’s clutches: Rove is a villain — so smug, so evil — straight out of central casting, and it would have been satisfying to see him get his comeuppance at the end of the film.
But, as Christy at FireDogLake reminds us, a prosecutor can only go forward with the evidence he has, and apparently, Fitzgerald didn’t have enough. It’s hard to believe that Rove didn’t trip up even once during all those hours of testifying and cross-examination, but that’s why he’s such a good villain — he forces you to admire his skill even as your estimation of his moral worth sinks lower and lower.
So, Rove is a free man, and we are an extremely unhappy and frustrated bunch. It’s a return to normalcy, I guess.
Can I go back outside now?
Share This
10.28.05
Vice-President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, who also worked as an assistant to President Bush, HAS BEEN INDICTED ON FIVE COUNTS IN THE PLAME CASE.
The charges are perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to the grand jury. Libby has resigned.
Rove has not been charged today, but will remain under continuing investigation by the special counsel.
illustration via kidscosmos
James Moore, writing on The Huffington Post, reminds us of the significance of these indictments (via All-Spin Zone):
Leaking the names of CIA agents is not politics; it is a crime. Lying to congress about evidence for a war is not politics; it is a crime. Failing to tell a grand jury that you met with a reporter and talked about the CIA agent is not forgetfullness; it is a crime. Deceiving your entire nation and frightening children and adults with images of nuclear explosions in order to get them to support a bloody invasion of another country is not politics; it is a crime.
Two other important reads, also via ASZ: Firedoglake, for continuing analysis of the documents released today, and Senator Kennedy’s powerful statement, posted on Eschaton.
Share This
10.27.05
This seems to epitomize where we stand tonight:
Confusion reigns.
Share This
10.27.05
Just sayin’ . . .
Bradley C. Bower/AP
Philadelphia City Councilman Rick Mariano (right) is assisted by his spokesman, Frank Keel, as they arrive today at federal court for Mariano’s arraignment on federal fraud and bribery charges. (Philly.com)
Ron Edmonds/AP
Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, walks into the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005, using crutches. Lawyers representing key White House officials expect Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to decide this week whether to charge Libby and top presidential political adviser Karl Rove in the leak of a CIA officer’s identity. (Yahoo)
Share This
10.06.05
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been on pins and needles all day.
Via Atrios and Think Progress comes this AP report:
Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th-hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer’s leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won’t be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.
The persons, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, said Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not made any decision yet on whether to file criminal charges against the longtime confidant of President Bush or others.
Lawrence O’Donnell (via TalkLeft) predicts “at least three high level Bush Administration personnel indicted and possibly one or more very high level unindicted co-conspirators.”
But he also suggests that it might be a while before we know:
If no one RSVPs to Fitzgerald’s invitations, look for indictments as early as next week. If anyone does sit down with Fitzgerald, he will probably have to move to extend the grand jury, which now has only thirteen working days left in its term.
Rove has responded, obviously, so we might have to wait.
In the meantime, we can day-dream, can’t we?
Update: Laurence O’Donnell again (via Billmon):
What this means is Rove’s lawyer, Bob Luskin, believes his client is defintely going to be indicted.
So, Luskin is sending Rove back into the grand jury to try to get around the prosecutor and sell his innocence directly to the grand jurors. Legal defense work doesn’t get more desperate than this. The prosecutor is happy to let Rove go under oath again–without his lawyer in the room–and try to wiggle out of the case. The prosecutor has every right to expect that Rove’s final under-oath grilling will either add a count or two to the indictment or force Rove to flip and testify against someone else. Others have speculated that Fitzgerald is trying to get Rove to flip on a higher-up. I have a hard time believing that will happen. Not because he is virtuous, but rather because it isn’t in his self-interest. I doubt he could have much of a career of any kind if he turned on Cheney, Bush, Bolton, or any of the higher-ups potentially involved in this. Even if he’s convicted of perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction, he can still look forward to a long career in Republican circles, as G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North could attest.
Share This
09.16.05
Dan Froomkin writes in The Washington Post:
All you really need to know about the White House’s post-Katrina strategy — and Bush’s carefully choreographed address on national television tonight — is this little tidbit from the ninth paragraph of Elisabeth Bumiller and Richard W. Stevenson’s story in the New York Times this morning:
“Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush’s chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort.”
Rove’s leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush’s image.
That is Rove’s hallmark.
Let me get this straight: after being heavily criticized for putting political hacks in charge of federal organizations such as FEMA, President Bush just did it again by putting a political strategist in charge of the biggest government spending program since The New Deal. A political strategist currently under investigation for a treasonous leak.
This is Michael Brown, Part II: even as Bush says that he takes responsibility for the federal government’s inept and criminally incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, he repeats his missteps and ensures that the federal rebuilding effort will be guided by political expediency.
As Paul Krugman writes in The New York Times:
Now it begins: America’s biggest relief and recovery program since the New Deal. And the omens aren’t good.
It’s a given that the Bush administration, which tried to turn Iraq into a laboratory for conservative economic policies, will try the same thing on the Gulf Coast. The Heritage Foundation, which has surely been helping Karl Rove develop the administration’s recovery plan, has already published a manifesto on post-Katrina policy. It calls for waivers on environmental rules, the elimination of capital gains taxes and the private ownership of public school buildings in the disaster areas. And if any of the people killed by Katrina, most of them poor, had a net worth of more than $1.5 million, Heritage wants to exempt their heirs from the estate tax. Indeed, I tremble for my country . . .
Share This
|
