Karl Rove is dreaming of a brokered Democratic convention

The NYT reports that prominent backers of Barack Obama are urging Hillary Clinton to end her bid for the nomination if she does not win huge victories in the primary contests on March 4. Most analyses conclude that Clinton needs to win Texas and Ohio by no less than 60 percent to have a chance at closing the elected delegate gap with Obama.

For some reason, reporter Brian Knowlton interviewed Karl Rove, who offered the following words of, um, wisdom.

“I think it’s a mistake for his campaign to be calling for her to drop out,” Mr. Rove said on Fox. That would be seen as “rubbing her nose” in the fact that she is trailing, he said. “It’s up to the delegates at the convention to decide who wins and loses,” he added.

Rove characterizes the calls for Clinton to withdraw as "unbecoming."

He would know from unbecoming, I think.

I hope Karl's feelings won't be too hurt if I suggest that he take his advice and force it back into his GI tract with something sharp and pointed.

Call me cynical, but I don't imagine that Karl is hoping for a brokered Democratic convention because he thinks it will be good for our side.

Fly, little bluebird! Fly!

Rove; Gonzales

MSNBC asks:

By the way, who had Gonzales staying longer than Rove in their White House staffing exodus office pool?

Well, since you bring it up...

Karl Rove will go before Gonzales goes. Rove's scalp is the only thing that could conceivably get the heat off of Gonzales and Bush. In fact, it would not surprise me if, at some point in the next few months, Rove cops to some non-criminal form of culpability in the scandal, announces that he is resigning to spend more time with his best friend Rhett Hard, and accepts a teaching job as George B. Cortelyou Endowed Chair and Professor of Political Science at Regent University. At this stage of the game, Bush can afford to lose Rove much more than he can afford to have an independent attorney general who is committed to the rule of law.

Granted, Rove is not leaving under the cloud of an indictment or a guilty plea, but it has been clear for some time that Bush doesn't really need him around anymore. There are no more races to win, at least for Bush, and Rove proved last year that his legendary "genius" is nothing of the sort. He's just a GOP operative whose main talent lies in his willingness to engage in any degree of thuggery to win a political campaign. The problem is that it only gets you so far, and eventually, people expect you to be able to govern. Republicans are incapable of doing that because they don't believe in government. So in 2006, the American people turned the bums out. Rove leaves public service with his dreams of a permanent Republican majority in tatters, and he has his own narrow, short-sighted strategic vision to blame.

Gonzales, meanwhile, earns the title of Last Apparatchik Standing because he is the one Bush truly needs right now. The last thing the president can afford is an attorney general who believes in the rule of law, and if Abu G. leaves the building, there is no way that Bush will get another lickspittle A.G. confirmed by the senate. Unless, that is, Bush kicks Fredo to the curb in the next few weeks and issues a recess appointment for his replacement. That's the only way Gonzales leaves office prior to January 20, 2009.

Rove

Bush started his statement by pushing the official line about Rove leaving the White House to "spend more time with Darby and Andrew," his wife and son. Rove followed up with a pack of lies about Bush's legacy. Then, a bunch of people applauded. I hope they were White House staff and not White House reporters.

Rove's explanation for resigning is obvious nonsense. Suddenly, after being absent for much of his son's childhood, he's resigning to spend more time with him? Just as he is leaving home for college? Yeah, that's what every college-age man is yearning for. It doesn't even make sense by the usual "I want to spend more time with my family" standards. How rushed was this decision that they didn't have time to come up with something more believable? I almost expect to hear news of his arrest within days, if not hours.

Deconstructions of Rove's official reason for resigning here, here, and here.

As for what Rove leaves behind, Andrew Sullivan has a great take.

The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. For this, he got two terms of power - which the GOP used mainly to enrich themselves, their clients and to expand government's reach and and drain on the productive sector. In the re-election, the president with a relatively strong economy, and a war in progress, managed to eke out 51 percent. Why? Because Rove preferred to divide the country and get his 51 percent, than unite it and get America's 60. In a time of grave danger and war, Rove picked party over country. Such a choice was and remains despicable.

Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president's eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.

Just issue the subpoenas already!

Via Salon's The Blog Report, I see that congressional Democrats have had just about enough of the Bush administration's delaying tactics (GRRR!):

Today, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sánchez sent a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, offering the White House one last chance at cooperation with the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the US Attorney firings and noted that the evidence to date indicated that the White House played a central role in the matter. Conyers and Sánchez warned that absent voluntary cooperation, the Committee would be left with no alternative but to resort to compulsory process to obtain the needed information...

I can't figure out what is taking them so long. If they ever thought that they would get Rove and Miers to testify under oath willingly, they were pretty much the only ones. They are dealing with people who do not recognize any limitations on their behavior. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are dealing with sociopaths. Rove and his crew consider themselves unaccountable to anyone but themselves.

Issue the subpoenas. They will ignore them, but then they will have officially demonstrated contempt of Congress. Perhaps the possibility of jail time will loosen their tongues. Perhaps not. But it is just embarrassing to see the Democrats in congress going through the motions of negotiating with people who would kill them if they thought they could get away with it.

When dealing with the Bush administration, the old rules don't apply. In fact, I have seen no evidence that any rules apply. Issue the subpoenas. Set the wheels in motion, and see where they take you.

Gonzales; Impeachment

The senate can censure Alberto Gonzales every day between now and January 20, 2009, if they want to. It will not make any difference. Short of impeaching him, there is nothing the congress can do to get rid of Gonzales. He will not resign. Bush will not fire him. Bush needs Gonzales exactly where he is because he knows that the days of rubberstamp confirmation hearings are over, and that he will not win confirmation of another lackey.

This is Bush's dilemma. As long as Gonzales remains attorney general, he remains the center of the U.S. Attorney firings scandal. No sane, intellectually honest person will claim to believe that Gonzales was acting without direction from the White House. As long as Gonzales remains at the Justice Department, the story will not die. This means that Bush has little choice but to spend the rest of his presidency watching this scandal unfold, and getting closer and closer to him.

Karl Rove will go before Gonzales goes. Rove's scalp is the only thing that could conceivably get the heat off of Gonzales and Bush. In fact, it would not surprise me if, at some point in the next few months, Rove cops to some non-criminal form of culpability in the scandal, announces that he is resigning to spend more time with his best friend Rhett Hard, and accepts a teaching job as George B. Cortelyou Endowed Chair and Professor of Political Science at Regent University. At this stage of the game, Bush can afford to lose Rove much more than he can afford to have an independent attorney general who is committed to the rule of law.

Thanks, but no thanks

If I was Barney, I'd steer clear of George W. Bush's boots for the next couple of days.

Congressional Dems have told the president what he can do with his "invitation" to come to the White House and "discuss" their bills to fund his war.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking Tuesday at a news conference in San Francisco, forcefully rejected Bush's invitation -- as had Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada several hours earlier at a Capitol appearance.

"What the president invited us to do is to come to his office so that we could accept, without any discussion, the bill that he wants," Pelosi said. "That's not worthy of the concerns of the American people. And I join with Sen. Reid in rejecting an invitation of that kind.

"Leader Reid and I have long said to the president (that) we want to talk to you -- the American people want us to work together. They want us to fund the troops, they want us to wind down this war. And let's work together to do that," she said.

That "invitation" was a breathtaking strategic mistake on the president's part. It reeks of a freelance operation. He had to have issued it in complete defiance of what Rove and Cheney were telling him. It was an unmistakable sign of weakness. If his position on this matter were stronger, he never would have reached out to the Democrats this way. What an embarrassment. He is probably punching through the sheetrock tonight.

Gonzales approved dismissals

The Attorney General of the United States lied to the American people.

Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he was not involved in any discussions about the impending dismissals of U.S. attorneys.

On Friday night, however, the Justice Department revealed Gonzales' participation in a Nov. 27 meeting where such plans were discussed.

The firings of eight prosecutors has since led to a political firestorm and calls for his ouster.

At that meeting, the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials discussed a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Gonzales' aides said late Friday.

There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was drafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week.

At this point, it seems that literally every answer we have been given about the reasons for the U.S. Attorney firings has been untrue.

This is why Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and anybody else that Bush sends out to spin this travesty must testify in public and under oath. Bush administration officials lie. Even when they are under oath, they lie, but at least if they testify under oath, with a written record of what they say, they can be held accountable for their lies.

NO one-party state for you!

Sorry, Karl. Your dreams of a permanent Republican majority are kaput. You have nobody but yourself and your boy, George, to blame.

A solid Republican majority seemed within reach, especially after the country rallied behind Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Bush's Republicans defied history by gaining seats in the 2002 mid-term congressional elections, which usually tilt against the president's party. And the Republican brand name took on new luster that year, as the party moved into a tie with the Democrats in terms of voters' self-proclaimed party identification - 43 percent called themselves Democrats or leaning that way, and the same percentage called themselves Republican.

Now that's all gone.

Today, 50 percent of Americans call themselves Democrats or lean that way, while 35 percent call themselves Republicans or lean that way.

"Over the past five years, the political landscape of the nation has shifted from one of partisan parity to a sizeable Democratic advantage," the Pew analysis said. "But the change reflects Republican losses more than Democratic gains."

"That's due to dissatisfaction with the White House," Kohut added in an interview.

Dissatisfaction with the White House stems from many sources. Soaring federal spending. Budget deficits. Illegal immigration. Katrina. And, of course, Iraq.

That's what happens when you ignore governance in favor of winning elections at all costs. The American people crave competent, responsible governance. When you deny them that, they deny you the ability to win elections.

'Bulls***, or bullfact?'

'... the truth about why the decision was made.'

During his press conference Tuesday night, President Bush offered a refreshingly and surprisingly articulate refutation of his own argument that administration officials should not be required to testify before congress.

Q: In San Diego, Nevada, Arizona, Republicans were the targets of investigations, and those U.S. Attorneys were removed. Does that not give the appearance...?

BUSH: It may give the appearance of something, but I think what you need to do is listen to the facts and let them explain to you. It's precisely why they're going up to testify, so that the American people can hear the truth about why the decision was made.

Well, yes. Except that they aren't "going up to testify." This is the whole problem.

The American people need and deserve to hear the truth about why the decision was made to fire eight United States Attorneys with sterling performance records. To this point, every answer the Bush administration has provided has been untrue. This is precisely the reason that congress wants administration officials to testify under oath about the process that led to the firings. An off-the-record "interview" with Karl Rove does not even begin to meet the standard of full disclosure that the American people need and deserve.

The demand of congress for senior White House advisors to testify under oath is not "partisanship," as the president insists. The proper term is "accoutability." The president should learn the difference and act as though he understands it.