Bush is ‘taking down those lightning rods’?

August 29, 2007

Yesterday, the NYT and the LAT ran news-analysis pieces suggesting that the president will finally have a “fresh start” at governing now that Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove have resigned. The argument doesn’t make a lot of sense — it’s not as if there’s a sensible, reasonable president, waiting with baited breath to start governing responsibly, if only the dastardly Gonzales and Rove would get out of the way.

And yet, Roger Simon picks up on this same idea today.

Once famous for his loyalty to subordinates, Bush is now showing himself very capable of jettisoning the ones who create too much controversy.

Bush is desperately seeking to shape his legacy in the last months of his presidency, and he is taking down those lightning rods who have attracted too much negative attention.

Is this what happened? Did Bush wake up recently and decide, “You know, it’s probably time to cut free some of the more scandalous members of my team”?

I don’t think so. In fact, I don’t see how this argument makes any sense at all.

If the president really wanted to throw dead weight under the bus to preserve his “legacy,” he has a funny way of showing it.

Rove, for example, has been up to his ears in scandals since 2003. The president once vowed to fire anyone involved with leaking classified information, but Bush managed to ignore his own pledge when it was Rove who was caught in the Plame scandal. If the goal was to take down a “lightning rod” who has attracted too much negative attention, then the White House would have forced Rove out when the pressure was high, not in the middle of August when Rove wasn’t making headlines anyway.

With Gonzales, this is even more true. The U.S. Attorney scandal broke in a major way in March, and immediately cast Gonzales in a negative light. Since then, Gonzales has become a laughingstock, losing the support of practically every American who doesn’t sit in the West Wing. The more lawmakers from both parties called for Gonzales’ resignation, the more the president would express his support. The more intense the scandals surrounding Gonzales became, the more intense Bush’s endorsements became. Paradoxically, Gonzales enjoyed better job security by screwing up more, not less.

And after the calls for Gonzales’ ouster faded, and the impeachment resolution faltered, then Gonzales decided it was time to resign. But again, if the goal was to cut loose the controversial ones, Bush would have dumped Fredo months ago.

I’ll gladly concede that I don’t have all behind-the-scenes the details, and it remains entirely unclear why Gonzales and Rove decided to quit when they did. Did Bush give up on them? It seems unlikely. Did the Bolton/Gillespie/Fielding triumvirate decide to flex its muscle a bit? That certainly sounds like a possibility.

But Simon concluded, “[I]n the end, Bush decided that his legacy to history was far more important than his loyalty to Alberto Gonzales.” Maybe I’m watching a different White House, but I don’t think that’s what happened here.

All news is good for repubs. You know that Kevin. Jeeeeze.

  • I’ll gladly concede that I don’t have all behind-the-scenes the details…

    I’ll take that a step further, the entire country has only a fraction of the behind-the-scenes details of this brutal dictatorship with all of their unprecedented secrecy.

    I’d be inclined to say “impeach” if we only had a Democratic majority in Congress.

  • Sure Bush is protecting his legacy. He doesn’t want it to include Gonzo and Rove getting arrested on the job.

  • I’m probably in the minority here, but I think that Gonzo resigned on his own initiative.

    Bush’s so-called “loyalty” would have required Gonzo to continue to preside over a dysfunctional Justice Department already abandoned by many of its senior officials. It would have required him to continue to make humiliating appearances before Congressional committees. His meltdown as Attorney General has certainly been painful for him personally. Wouldn’t Gonzo have wondered whether taking another 18 months of ridicule and humiliation was worthwhile in order to protect his “friend” in the White House from the inconvenience of AG confirmation hearings, and perhaps even from the effects of an honest AG?

    Bush was obviously angry when he talked about Gonzo’s resignation. Gonzo must have said, “Mr. President, my family and I just can’t take this anymore,” and then jumped ship leaving Bush exposed. Hence Bush’s anger.

    As for the sociopathic Karl Rove – who knows what’s going on with him.

  • Wow. Simon is a complete idiot. Or a very bad liar. Possibly both. But yes; despite the fact that Rove and Gonzo both resigned, by all accounts under their own steam, and despite the fact that Rummy left a year ago, and Powell left before that, and all the other people Bush hand-picked to run his administration have all left, Bush has now “gotten rid” of enough criminals and incompetents to really fuck this place up.

  • Spin on, Politico, spin on. Who would have thought that Rove and Gonzales leaving was the work of a ‘cleaning house’ Bush, and not a clear example of the rats leaving the sinking USS Bush?

    As stated above, bad news is for Democrats, not Republicans.

  • Gonzo is gone.
    Rover is gone.

    But here is the way to tell loyalty still matters most:

    There is only one loyal person left that Bush can name as AG.
    And the devil knows Bush desperately needs a stonewall and a crony in that post.

    I am of course talking about: Michael Jherkoff

    He is the last of the loyal royal hounds…
    He is not particularly bright. But he is loyal.
    That’s all the qualifications he needs.

  • 4. On August 29th, 2007 at 3:38 pm, PaulW said:
    That would be “bated breath.”

    You’ve obviously never smelled Bush’s breath.

    BTW, it’s “toe the line” not “tow the line”.

    Oh, and it’s not “carry their water” it’s “carry their piss bucket.”

    And for Republicans it’s not “bend over backwards” it’s just “bend over.”

  • Once famous for his loyalty to subordinates, Bush […] — Roger Simon

    That’s breaking news to me. All I’ve always heard was Bush *demanded* loyalty, not that he dispensed it. And I tend to agree with Okie, @6; it was Gonzales’ idea, not Bush’s. The Sunday “family lunch” was meant to talk him out of it (remember, he told Bush of his decision on *Friday*) and it didn’t work. Bush wasn’t sad (the way he was with Rove); he was angry at the ungrateful bastard, who didn’t appreciate the condescention he’d been granted all those years.

  • By now we surely know that Bush absolutely will NOT listen to any criticism about his administration. He would rather die than be perceived as giving in to anybody, so OF COURSE nobody in his administration will go when their resignations are desired by millions.

  • Good old liberal media…

    NYT:

    The announcement on Monday that Mr. Gonzales will step down as attorney general — coming on the heels of the resignation of Mr. Rove, the chief political strategist — effectively removes two of the biggest targets on Democrats’ hit list. […] both were being cast by Democrats as symbols of what they regarded as the Bush administration’s political excesses and failures.

    Uhh… no. The targets are the people who ordered the criminal acts that Rove and Gonzales committed. Duh.

    The article not only lets Dan Bartlett and Ari Fleisher trumpet their propoganda, it tries to make it sound like conventional thought…

    “It will undermine many of the Democrats’ constant lines of attack, because they won’t have Al Gonzales to kick around any more,” Mr. Bartlett said in a telephone interview.

    […]

    Even so, Mr. Bartlett said, the administration goes into its final 17 months “clear-eyed” about the likelihood that Democrats will continue to press oversight inquiries in an effort to keep knocking Mr. Bush back on his heels.

    Republicans have long warned that if Mr. Gonzales quit, it would only embolden the Democrats, and that was the case on Monday as Democrats celebrated what they saw as a victory and another indication of the changed balance of power in Washington.

    Among those issuing such warnings in recent months was Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush’s former press secretary.

    “This is a reflection of the fact that the Democrats are on the offensive and have more power than they used to,” Mr. Fleischer said

    Got that? Those meany Democrats are just playing politics, and all those investigations are just Democratic attempts to add to their newfound power. They just want to kick people around.

    Our liberal media strikes again.

    Final note: Doesn’t “they won’t have Al Gonzales to kick around any more” sound kinda familiar?

  • Based on Bush’s history attributing any ‘just’ ideology behind his actions is ridiculous. Perhaps Rove and Gonzales got out at a time when no one was screaming for their imprisonment and because Bush’s attorneys won’t be able to hold off the investigations much longer. The very investigations that might very well put them in jail. Better they are not in their jobs when that happens.
    The attorney purge…Rove engineered it…Gonzales perpetuated it…Bush and Cheney approved it. Whoever still has their jobs are the ones being protected.
    Bush’s legacy depends entirely on not being found out, on not being held accountable. It’s never been a question of a ‘good’ president being made to look ‘bad’ by his subordinates but more a ‘bad’ president his subordinates were trying to make look ‘good’.

  • Rove said on one of the interview shows (Russert, I think) that his leaving was someone else’s idea. The interviewer did not pick up on that idea and since I only saw a clip of the interview, I don’t know if it was discussed at all.

    Since there are only two people capable of telling Rowe that (one if you count Cheney), you have to assume that Rowe was encouraged to seek other pathways.

  • Bush warns of nuclear holocaust
    W. is playing to the Rapture Ready wing of the conservative base here. I rather like Bush in his current role. He is a weak, discredited, powerless lame duck president. Better to keep Bush around for a few more years. It took the conservative base six years to realize what Bush was about. Do we really want to go through that again with Thompson, Giuliani, or Romney etc?

  • Final note: Doesn’t “they won’t have Al Gonzales to kick around any more” sound kinda familiar?

    I just hope it’s true in this case.

    When reading something like the Simon quote, I just have to assume it’s willful ignorance. Bush announced Gonzo’s long-overdue departure with all the class and dignity of a bratty seven year-old pitching a fit because he has to go to bed at 8. He’s not going to embrace “comity” or “bipartisanship” or anything of the sort; he’s going to try and stick his next nominee up the rear ends of Schumer, Leahy and the rest of the majority.

    There are only two real goals of the Bush presidency: concentrate power in the executive branch, and institutionalize Republican control over government. Everything else is window dressing. Whoever replaces Gonzalez presumably will have less power to pursue both goals, but he’ll still be charged with doing so to the maximum extent possible.

  • Personally, I’ve regarded these news analysis pieces and the article excerpted above as a case of wishful thinking. In essence, they’re communicating (as did Harry Reid in his reaction to Fredo’s departure) “If you’re really concerned about your legacy, we’re giving you a way to salvage it: scapegoat Rove and Gonzalez, start playing by the goddamned rules, quit being such a prick, stop pandering to the fundy base, (okay, now I’m just getting carried away here), and we’ll help you make amends for the sake of your legacy”.

    Not for a minute do I think he’ll take them up on it, but at least Reid et al. are making an effort. If nothing else, it’ll give them something to point to when the inevitable claims start flying that those mean Demoncrats denied Bushie his favorable legacy.

    I just keep praying for the day that the Dem leaders wake up and realize that Bush and the Repugs are not going to play by the rules — in fact, they burned the rule-book — and no one is going to give them brownie points for continuing on as though the rule-book still has any influence over how things are done in Washington.

  • I would conclude from the Rove and Gonzalez resignations that there are emails among the White House communications that confirm some of the fired 7/8/or9 prosecutors were let go for prosecuting Republicans or not bringing bogus charges against Democrats right before elections. Seeing the writing on the wall and hoping to delay their forced disclosure, Fielding pushed both of them to resign.

  • “Bush is desperately seeking to shape his legacy in the last months of his presidency, and he is taking down those lightning rods who have attracted too much negative attention.

    It’s working too. Now that those two are gone, I suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy about Bush’s presidency. Guess maybe he wasn’t such a bad president after all. :b

    But seriously, one possibility might be that Republicans in Congress wanted them gone and were able to offer Bush something he wanted in return for heaving them over the side. Or maybe he really was steamed about them tarnishing his bad name but just didn’t want to let it appear that he was getting rid of them just because anyone else wanted him too — he being “the decider” and all. Another possibility is that they decided to bail out themselves, for their own reasons and/or because someone talked them into it or offered them some kind of golden parachute in return.

  • That theory would presuppose that Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales were the problem, rather than supporters of the problem, which is the loopy jackboot government of George W. Bush. He’s had so many opportunities for fresh starts, he could run in the Kentucky Derby.

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