Boy, these circumstances sure sound familiar.
[George W. Bush and Karl Rove] came together during young adulthood, when an ambitious former Texas congressman, George H.W. Bush, held the job of chairman of the Republican National Committee. It fell to the elder Bush to investigate allegations that Rove had used dirty tricks in a campaign for president of the College Republicans. The RNC chairman eventually cleared Rove, and was so impressed by the young operative that he hired him as an assistant.
Although Rove was an advisor ostensibly working behind the scenes, his name continued to be associated with public controversy. During George H.W. Bush’s second presidential campaign, Rove was fired from the campaign team because of suspicions that he had leaked information to columnist Robert Novak — the same columnist who first reported Plame’s CIA role in 2003, citing anonymous administration sources.
At the time, Bush’s campaign was in trouble, and there was concern that the president might not even win his home state of Texas. The Novak column described a Dallas meeting in which the campaign’s state manager, Robert Mosbacher, was stripped of his authority because the Texas effort was viewed as a bust.
Mosbacher complained, expressing his suspicion that Rove was the leaker. Rove denied the charge, but was fired nevertheless.
Bush gets in trouble, Rove leaks bogus information to Novak. Now, if only the end result — Rove getting fired — is the same, we’d really be making progress.