{"id":5692,"date":"2005-10-31T10:58:06","date_gmt":"2005-10-31T15:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5692"},"modified":"2005-10-31T10:58:06","modified_gmt":"2005-10-31T15:58:06","slug":"roves-not-quite-dodged-bullet-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/roves-not-quite-dodged-bullet-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Rove’s not-quite-dodged bullet — Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of the Dems post-Plame-indictment strategy seems to be emphasizing the need for Karl Rove to be forced out of his job<\/a>. For a variety of reasons, I think this is a very wise approach.<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid got the ball rolling yesterday on CNN, repeating his call for Rove’s ouster four times.<\/p>\n

“The president said anyone involved would be gone,” Reid said. “And we now know that Official A is Karl Rove. He’s still around. He should be let go.” Reid added that if Bush “is a man of his word, Rove should be history.”<\/p>\n

In the indictment, “Official A” is a senior White House official who discussed with syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak the identity of administration critic and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV’s wife as a CIA covert agent; that person has been identified as Rove by senior administration officials.<\/p>\n

On June 10, 2004, Bush, responded affirmatively when asked in a news conference if he would “fire anyone found” to have leaked Plame’s name (although Bush has qualified that pledge on other occasions). On Sept. 29, 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of the leak: “If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I’m writing up the Dems’ talking points, I’m putting this near the top. It serves several important functions.<\/p>\n

First, it pressures Bush on keeping his commitments. The White House said anyone involved with the leak would be fired and Rove was involved with the leak. It’s a no-brainer — Dems want Bush to keep his word. If Bush is a say-what-you-mean, mean-what-you-say kind of guy, as he claims, here’s a chance to prove it.<\/p>\n

Second, the demands remind everyone that, regardless of whether specific legal thresholds were met for prosecution, the Karl Rove helped leak classified information to spite a political critic. Let the White House stick to its legalisms; it doesn’t change the bottom line.<\/p>\n

And third, the White House has no reasonable response. Dems say Bush should keep his word; the Bush gang says … let’s talk about something else. In this sense, the fight almost means as much as the result: Dems should keep up the demands because it keeps the president on the defensive without a persuasive reply.<\/p>\n

In my heart of hearts, short of indictment, I don’t think Rove is going anywhere. But the fight over his future is worth having and, as far as the Dems are concerned, has no downside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of the Dems post-Plame-indictment strategy seems to be emphasizing the need for Karl Rove to be forced out of his job. For a variety of reasons, I think this is a very wise approach. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid got the ball rolling yesterday on CNN, repeating his call for Rove’s ouster four times. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}