So who is Rove falling on his sword to protect?

[jobycom]

Bush? Cheney?

Rove has everyone so excited he's in trouble, no one's worrying about what the leak means. No one's asking whether this was a failure of Bush's leadership, or whether Bush is complicit. No one's pointing out what the leak was meant to cover up--Bush's fixing of the evidence to invade Iraq.

Rove's doing it again. He's creating a diversion to save Bush's but, just when it looked like he was in trouble. So after alot of haranging, Bush will fire Rove, look all leaderly and righteous and all, Rove will do the same thing he does now from a different title,and the DSM and Plame and Wilson will be forgotten.

He's good, I'll give him that.

[dbonds]

1. Rove is Bush's brain.

Although I don't think he did it in a vacuum.

[JDPriestly]

2. But there is a confluence of events.

The DSMs and the Rove revelation are coming around the same time, and the shocking discovery that the attempt to confuse the press and disinform the public that is talked about in the DSMs is illustrated by the Plame affair. Rove may claim that he was only trying to place doubt on the Wilson revelations that the Niger yellow cake story was false. But, if he does, he plays up the DSM story and proves that the DSM statements were not merely opinions but were descriptions of the events occurring in the White House. This is getting very interesting.

[jobycom]

3. I don't think it will go anywhere

I think Rove is the magic bullet to make it all go away. Rove admits "inadvertently" leaking, Rove's opponents get all worked up, BushCo allows the controversy to season a little bit, then he steps up and regretfully fires Rove. Everyone says "Shwew, glad that's over!" The Republicans conflate DSM, Plame, and the rest, and considers Rove's firing the end of the matter, and Bush goes on, with Rove advising him over the phone instead of in person.

[shraby]

4. Only one kink in your reasoning.....

Fitzgerald.

[silvershadow]

5. anyone know anything about Fitzgerald?

Just curious about his background. I have caught little hints sprinkled through the threads that he might be tough as nails.

[Walt Starr]

7. He brought down the Illinois GOP single handedly

and he's a republican, too!

Seriously, he went after the George Ryan licenses for bribes scandal with a vengeance and that one scandal destroyed the Illinois GOP, putting it into the state it currently exists in.

[jobycom]

13. Who was the Iran/Contra investigator?

He had Reagan and Bush on a whole string of crimes, but they stalled long enough for Bush Daddy to pardon the witnesses who would have testified against him, and nothing came of the investigation. And since people seem to have forgotten--Reagan sold weapons to a nation that had declared war on us, covered for that nation's terrorist attacks on us even while bombing another nation for the same attacks, and used the funds from the weapons sales to illegaly support terrorists who were killing Americans and smuggling drugs into out country.

Reagan was a moment away from being branded a traitor the likes of Benedict Arnold, in other words, but Bush's pardons allowed him to be rehabed into St. Ronnie.

Unless Fitzgerald can get grand jury indictments, he still has to go through Congress to punish anyone, and I don't see much coming of it. I hope I'm totally wrong and way too cynical, needless to say. But these guys seem to get away with everything they've tried.

[bemildred]

6. Your premise is wrong.

He is not falling on his sword. He is being taken down.
He will continue to try to manipulate the situation, but there
is no way that he set this up, and it's clear enough that the denial
and avoidance of the issue of his treason is coming to an end.
How it comes out, we'll have to wait and see. The one sure thing
is we will be lied to some more.

[jobycom]

15. I'm not saying he orchestrated the whole thing

He's just orchestrating how it's being leaked to the press, and he has a plan to minimize the danger and use the whole thing to his advantage.

I'm sure he was hoping nothing would come of this story. But I don't believe Rove is sitting back waiting to see how this develops. He's not the type to not have a plan.

[bemildred]

21. No doubt true. I'm disputing that he is in control of the situation now.

It's true you didn't say that, so I may be overreacting to the
"Rove rules the universe" threads that pop up over and over.
Rove is vastly overrated, IMHO.

[Pepperbelly]

8. he won't fall on anything.

They'll stonewall it and lawyer it and the prosecutor will be left with little more than his dick in his hand. But all is not lost.

If nothing else, we just might get a reasonably aggressive press back. The briefing today with wonderful. And if we get some more eyes opened in the electorate, even better.

I hope Rove hangs in there stinking up the joint until 0-damned-8.

[napi21]

10. Don't underestimate the power of a US Attorney!

Fitz is no dummy! I agree, he's got the battle of his legal career, but I've worked with these guys )not him) and believe me, if he looses, he'll definately leave his indelible mark that nobody will forget!

[Pepperbelly]

11. it still boils down to this ...

the facts he can prove against the statutory requirements of the violation. Unless he's cooking up perjury or conspiracy charges (which of course, we have no way of knowing), he could well be left with little else in his hand than noted in my earlier post.

[napi21]

12. My bet is pergury. I realize the law for treason is written to make it

almost impossible to prove. Perjury and obstruction are not! I agree we have to wait and see, but Fitz is like a mad dog with a raw meat bone! Don't underestimate his power or his tenacity.

[Pepperbelly]

14. maybe, maybe not ...

I think it would serve us to take inventory while the ball is in Fitz's court and in doing so, I think this is a good thing for our sides.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

16. This crime has already been specifically labeled "treason"

*bush SENIOR said it. Publicly and loudly.

(I don't have his quote on hand, but others will-- I've seen it here in other posts for days now.)

[Pepperbelly]

17. the old fart's proclamations aside ...

the constitution is quite specific about it. It even specifies how many witnesses there must be.

[jobycom]

18. That's the way I see it, too, but publicly Rove is in trouble

I agree with your points on this thread. I'd be (pleasantly) stunned if anything criminal got proven here. But publicly, I think Rove can become a distraction for BushCo, and firing him would solve a lot of problems. Bush would look like a leader, would look independent from Rove, and would blur the lines between Plame and DSM, covering both scandals.

The only question would be whether Rove's ego would allow him to take the blame. I'm not sure he'd want to go down in history as a traitor.But I doubt he'd want to go down as the man who slew his own president, either.

I hope I'm wrong, and this is the case which winds up exposing Bush's treason. I'm just not optimistic. I lost that during the Reagan era.

[Pepperbelly]

19. Shit, Nixon got my cherry on optimism.

:D

[jobycom]

20. You're just a little bit

"wiser" than me, then. :-)

I haven't run into you in a while. Nice to see you, PB.

[Pepperbelly]

22. Nice to see you, too.

:hi:

[fishnfla]

9. How many times did Scotty say "ongoing criminal investigation"

Is that the image the WH spokesman should project?

I smell a rat, they must have the goods on someone else