HOWARD FINEMAN (NEWSWEEK): Right now, my sense, in reporting this, Chris, is that the Bush family, political family,
is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it‘s, it‘s, it‘s, it‘s Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Right.
FINEMAN: And that runs through a whole lot of things, whether it‘s Harriet Miers or Katrina. But it all starts with Iraq.
And some submerged, but now emerging divisions within the administration over why we went into that war, how we went into that war and what was done to sell it.
There are people are out for Karl Rove inside that White House, which makes his situation even more perilous.
My understanding, from talking to somebody quite close to this investigation, is that they think
there are going to be indictments and possibly Karl Rove could be among them, if not for the act of the leaking information about Valerie Plame, then perhaps for perjury, because he‘s now testified four times.
And there are
conflicts between what Matt Cooper told the grand jury and what Rove evidently told the jury himself. And Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, is an absolute stickler for detail who has no political axe to grind here, other than keeping his own credibility. Having put Judy Miller in jail, having gone to the lengths he had, my understand is, he has got some people here,
not only Rove, but perhaps Scooter Libby, the vice president‘s chief of staff.
MATTHEWS: I also get the sense he reads the law book. He doesn‘t care about the politics.
FINEMAN: That‘s what I meant. That‘s what I meant. He doesn‘t care about the politics.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, you just raised a curtain-raiser for me. I didn‘t even know this.
You believe that the fight between those who may be headed toward indictment, the vice president‘s chief of staff, Karl Rove, there is a war between them and the people who are going to survive them, Andy Card, etcetera.
FINEMAN:
Yes.
MATTHEWS: But is Andy Card saying now, here‘s his chance to prove the war was wrong? Is that what this — it‘s a shadow fight over that?
FINEMAN: I think it‘s possible. I think it‘s possible. Look, when you are up, you‘re up big time. Karl Rove was the boy genius.
MATTHEWS: Right.
FINEMAN: Karl Rove could do no wrong. But now Karl Rove seems to have been caught overstepping on this.
MATTHEWS: Right.
FINEMAN: <strong>And now people are questioning everything about it</strong>. And it goes back. If you have to have an organizing principle, it‘s the war in Iraq. That‘s what it is.
-- MSNBC's
Hardball, Oct. 10
***
This item first appeared at
Journalists Against Bush's B.S.
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