Doctoring a Leak: A Briefing For America

There's no question in my mind that Rove is a genius. He knows how to get what he wants. He's also incredibly psychotic in my mind. At what point will reality sink in? At what point will he realize that he's under criminal investigation?





After all, in news reports anyone can read about the so-called pranks he's pulling and how he appears to have no idea of what the weight of this situation is. From the NYTimes:

Mr. Rove appeared considerably merrier than Mr. Bush on the North Carolina trip, where he made a show of his trademark pranks. During a tour of a cotton yarn plant, Mr. Rove tapped a reporter on the shoulder and then handed him a bottle of Tylenol, apparently pulled out of an open pocket in the reporter's backpack. Then Mr. Rove said that the reporter looked like he could use the painkiller.

With all the political pressure, why doesn't Bush tell him to straighten up or he's fired? It's terrible for public relations when your adviser is acting like a child while the White House is under fire. It basically makes you, Mr. Bush, look like an idiot. I know Rove is smart enough to know, but he ought to have the sense to act like it while this messy situation is going on. Well, truth is, you can't fire him. He got you where you are today and you know you would suffer a terrible loss and also be eliminating a loyal friend if you fired him. So what are you going to do to get out of this mess?





RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman has already started to pull the White House out of this situation. He is going through with what people are calling a "pro-Rove strategy" that will make things all better for Bush and Co. First off, the RNC Chairman has put together these "talking points" so that conservatives across America (Conservative Eyes, etc.) can start telling Americans how it is or so that they can begin brainwashing America with conventional wisdom in the same way they did when making the case for war in Iraq. The "talking points" are set up to discredit Joseph Wilson, the man whose report from Niger threatened Bush's case for war leading presumably to the leak. This strategy of attacking and not defending is popular and effective, a strategy that Rove has made work for him before.

The RNC strategy does not stop with attacks on Wilson. The RNC plans to call on conservatives to undermine the Democrats' call for Rove to be ousted, make it seem like he has done nothing wrong, and play down Rove's role. (BlogsforBush.com, Power Line, ConservativesAlwaysRight, Wide Awakes, The Conservative Voice) . Jim Vanderhai of the Washington post says:

Mehlman, who said he talked with Rove several times in recent days, instructed GOP legislators, lobbyists and state officials to accuse Democrats of dirty politics and argue Rove was guilty of nothing more than discouraging a reporter from writing an inaccurate story, according to RNC talking points circulated yesterday

Republicans and conservatives then expect to dilute the matter or drown out the Rove controversy by creating a new controversy, one that won't get any member of the Bush administration indicted (hopefully). They plan on talking about the vacancy on the Supreme Court (Wide Awakes, Today's Democracy). They plan on hypothesizing and speculating the shit out of what could and could not happen and who or who won't get picked. They'll talk about anything connected to this just as long as they don't have to talk about Rove.





McClellan: That's really all I've got to begin with. I would like to talk about the likelihood of Rove being fired, if ari was the other leaker, and how I feel about being this administration's whipping boy, but "I'm not going to get into discussing matters relating to an ongoing investigation". Any questions?

"Q Did the President get his news yesterday about Justice Rehnquist's health from media reports?"



"...That's a nice try to get us to discuss an ongoing investigation..."

Clearly, they're not budging. That's their [Bush administration, Republicans, other conservatives] strategy, and they're sticking to it.