Chasing the Wind

What happened to all the Karl Rove stories? Karl Rove go *poof* as the news media gears up to oppose John Roberts for the Supreme Court.

The Karl Rove stories were just like the Tom DeLay stories. There was no meat to them, no substance, just media frenzy looking for something to damage Bush. The DeLay stories about inappropriate travel all disappeared when it was obvious the Democrats had far more egg on their collective face. Likewise, there’s no “there” there to the Karl Rove Stories. Let me summarize –

• There may not have been a crime committed. The same news organizations pushing to fire Karl Rove simultaneously argue no crime was ever committed as they try to spring their reporter from jail. Valerie Plame wasn’t deep undercover, hadn’t been for over 5 years, all her neighbors knew her identity, her husband probably outed her in the first place.
• Rove didn’t disclose her identity anyway. Apparently the media disclosed it to Rove, and Rove agreed with the media.
• What about the President’s promise to fire the leaker? If the media had bothered to do their homework, they’d have discovered that Bush said no such thing.
  

  THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There’s leaks at the executive branch; there’s leaks in the legislative branch. There’s just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.

No substance to the story. *Poof* So they gear up to pounce on John Roberts instead.

And pounce they will. Special interest groups are planning to spend $50 million in advertising so far to oppose his nomination.

My prediction is that there will be a lot of huffing and puffing by the Democrats, but that Roberts will be approved by October. For one thing, the Democrats have realized that the filibuster is a losing proposition and it’s giving the Democrats the image of obstructionism. And second, this same Senate approved Roberts for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2003 with Democratic support.

It’s a very strategic move by Bush – if the Democrats oppose him now, they risk exposing their hypocrisy if 2 years ago John Roberts was perfectly acceptable. And conservatives deserve a conservative to be appointed, just like Clinton deserved to have ultra-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Court. Conservatives ought to get past their worry that anything conservative will send the liberals into a tizzy. As Sean wrote last night in an email this fictional White House conversation:

“Hey, Rummy, how should we spin this Roberts character tonight?”

“Damnit, Dick, I think we should line the cage with NYT metro additions and let the parrot poop land where it may!”

“Uh, Don, I don’t think I follow”.

“Look, Dick, lets tell ’em that we want to trigger a tumultuous tantrum of tremendous tripe from the left”.

“Sure Rummy, but lets loose those lousy alliterations, and I think W will wise-up well.”

“Damn, veep, no more schnapps for you, ok, but its sort of along the lines of Nattering Nabobs of Negativity, you know…sort-of.”

“Hmmm, let’s just tell the Dems to ‘bring it on’ – it worked for OBL’s boys in Iraq.”

“Sure, sure….you know, I love this job, Dick”.

“Me too Don”.