Karl Rove : I Failed Bush

It's enough to make you want to hurl chunks :

Political strategist Karl Rove says President George W. Bush made the right decision to launch the Iraq war in 2003, but the former White House adviser admits the failure to find weapons of mass destruction badly damaged the administration's credibility.

In his new memoir, "Courage and Consequence," Rove blames himself for not pushing back against claims that Bush had taken the country to war under false pretenses, calling it one of the worst mistakes he made during the Bush presidency.

Rove says Bush did not knowingly mislead the American public about the existence of such weapons.

So Bush unknowingly misled the American public?

Sounds like Karl Rove is trying to create one of those new realities he used to be infamous for.

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Crafty Bush Fired Rove In Church To Avoid Scene



When it came time for President Bush to dump loyal attack dog Karl Rove last year, he chose to give his old friend the bad news in the one place he knew Rove would not create a scene. Bush was clearly worried that Rove's infamous temper might show itself :

“On a Sunday in midsummer, George W. Bush accompanied Karl Rove to the Episcopalian Church Rove sometimes attended,” writes Alexander. “They made their way to the front of the congregation. Then, during their time in the church, Bush gave Rove some stunning news. ‘Karl,’ Bush said, ‘there’s too much heat on you. It’s time for you to go.’”

Maybe Bush knew what he was doing in breaking such bad news in such serene atmosphere: As Alexander documents, Rove has quite the temper.

"He's got a temper and a loud voice and he used it," said Bill Miller, a consultant who worked for and against Rove in Texas. "He's known for getting hot. There are buttons people know about. Losing and getting screwed with will [upset] him in a hurry."

Many key Republicans now view the Bush administration as a failure, and incredibly damaging to the Republican brand. They heap plenty of the blame on Karl Rove.

Examiner.com has the full story.

The Harsh Reality Of What They've Done To America, And The World, Begins To Sink In For Ex-Bush Staffers

By Darryl Mason

The White House is under siege. President Bush has bottomed out to some of the lowest poll numbers in the history of the United States; Congress is bitter and hostile; the War On Iraq is a brutal, death-soaked tragedy; the 'War on Terror' looms ahead, unresolved and ill-defined for decades to come; the Bush domestic agenda is a wasteland of missed opportunities and busted dreams and the Bush legacy is set to go down as one of the darkest and most miserable periods of modern American history.

It's little wonder, then, that key Bush staffers are bailing on their embattled boss in a rising tide of departures, some long expected, others out of the blue, sudden and flailing.

Some have fled barely able to function, while others have decided any life outside of the White House is better than life inside the White House.

Literally dozens of key Bush staffers and advisers have quit the Bush administration in the past year. Many, like Karl Rove, have been working for George W. Bush for more than a decade. Some have never known a working life where Bush was not their chief priority.

You read through this story from the Washington Post, you take in the very obvious first signs of looming bouts of crippling depression that some ex-staffers will face, and you wonder : who will be the first ex-Busher to take their own life?

....the cumulative exodus of so many key people at once has transformed the White House as it heads into the dwindling months of the Bush presidency. Rove and Bartlett are gone, and so are their fellow Texans, Harriet E. Miers and Alberto R. Gonzales. Tony Snow, Sara M. Taylor, Rob Portman, J.D. Crouch, Peter D. Feaver, J. Scott Jennings and a host of others have left.

There is so much turnover that on one recent Friday there were four farewell parties or last-day exits. Bush poses for so many Oval Office photos with departing aides it feels like an assembly line.

The long-term ideals that many of them came to the White House to pursue appear jeopardized, even discredited to many. They tell themselves that they have acted on principle, that the decisions they helped make will be vindicated. But they cannot be sure.

"There's this overriding awareness that we're living and acting for the judgment of history," said William Inboden, who resigned last month as senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council.

And as history judges, Iraq is always there. "It constantly looms," he said. "It is the inescapable presence, the inescapable reality. You see it in all these ways. People. Time. Money. Diplomatic and political capital. It sort of becomes the reality you live with and obviously we have to be able to."

...some have grown embittered at what has become of the presidency they helped build. A key Bush reelection strategist has disavowed him, his former U.N. ambassador has become a vocal critic of key policies, his former defense secretary says he does not miss him, his former speechwriter wrote a harsh takedown of another top aide.

One former senior official said nearly everyone who has left the administration is angry in some way or another -- at the president for making bad decisions, at his staff for misguiding him, at events that have spiraled out of control.

Karl Rove doesn't sound much like the cocky, boastful and arrogant figure who once bobbed at Bush's side like the Abbott to the the president's Costello.

"I understand there are people out there who really don't like me. And the question is, am I going to let it bother me? I ignore the ugly things that are said." Still, the notoriety comes with an edge. "I'm more conscious of my surroundings when I'm in public places."

"I told the boss, 'I feel like I'm deserting you in a time of war,' " he said. "...I don't feel sorry for myself."

This was a recurring theme in the course of an hour-long conversation. He is not depressed, he said more than once. "Hey, man, that was my life," he said. "It's not my life now. One of the reasons I don't think I'm depressed is I'm always looking forward."

Rove is not one for dwelling on decisions made or sharing blame for what went wrong. He has harsh words for Democrats who, he said, never accepted Bush as president. But he said he understands the price of the war. "It weighs on you a lot, and if you're not aware of it at the time, you're insane," he said. "People die. People from the same small town in Nevada where I grew up. . . . Is there second-guessing in terms of people hand-wringing? 'Oh my God, if we'd only done it this way'? No. But is there discussion of did this work out the way we expected and if not, why? Yes."

Dan Bartlett speaks in similar terms. As Bush's counselor, Bartlett and Rove often quarreled in the White House. By the end, colleagues said, they barely spoke except in formal meetings. Rove usually favored an in-your-face political strategy, while Bartlett advocated a less aggressive approach. And friends said Bartlett felt that Rove still saw him as the young kid who came to work for him 15 years ago.

Neither wants to talk about that now, and they spoke with each other by telephone recently. Bartlett shares Rove's aversion to revisiting the past. Asked about regrets, Bartlett said, "I can think of a banner on a certain ship," a reference to the infamous "Mission Accomplished" sign behind Bush on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003.

Most of those who have left in recent months are hitting the speaking circuit, considering book contracts or joining consulting firms.

Rove, like many other ex-Bushers, is now trying to distance himself from the president, and the looming shadow of the godawful presidential legacy. He's not 'Bush's Brain' anymore. Karl Rove wants it to be known he is his own man.

"It's not like my life from here forward is going to be defined by it," he said. "I have a chance to create something else. I'm not just going to be typecast as, 'Oh, that's the Bush guy.'"

He'll be lucky if he's remembered even that 'fondly'. Rove's name will be poison for decades to come for tens of millions of Americans, who will see in him all the failures, horror and bloodshed of the George W. Bush presidency, and will wonder how what they're country might have become in war-heavy first decade of the 21st century if they had never come to know the names of Karl Rove and President George W. Bush.

Karl Rove : Bush Legacy Will Be A Bright And Shining Light...Or Something

As one of his last acts of official loyalty to BushCo. Karl Rove has written a gushing, dripping editorial defending the Bush administration policies he helped cook up and implement and spin to a confusing muddle of facts and fiction, and attempts to claim that the Bush legacy will something historians will praise and hold up as an example of how to...

I can't do it. I can't sum up Rove's spectacular twaddle.

You just have to read it to for yourself, if you can stomach it :

I believe history will provide a more clear-eyed verdict on this president’s leadership than the anger of current critics would suggest.

President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century.

He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.

Following the horrors of 9/11, this president changed American foreign policy by declaring terror sponsors responsible for the deeds of those they shelter, train, and fund. America, he said, will not wait until dangers fully materialize with attacks on our homeland before confronting those threats.

The president gave the nation new tools to defeat terrorism abroad and protect our citizens at home with the Patriot Act, foreign surveillance that works in the wireless age, a transformed intelligence community, and the Department of Homeland Security.

And this president saw the wisdom of removing terrorism’s cause by advocating the spread of democracy, especially in the Muslim world, where authoritarianism and repression have provided a potent growth medium for despair and anger aimed at the West. He recognized that democracy there makes us safer here.

President Bush will be seen as a compassionate leader who used America’s power for good.

History will see President Bush as a reformer who focused on modernizing important institutions.

He is concerned with fundamental change that will — among other goals — strengthen the ways our children are educated and health care is provided.

He will be seen as an innovative conservative thinker with a positive, optimistic agenda for action.

He will be recognized as a strong advocate of traditional values.

He advanced a culture of life where every child is protected and welcomed.

He supported traditional marriage when it came under attack from the courts. He sought to strengthen families and encourage personal responsibility.

The outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan will color how history views the president.

History’s concern is with final outcomes, not the missteps or advances of the moment. History will render a favorable verdict if the outcome in the Middle East is similar to what America saw after World War II.

Beyond his policies and actions, history will take the measure of the man.

I have known George W. Bush for nearly 34 years and have had the privilege of watching from nearby as history has placed its demands on him and our country. I know his humility and decency, his intelligence and thoughtfulness, his respect for every person he comes in contact with, his unwavering commitment to principle-based decision-making, and the quiet and compassionate hearts of the man and his graceful wife, Laura.

I have come to understand true leadership leans into the wind. It tackles big challenges with uncertain outcomes rather than taking on simple, sure tasks. It does what is right, regardless of what the latest poll or focus group says.

History demands much of America and its leaders and I am confident it will judge the 43rd president as a man more than worthy of the great office the American people twice entrusted to him.

There's a fat ton of 'maybes' riding on Rove's final declaration of how history will view President Bush, in decades or a century to come. So very many 'maybes'.


Go Here For The Full Rove Editorial From The National Review

Rove's Departure Signals 'The End Of The Bush Presidency'

Raw Story takes a look at a CNN interview with Wayne Slater, author of The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power, and declares Slater's comments were not only a political obituary for Rove, but for the Bush administration as well.

Slater doesn't hold back :

"He can be called ... someone who was extraordinarily successful in the politics of -- politics," said Slater. "He is brilliant as a political strategist, and yet at the end, we've seen this colossal failure by the Bush administration, this collapse, and he has to bear some responsibility for that as well."

"In the aftermath of 9/11," continued Slater, "Karl saw that the approach that would be most successful would be a very sharp and ruthless division of the electorate ... that effectively left the architecture of the architect's dream of an enduring majority really in doubt and, as we've seen, pretty much collapsing around him."

"This is the end of the Bush presidency," Slater concluded. "Absolutely."

Raw Story has the video of the Slater interview.


The consensus is growing that Rove's departure really is the end of the Bush presidency, and that Bush himself is now counting down the days until he can flee the White House and kick back at his Crawford ranch, hanging out with his old buddy Rove in far less pressured circumstances as they plan how to spend more than a half billion dollars on the Bush Presidential Library.

Keith Olbermann, of Countdown, interviewed Howard Fineman of Newsweek, who claims Rove was hated by many Republicans, hence the near drought of glowing tributes from the conservative side of American politics :

The silence has been deafening from Republicans. From Republican presidential contenders, from members of Congress who by the way, are out of town, another good reason for Rove to leave now. I haven’t heard a word from any Republican leader about Karl Rove because they don’t like Karl Rove. And the reason they don’ t like Karl Rove is that his soul focus has been on George Bush. This notion that Karl Rove’s aim was to build a new Republican majority, ala McKinley, is ridiculous. His only mission was to get George Bush elected. He did it twice, and didn’t really care a whole lot about the Congress, Republicans included.”

Crooks And Liars has the video of that remarkable interview.

Bush Loses His 'Brain'

Karl Rove Departs The White House, Broken And Battered


A shattered Karl Rove confirmed his departure from the White House. A decision to quit that, he said, came as a surprise, even to him

Today's resignation by White House aide/counsel/adviser Karl Rove brings to an end political working relationship between "Turd Blossom" and George W. Bush that has lasted for than 17 years, and seen Bush elected twice as governor of Texas and twice as President of the United States.

Bush and Rove appeared together in a press call on the White House Lawn, before Rove joined Bush on Air Force One for a flight back to Texas :

In an unusually emotional appearance with President Bush on the South Lawn of the White House, Mr. Rove cited a desire to “start thinking about the next chapter in our family’s life.” His decision was also forced when the White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, recently told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day he would expect them to stay through the remaining 17 months of Mr. Bush’s term.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush, who said they had known “each other as youngsters” interested in politics, first discussed his departure last summer, Mr. Rove said, his voice breaking at times. Instead he stayed on, through the midterm elections last fall, which put Democrats in control of Congress and tempered Mr. Rove’s reputation as a political genius who had ushered in an enduring Republican majority.

“It always seemed there was a better time to leave out there in the future,” Mr. Rove said, “but now is the time.”

His standing had already diminished considerably. Since the midterm elections, Mr. Bush’s political problems have mounted in Iraq, his pursuit of a new immigration policy failed in Congress and the White House has had to defend its actions in the dismissals of United States attorneys, among other issues. Mr. Rove, 56, survived an investigation into the leak of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative only to face a flurry of subpoenas from Democratic-controlled committees on Capitol Hill that he has so far rebuffed, citing executive privilege.

To his critics, and there are many, Mr. Rove embodied the Bush administration’s mode of politics: aggressive, combative, secretive. Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, said that the Congressional investigations swirling around Mr. Rove and others in the White House would continue, regardless of his resignation.

“Mr. Rove’s apparent attempts to manipulate elections and push out prosecutors citing bogus claims of voter fraud shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes,” Senator Leahy said in a statement.

“There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm,” Mr. Leahy said.

More on the Bush-Rove press call :

“Karl Rove is moving on down the road,” President Bush told reporters, amplifying his Texan accent. “I’ll be on the road behind you in a little bit.”

“I am grateful to have been a witness to history,” Mr. Rove said in the beginning of his own remarks. “It has been the joy and honor of a lifetime.”

Both spent a chunk of their comments describing their 34-year friendship. “I would call Karl Rove a dear friend,” Mr. Bush said, remembering their political work as “youngsters.”

Mr. Rove’s voice trembled with emotion as he remembered his time in the White House, including a tribute to his boss. “I’ve seen a man of far-sighted courage that put America on a war footing to protect us against a brutal enemy in a dangerous conflict that will shape this new century.”

“”I will miss — deeply miss — my work here,” Mr. Rove said in a solemn conclusion.

As one of the most famous and influential political strategists, now, in American history, Karl Rove was praised as a genius by supporters and admirers, and damned as all but Satanic by his critics. But through it all Rove seemed to enjoy his "Evil Genius" nickname. He knew he was no genius, but he used his influence to build up his public prominence, in part to buffer the president from the harshest of criticism, for a good many years. Why blame Bush, his strategy went, when you can blame Rove?

With his reams of poll data and 'hit lists' for what appeared to be just about every suburban street and city block in the country, Rove was a number cruncher supremo, who fouled the American politicum with cheap, vicious and nasty gutter politics. Of course, that savage ability to split issues of supreme historical and national importance, like the Iraq War, like the 9/11 attacks, into rhetorical snipes of "Us Vs Them" is exactly why he was so successful, to a point, and why the media were so fascinated by him.

Rove turned American politics, and American elections, into the World Wrestling Federation, with just as many lights and smoke and lasers and roaring cheap shots and absurdly simple characterisations. Rove also made sure there were plenty of folding chairs across the back of his opponents.

His most infamous soul-sucking attack on the Democrats during a speech when he claimed they wanted to offer "therapy" to the terrorists who attacked the United States on 9/11, instead of pursuing them or engaging them in war :

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers..."

But Rove's sometimes amateurish, college-boy dirt campaigns all came at a cost to President Bush, his legacy, to American politics, to the American people, and to Karl Rove himself.

His involvement in the multi-sourced leaking of the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame, in an effort to discredit the polarising criticism of the case for the Iraq War by her husband, Joseph Wilson, shortly after President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished", has cost Rove dearly.

For nearly all Democrats, and many Republicans, it was one dirty trick too many, and now Rove is out of the White House, he will likely face further prosecution by Democrats, all of which he will have to pay for out of the many millions he is already believed to have signed on for to write his memoirs of his time in the White House, and his 20 odd years as a friend and confidante of George W. Bush.

No doubt Rove's book will be a fascinating one, and it will provide him with a very public platform to try and level the score with his harshest critics, but Rove may well be remembered in decades to come as a man who helped divide the country, when it should have been at its most unified. He will be treated harshly by historians, because in the end, Rove was a failure. His method of divide and conquer, and pure partisanship, helped the Republicans to lose the 2006 mid-term elections, and set the scene for the coming annihilation at the 2008 presidential elections, and laid to waste the more idealistic of Bush's key White House term policies, including the all-but-forgotten restructuring of Social Security, the plan to turn 12 million illegal immigrants into sympathetic Republican voters and the disastrous first year of rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Rove also dramatically failed to bring back American support for the Iraq War. For the past two years, it seemed, everything Rove touched turned to toxic stew.

There is huge debate across the US media and blogstream right now on whether Rove decided it was time to go, or whether it was decided for him that his time was up.

The Next Hurrah lays out some of the reasons why Rove may have decided to pack it in now, with the claims by Rove that he simply wanted to "spend more time with my family" crushed underfoot :

"...if he had wanted to spend time with his family, he surely would have done it before his son went to college."

As has been pointed out almost everywhere this morning, in Washington saying that you are leaving a job "to spend more time with my family" is red-banner code for having been fired, or jumping before being pushed. Rumours are running rampant that Rove is bailing before a big story about him breaks, which may be the release or leaking of full transcripts of his five appearances before the Fitzgerald grand jury, or the outing of him as a bisexual.

Rove himself claims the discussion of his leaving the White House began in mid-2006. Rove says he decided to wait until "after the (Iraq troop) surge" and while the US Senate was in recess to make his announcement, and enact a quick goodbye.

One of the few glowing tributes to Rove comes, to no great surprise, from a former staffer :

Some day books will be written about what a phenomenon of nature this man is. But some day books should be written about what a really fine man he is. He was the most relentlessly upbeat person in the White House, giving counsel and encouragement to all, and showing great kindness to many of us and our families. And of course what we all learned as well as what a tremendously strong person this policy wonk and former nerd from Utah is. He withstood pressure, unfair pressure, that would have broken lesser men, and he did it with good cheer, extraordinary equanimity, and without ever becoming cynical.

Andrew Sullivan's mini-demolition of Rove is more in tune with the majority of media comment today :

The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. For this, he got two terms of power - which the GOP used mainly to enrich themselves, their clients and to expand government's reach and and drain on the productive sector. In the re-election, the president with a relatively strong economy, and a war in progress, managed to eke out 51 percent. Why? Because Rove preferred to divide the country and get his 51 percent, than unite it and get America's 60. In a time of grave danger and war, Rove picked party over country. Such a choice was and remains despicable.

Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president's eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.

Rove's final act of spin control was pure luck, in choosing a day when there was virtually no other major news breaking in the United States. His departure is the lead story on CNN, on Fox News (naturally) and dominates the front pages of nearly every major American newspaper. As of this post, the blogstream has seen more than 90,000 individual blogs mostly blast Rove and celebrate his departure, and the comments section of online newspapers are thickening with hundreds of comments, mostly savage, mostly relieved. The tributes, heavy on the praise, are few and far between.

Dan Froomkin, of White House Watch, on the dirt-crusted, failure clouded Rove legacy :

Karl Rove's legacy will not be what he wanted it to be.

The political guru who made President Bush what he is today had hoped to leave behind a permanent Republican ruling majority. Instead, his tenure will stand as an example of how divisiveness and partisanship are not conducive to successful governance.

After years of being lauded as a political genius, Rove nevertheless leaves his party in worse shape than he found it, with his boss profoundly discredited in the eyes of the American people.

When historians look back at Bush's squandered opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after 9/11, part of the blame will go to Vice President Cheney and the decision to invade Iraq. But part will accrue to Rove for choosing to use national security as a wedge issue.

A Q & A transcript from the White House press corps peppering Rove with questions on his departure, on Air Force One, heading back to Texas, can be read here.

A few highlights :

Look, I love my job. I have fun. It is a joy to walk in the door. I have the most incredible colleagues in the world. And I know it sounds corny, but it's inspiring to walk into the Oval Office, the tone (Bush) sets, you know, the good nature he has, the focus, the vision -- it's inspiring. And I deliberately used that word today because he just -- he makes it a wonderful place to work. And my colleagues make it a magical place to work. And you have such a sense of satisfaction of serving the country and doing important work in combination with some really extraordinary people. And would I like to enjoy that right up until January 20? You bet I would; 526 more days of that would be great. But I wouldn't be doing the right thing by my family, and it really is time for me to do this.

**************

I'm Moby Dick and we've got three or four members of Congress who are trying to cast themselves in the part of Captain Ahab -- so they're going to keep coming.

But anybody who suggests the investigations had something to do with getting me out is sort of putting Congress in the position of being the rooster that believes that by crowing loudly brings the sun to come up.

Rove explains what he claims was key strategy to winning the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, and why Republican presidential candidates should follow his advice to win in 2008 :

"...my advice is for the Republicans, which I think, frankly, has become ingrained in the DNA of the Republican Party, which is that in order to win, the Republican Party needs to mobilize a vast army of volunteers to expand the electorate by emphasizing an agenda that is prospective in nature, that looks to the future and says, this is what we intend to do for America, and is bold and clear, but is focused on saying to people, we know you're not enthusiastic about politics, but if you love your country, if you care about the future, here's a message that hopefully will attract you to coming out and registering and voting. That's why President Bush in 2004 got 25 percent more votes than he got in 2000 and became the first presidential candidate since 1988 to get a majority of the popular vote. He won 81 percent of the counties in America; he increased his share of the vote in 87 percent of the counties in America. He got a record or historic number numbers among Latinos, Jews, Catholics, women -- erased the gender gap. And it was because -- not because he played to the base but because he played with a broad and bold message that was able to attract -- think about it, one-quarter more people voted for him in 2004 than voted for him in 2000, and he did that in the midst of an unpopular war..."

Rove also dealt with the now ingrained belief that the President is a dingbat, and he acted as 'Bush's Brain' :

Well, that is -- that's not me. That's an attack on the President. That is the critics of the President trying to be cute. This guy is a Yale undergraduate and history major, a Harvard MBA, and one of the best-read, most thoughtful people I know. Now, I know he likes to play sort of the Midland/West Texas -- but he is smart. And the "Bush's brain" was, interestingly enough, a construct of two journalists as a way to diminish him by suggesting that he wasn't capable of developing his philosophy or his approach or his ability to win elections; somebody had to do it for him, which is incredibly demeaning and really stupid. And I don't mind saying that the two guys that coined it are stupid in their characterization.

Rove announced his departure in an interview with the op-ed editor of the Wall Street Journal yesterday morning. The full story is here. A key quote :

"I'm a myth. There's the Mark of Rove," he says, with a bemused air. "I read about some of the things I'm supposed to have done, and I have to try not to laugh."

Some opinions and comment on the departure of Rove :

"We worked together so we could be in a position to serve this country. And so I thank my friend. I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit."

President Bush.

"Karl Rove's resignation signals the final chapter in the Bush administration's betrayal of the identity of a covert CIA officer. ... Rove, identified by the prosecutors as one of the leakers, not only was not summarily dismissed, but has been allowed to leave on his own terms, to praise from the president."

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife, Valerie Plame, was the CIA officer whose name was disclosed.

"He is brilliant, he is funny and he is a passionate advocate for the president and his policies, and I know that he will continue to play that role outside of the administration. ... He was always upbeat. I don't recall ever seeing him down."

Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes.

"It's a tragedy that an administration that promised to unite Americans has instead left us more divided than ever before. Without doubt the architect of that political strategy was Karl Rove, who proved the politics of division may win some elections but cannot govern America."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

"Goodbye, good riddance."

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

"Now is the time for the country to put the politics of division behind it."

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

Reading through this 2003 profile of Rove in the New Yorker, it is remarkable to see just how little he actually achieved of his long-term goals and visions for the Bush White House, the Bush legacy and the Republican Party in general.

The gulf between Rove's dreams, and his ability to turn them into reality, was vast indeed, and instead of helping to lead America into a brighter, more cohesive future, Rove went instead for the cheap and nasty shots. And then, like a true coward, he quit before the roof fell in, before the true price for his actions, the karma debt, became fully due.


The Dirty Rotten Tactics Of Karl Rove

Extensive, Enlightening New Yorker Profile On Karl Rove From 2003

Time Magazine, December 2005 : A White House Without Rove?

Karl Rove's Flawed Vision

The Rove Goes On Forever

The Dismal Legacy Of Karl Rove

Bush Co. In Crisis : Gonzales Faces Perjury Probes, Karl Rove Subpoenaed, Approval Ratings Hit Rock Bottom

If President Bush thought his last 18 months in the White House might be a little quiet, or that he would head into retirement with what remains of his administration's credibility intact, a flurry of judicial action on Capitol Hill shows that the last days of President Bush are going to be rocked by controversy, writs, hearings and Congressional probes, and even possible charges of contempt against some of his key officials.

And a full scale impeachment of President Bush is now gathering steam, with more Republicans joining with Democrat senators in pushing the issue, though it still seems unlikely, particularly during an election year.

From the Associated Press :

Senate Democrats called for a perjury investigation against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove in a deepening political and legal clash with the Bush administration.

"It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements," four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.

They dispatched the letter shortly before Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced the subpoena of Rove, the president's top political strategist, in remarks on the Senate floor. The White House has claimed executive privilege to block Congress from receiving documents or testimony by current and former presidential aides.

"We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States attorneys last year," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Gonzales is at the center of the U.S. attorney controversy, but the call for a perjury probe involved alleged conflicts between testimony he gave the Judiciary Committee in two appearances, one last year and the other this week. The issue revolves around whether there was internal administration dissent over the president's warrantless wiretapping program.

As for the firing of the prosecutors, e-mails released by the Justice Department show Gonzales' aides conferred with Rove on the matter.

Leahy also said he was issuing a subpoena for J. Scott Jennings, a White House political aide. The deadline for him and Rove to comply was set as Aug. 2.

"For over four months, I have exhausted every avenue seeking the voluntary cooperation of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings, but to no avail," the Vermont lawmaker said. "They and the White House have stonewalled every request. Indeed, the White House is choosing to withhold documents and is instructing witnesses who are former officials to refuse to answer questions and provide relevant information and documents."

The call for a perjury investigation marked yet another complication for Gonzales, whose fitness to serve has been bluntly criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters aboard Air Force One during the day that he "might" raise the issue with the president, who has steadfastly stood by his longtime friend.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters, "I'm convinced that he's not telling the truth," based on conversations with Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

At issue is what was discussed at a March 10, 2004, congressional briefing. A letter from then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte said the briefing concerned the administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration.

But Gonzales, at Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving prior court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe. He said the meeting prompted him to go to the bedside of ailing then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to recertify the surveillance program, but he denied pressuring Ashcroft to do so. Ashcroft, recovering from gall bladder surgery, refused.

We took a detailed look at the dramatic story of that bedside visit by Gonzales here.