The Rovian Era - 6 Years Too Late

Six years too late, the NY Times finally realized that Karl Rove turned the entire U.S. government into an arm of the Republican Party.

Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it’s helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers’ money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.

Um, there's one rather large scandal missing from this list: The Iraq War, which was manufactured with lies to elect a Republican Senate and steal a second term for Bush. Who chaired the White House Iraq Group? Yes, Karl Rove.

In June 2002 - 4 months before Congress was suddenly asked to vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq - Rove produced a Powerpoint urging Republican candidates to "focus on the war" in the fall campaign.

When the hell is the NY Times going to report on Karl Rove's White House Iraq Group, the use of the Iraq War campaign to elect Republicans in 2002, and the campaign of Times-promoted lies that preceeded the worst military disaster in American history?

Whatever the immediate objective, Mr. Rove seems focused on one overarching goal: creating a permanent Republican majority, even if that means politicizing every aspect of the White House and subverting the governmental functions of the executive branch.

And there are many other "government functions" that were criminally subverted - NSA wiretapping of millions of innocent civilians, FBI surveillance of completely peaceful anti-war groups, etc. If you don't think Karl Rove was using every tool in the government's arsenal to spy on Bush critics, I have a very nice bridge to sell you...

Mr. Rove never had to submit to Senate confirmation hearings. Yet, from the very start, photographs of cabinet meetings showed him in the background, keeping an enforcer’s eye on the proceedings.

Is the NY Times serious? They rely on photographs of cabinet meetings to figure out who's got the juice inside the White House? Doesn't the NY Times Washington Bureau employ.... reporters???

Reporters like Judith Miller, who get to have private lunches with the likes of Scooter Libby to get highly classified information and could ask anything she wants about unclassified information like White House politics?

Reporters like Adam Nagourney, who can't stop sniffing Bill Clinton's underwear but never seems to get anywhere near Bush's?

The investigation of the firings of the United States attorneys seems to be closing in on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who should have been fired weeks ago. But Congress should bring equal scrutiny to the more powerful Mr. Rove. If it does, especially by forcing him to testify in public, it will find that he has been at the vortex of many of the biggest issues they are now investigating.

Sure Congress should investigate Rove - but they will have to fight their way through a legal counter-attack resembling Gallipoli.

But the NY Times doesn't have to issue subpoenas - they can just ask their Washington reporters to tell their readers what they've learned about Rove over the past 6 years.

Of course, the Times won't rat on Rove because they've been suckling at his teat for the past 6 years. So they want the Democrats to do their dirty work.

What pathetic cowards.