MSNBC/Shuster -- Rove still in danger of indictment

[Bumblebee]

MSNBC
Updated: 8:23 p.m. ET Nov. 28, 2005


David Shuster
MSNBC Correspondent

It was just a few weeks ago when the convention wisdom in Washington was that Karl Rove, while still under investigation, was not going to be charged and was free to resume his role running the Bush White House.

But today, new clues suggest the investigation is still focused on Rove. Legal experts say the development means prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is still considering obstruction of justice or perjury charges against Bush's top advisor.

Time Magazine reporter Vivica Novak — no relation to Bob Novak — has agreed to testify about a series of discussions with Rove's lawyer Bob Luskin that began in May 2004.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10242049/

[npincus]

1. no lump of coal for my Fitzmas stocking!

just a lovely indictment (knock wood)...

[savemefromdumbya]

2. FitzG plans to present info to the grand jury THIS week?

[Bumblebee]

4. That's what RAWSTORY said

[tanyev]

3. When did Reich Wing spin become "conventional wisdom"?

[emulatorloo]

5. repetition makes any BS true, apparently

and if the right wing is good at anything, it is repetition.

[calimary]

6. It was "conventional wisdom" because the republi-CON spin-machine

was making it out to be that. From rove's lawyers to libby's lawyers to ken mehlman to that cute little gidget now playing as White House spokesperson. That's what they all said - helping along people like chris matthews and scarborough and blitzer and zahn and all the rest of 'em (who didn't REALLY need all that much nudging to begin with) - to suggest things that would plant in the mind - that rove was out of danger.

That was all over the place because that's what they WANTED everyone to think. The truth doesn't necessarily obey the rove/bartlett/mehlman/Pox "news" spin machine, though. There was NOTHING - repeat - NOTHING, that I can remember, that indicated rove was ever off the hook. His cabal just wanted to make it sound as though he was - because there wasn't an actual, absolute, black-and-white and OFFICIALLY ON PAPER with formalized letterhead and maybe also a notary public's blessing indictment against rove. And just because there wasn't one of those, the powers that be ran with that and manipulated the talking points accordingly. No indictment now automatically equated to no indictment ever. And THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS, especially if Fitzgerald hasn't wrapped things up and formally announced that he found nothing more. HE'S STILL AT IT. Which means rove is NOT in the clear.

And I know there are many reporters and editors and producers and others in the Washington/New York media corridor who'd hate to see rove indicted because of several rationales (although it'd make for scintillating copy and on-air punditry):

1) It means they'd have to get out there and actually work the story the way Woodward and Bernstein did, and the way Seymour Hersh and Joe Conason and Greg Palast still do - and evidently, the folks at Raw Story, too. You get in there and dig. And keep digging. And if one door closes to you, you go around and find a window that's open. And sometimes it means you DON'T get much face time on the air because you're not finished digging yet.

2) rove out would mean you have to start cultivating different sources. And to start that is hard, because you have to go there, gain their trust, and maybe ply them with flattery and a few martinis. It'll take time and effort and gas money and shoe leather and maybe not as much face time on camera.

3) Some of these folks (HELL, A LOT of these folks) are already too deeply in bed with rove and friends. They have a vested interest in doing their small part to maintain the status quo - so they get the same access to the same people they already have on speed-dial so they don't have to reprogram their phones. Shaking things up would mean shaking up their routine.

4) It may be that it's so deeply ingrained in some of these people (read: LAZY) that the rovian contingent is all there is and all that matters - that they may not know whom to cultivate anymore. They're clearly not sure about cozying up to any Democrats. That muscle atrophied LONG ago. And new people bring new allies and associates and slightly modified agendas with them. The new people on the republi-CON side may or may not be willing to make themselves too available because THEY THEMSELVES are jockeying for position and trying to feel their way around. If it were me, I'd go to the opposing camp, straight to the Murthas and Reids and Boxers and Feingolds and Deans, and give them a bigger mouthpiece and more access, because their stars are on the ascendent, and very often, they provide some very good, very quotable quotes.

5) It may also be that some of them are LOATHE to admit that these people (with whom they've developed some pretty good friendships OFF the air) ARE in the wrong, ARE the bad guys, ARE facing loss of power, prestige and influence. Nobody wants to see that kind of shakeup especially when you're invested emotionally and personally in those people and have logged a LOT of hours with 'em, and been to a LOT of cocktail parties and restaurants and maybe you send your kids to their kids' school or you attend the same church some of them do. If you've become friends with them off-the-record, you don't want to see a friend run aground. Nobody does. Human nature. And if you're friends with 'em, you will be far less likely to see their scheming minds, their feet of clay, or their hearts of stone. If you even DO see such things, and you think you're their friend and you think maybe you need to hedge your bets and stay their friend, you'll try your best to ignore or overlook those annoying little facts. Like with bush and the chris matthewses of the world who STILL instinctively want to give him the benefit of the doubt because he's "basically a nice guy," or "a good Christian man."

6) To have to admit these nogoodniks are no good, that means you also have to admit that your judgment was all wrong. Or that you've been had. Or that you were wrong - especially if you were wrong all over the front pages above the fold, or in the lead stories on the evening news or the chat shows. Or that, heaven forbid, you do dirty to a friend - which you're still deeply inclined to think of them as being. Nobody wants to do that. Human nature.

7) The Fear Factor. By now, even those who don't want to admit it have to face, deep-down, that these people rule and manipulate through fear. It's the fear they encouraged and exploited after 9/11 that the bad guys were gonna gitcha if you didn't have bush to protect you; and the fear they've encouraged and exploited that you'll be considered a traitor to be Plamed or smeared or forced out of your nice job with its nice salary and nice perks. And I'll bet you hard money that many of them are assuming, just as rove himself assumes, that he's gotten away with so much for so long that it's just gonna keep on like that, and he's gonna keep getting away with so much for so much longer. The fear, in that case, is that - if you start to press 'em and do some actual reporting and come up with things they don't want you OR the public to know, and maybe they luck into rebounding and once again start getting away with it, they'll be back on top, and GUARANTEED: they'll be ON YOUR ASS WITH THEIR SCORCHED-EARTH REVENGE MACHINE running at Warp 9.9 speed, ready, willing, AND eager to make you pay dearly.

MANY reasons to drag one's heels on these stories. Unfortunately. MANY reasons.

[No Exit]

7. Viveca Novak has "agreed to testify"

Why not say, she damn well BETTER testify, if (as I presume) she's been subpoenaed?

If YOU or I received a frikkin' subpoena, WE would darn well have to "agree" to testify, that's for sure. Why does this story make it sound like she's doing someone this big "favor"??

Reporters' privileges?? Sorry, that's already been litigated and the reporters LOST: they had to testify.

[MADem]

8. Her "source" is her good friend in this instance, Rove's attorney, Luskin

She has no reporter privilege here. She and Luskin are personal friends--how personal, I have no idea. Luskin apparently told Fitz something about what he said to Viveca, or she said to him, that made Fitz "pause" in his hunt for Red Rover. The purpose of this testimony is to clear up what was said.

You'd think, if there were anything especially exculpatory, that she would volunteer to help out her pal Luskin, and just wander down to Fitz's office and have a nice chat with him, rather than be called, go into the box and answer questions in a formal setting...you know, the old "helping the investigators with their inquiries."

Something is not right here, and what it is, I cannot fathom. That speaks well for the close hold Fitzgerald is keeping on this investigation.

The only spinning we are hearing to this point is all coming out of Luskin's office. And his motivation is keeping ole Kidneystone Karl out of jail. It could be just a stall tactic, but we will not know until she testifies, assuming she is willing to speak about the experience after she has completed her testimony (and she is free to do that if she likes).