NYT: The Rovian Era ("Turn over a scandal in Washington these days & chances are you'll find Karl")

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/opinion/01sun1.html

The Rovian Era
Published: April 1, 2007
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.

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...

This was, perhaps, the inevitable result of taking the chief operative of a presidential campaign, one famous for his scorched-earth style, and ensconcing him in the White House — not in a political role, but as a key player in the formation of policy. 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. After his re-election in 2004, President Bush formally put Mr. Rove in charge of all domestic policy.

In that position, as David Kirkpatrick and Jim Rutenberg reported in The Times, Mr. Rove took a lead role in selecting federal judges and the hiring — and firing — of United States attorneys. Mr. Rove’s staff maneuvered to fire the prosecutor in Arkansas and replace him with a Rove protégé, and also seems to have been involved in the firing of a United States attorney in New Mexico who refused to file what he considered to be baseless charges of election fraud against Democrats.

- snip -

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.

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[SharonAnn]

1. Why limit it to "these days"? It's been true for at least 6 years, may more.

[Hissyspit]

2. Well, you can even say as far back as the Nixon administration.

Since, as was seen in that 1972 CBS news report, he was CREEP for Nixon and the Nixon administration was full of scandal.

[bonito]

3. He's got to have some trilateral commission connections

imho.

[yourout]

4. Nothing would make me happier than Karl doing the perp walk.

He is the Goerbels of our time.

[Hissyspit]

5. Pigweasels, both. n/t

[radfringe]

6. as any good herpetologist will tell you

if you look under rocks you'll probably find snakes

[formercia]

7. Rove is just a front man,

one layer of the onion, more layers to follow.

[cassiepriam]

8. Rove has trained many in his image, fire him and others will take his place.

[Hissyspit]

9. .

[Hissyspit]

10. .

[MN ChimpH8R]

11. KKKarl's a twofer

Goebbels

and Bormann in one unspeakable, piggish persona