Last we heard from former Bush speechwriter-turned-Washington Post line columnist Michael Gerson, he was attacking Tea Party activists and yours truly for criticizing his old boss/mentor Karl Rove’s Christine O’Donnell-bashing.

See: Rove aide: Kneel before The Architect, you puny website operators & Tea Party ingrates.

Well, Rove’s Beltway water boy took to his WaPo perch again this weekend to re-litigate the midterm election results on behalf of his boss and damn the Tea Party movement, Jim DeMint, and Sarah Palin:

O’Donnell and Angle were gifts of Sen. Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin to their party. Tea Party enthusiasm and shallow ideological purity were supposed to be better than outdated, “establishment” attributes such as achievement, wisdom or qualification. This approach to politics is expected of DeMint, who has gained national prominence by accusing his Republican colleagues of compromise. Coming from Palin, however, it is a threat to the Republican future.

In the past, Palin embodied the populist style of the Tea Party movement while espousing a fairly mainstream Republican ideology. On economic, social and foreign policy, Palin seldom strayed from a simplified, popularized Reaganism. The Mama Grizzly may have been ferocious, but her talking points came from the Heritage Foundation instead of from shadier corners of the right.

This election season called that perception into question. Palin’s support for O’Donnell showed poor political judgment. But Palin went further, also endorsing Constitution Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo in Colorado, one of the most divisive figures in American politics.

More on all that in a second.

For his part, DeMint struck back forcefully, turning the tables on the GOP trash-talkers:

MR. GREGORY: Well, and I, I want to ask you about some specific areas of–issue areas of the agenda. Before I do that, another question about the tea party. You were active in supporting tea party candidates around the country. You had some, some big winners around the country that you campaigned for. There are some of them. But you also had some notable losses, particularly in the Senate, and I want to single one out. You were behind Christine O’Donnell, who lost, of course, in Delaware. And here was the front page of the Wilmington News Journal on Wednesday after the election. The banner headline, “No taste for tea.” And frankly, there’s been some backlash about your support for her. Politico reported it this way this week: “A bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Palin and Senator DeMint had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states. …

`If you think what happened in Delaware is “a win” for the Republican Party then we don’t have a snowball’s chance to win the White House,’” that’s Senator Lindsey Graham, also from South Carolina. “`If you think Delaware was a wake-up call for Republicans then we have a shot at doing well for a long time.’” Do you think the tea party actually cost the Republican Party control of the Senate?

SEN. DeMINT: That is a very silly thing to say, David. The tea party are responsible for just about every Republican who was elected around the country. This time last year, if people’ll think about it, we were concerned about holding our own. Many thought Republicans would fall below 38 in, in the Senate. So I supported all the Republican candidates, including Christine O’Donnell. Unfortunately, she was so maligned by Republicans, I don’t think she ever had a chance. But we had historic gains in the Senate and in the House, so…

MR. GREGORY: Senator, you’re not really saying that it was just lack of Republican support that tanked her candidacy, are you? This is a woman who said on national–in an ad that she was not a witch.

SEN. DeMINT: Well, I think we did see in the, in the wake of her primary win, a number of Republicans suggest she was not a viable candidate. That, that did make it difficult for her to start on the right foot. But all over the country we saw candidates like Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, we saw candidates that were supported by a tea party in, in a new active wave of, of citizens change the face of the Senate. This is what Republicans have needed for a long time, a new, young Republicans, Cuban-American senator. We’ve got African-American congressmen. This is a huge change for the Republican Party, and I think it’s going to be very positive for our country.

Indeed, Tea Party activism and enthusiasm at the state and federal levels created the grass-roots wave that everyone in D.C. is now taking credit for in the election afterglow. Outside the Beltway, DeMint and Palin worked tirelessly on the ground to support the conservative wave while Beltway GOP elites of Gerson’s ilk fretted and moaned on the sidelines.

Moreover, Palin boldly defied the Rove machine and lent support to conservative third-party candidate Tom Tancredo in an effort to help spare us Democrat governor-elect John Hickenlooper and the Soros-ization of Colorado . Tancredo ultimately lost, but so many of us taxpayers here in this state will be forever grateful for Palin’s help. Gerson sneers at Tancredo as “one of the most divisive figures in American politics.” But in a manner of just weeks, Tancredo managed to unite former and current Republican officials and leaders in Colorado and across the country, libertarians, Tea Party activists, immigration enforcement advocates, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and 48 percent of unaffiliated voters behind his upstart candidacy.

Senate GOP/Tea Party-backed candidates O’Donnell, Angle, and Ken Buck (whom Gerson curiously omits from his column…because he happens to be a Tea Party-backed candidate that Rove actually supported) may also have lost, but the very valuable silver lining for conservatives is that their campaigns put liberal, big government Republicans — and Democrats — on notice. We’re watching and we will hold them all accountable. Buck’s opponent, Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet, certainly got the message. When his ads weren’t viciously attacking Buck as anti-woman, they were preposterously accusing him of wanting to raise taxes. That’s right. Bennet the Obamacare/bailout/stimulus supporter campaigned as the smaller government candidate.

Further, Doug Brady at Conservative 4 Palin makes an excellent point about the hypocrisy and self-contradiction of Gerson’s broadside on Palin’s endorsements. The Gerson/Rove faction simultaneously attacks her for being too pragmatically calculating and too wildly ideological. Which is it?

Governor Palin recorded a last-minute robocall for Tancredo in an effort to persuade Maes’ supporters to vote for Tancredo and not waste a vote on Maes, which would only help the liberal Democrat. But [Gerson] finds fault with this decidedly logical and pragmatic move by Governor Palin.

Therein lies the logical trap in which [Gerson] has ensnared himself. With Christine O’Donnell, [Gerson] accuses Governor Palin of putting principle above political reality. However, by throwing last-minute support to Tancredo in a last-ditch effort to prevent a Democrat victory, Governor Palin is now guilty of putting political reality above principle or something. You can’t have it both ways, Champ. I continue to be amazed by the proclivity of establishment types, whether Democrat or Republican, to contradict their own talking points and contort themselves into pretzels when attacking Governor Palin.

To be sure, the “principle above politics” meme is one the establishment has been pushing and will continue to push in their effort to prevent Governor Palin from crashing their cozy little party. Since when did political expediency become more noble than adhering to one’s principles? Is this really how Ronald Reagan felt? Michael [Gerson] evidently thinks so. So too does Peggy Noonan who claims an ability to divine Reagan’s thoughts due, presumably, to her stint as a White House speechwriter a quarter century ago.

Both she and [Gerson] are wrong, of course, and it’s this kind of thinking by our self-anointed superiors in the Washington establishment over the past 22 years that has resulted in America’s inexorable drift toward European-style socialism. To be sure, the drift is a bit faster under Democrat control than under Republican control, but the direction doesn’t change. The ruling class in both parties are fine with this sorry state of affairs, and will do everything they can to continue it. They see Governor Palin and the entire Tea Party movement as an existential threat to their way of doing business. That they should, because their party is coming to an end, and the political earthquake which took place on Tuesday is just the beginning.

One last point: The Rove machine and Beltway/Manhattan establishment continues to trash the conservative Tea Party candidates who lost their high-profile bids.

But notice how silent they are on the shellacking that McCain favorites Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina took in California. Fiorina pandered to Jesse Jackson and radical gender/racial politics. Whitman flip-flopped on immigration and fawned over Van Jones, before failing to manage her illegal alien maid problem properly. The pooh-bahs considered these liberal Republican women to be winning candidates who would appeal to the center and give the GOP a fighting chance in the basket case now dubbed the “Lindsay Lohan of states.”

Where is the introspection about these loser bids? Who takes responsibility for fielding two unlikeable candidates who reinforced the GOP stereotype of out-of-touch, condescending corporate magnates seeking to buy office and donning conservative clothing only when expedient, just like their chief GOP establishment advocate, John McCain?

Oh, wait. I know the answer:

Silence, you know-nothing blogger peon and KNEEL BEFORE THE ARCHITECT!

***

Okay, one last, last point while we’re settling scores: Rove has questioned Palin’s “gravitas” for promoting her home state of Alaska in a multi-part TV series.

Yes, God forbid Republican women look like they enjoy their lives and their families and the natural resources and gifts America has to offer outside of D.C. and away from the boardroom.

How out of touch can these Beltway boys be?

Michael Gerson is a precious Karl Rove protégé/former policy adviser/speechwriter who boldly stepped forward in full Beltway Boyz armor to defend his mentor from the “the childish political thought of the Tea Party” in the wizened, mature pages of the Washington Post online.

Gerson took particular umbrage at my response to Rove:

Third, some conservatives seem to display special venom for those who are “compromised” by the experience of actually winning and governing. Rove, according to Malkin, is an “establishment Beltway strategist.” Actually, he is a former high-level policy aid (sic) to the president of the United States and the primary author of two presidential victories. This does not make him always right. But it means he has had responsibilities bigger than running a Web site. This is an advantage for a commentator, not a drawback.

In Tea Party theory, inexperience is itself seen as a kind of qualification. People like O’Donnell are actually preferable to people like Rove, because they haven’t been tainted by public trust or actual achievement. This is the attitude of the adolescent — the belief that the world began on their thirteenth birthday. It is also a sign of childish political thought.

Oh, yes, Mr. Gerson. Yes, please school us more about Rove’s storied accomplishments. We will sit quietly with our hands folded at our desks while you regale us with tales of Master Rove’s “actual” post-election “achievements.”

You know, like the disastrous Medicare prescription drug entitlement expansion that created an unfunded liability of $9.4 trillion over the next 75 years, No Child Left Behind federal education expansion, steel tariffs, ag subsidies, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and the Bush-Kennedy-McCain illegal alien amnesty attempt.

It is not his “presidential victories” and his “experience of actually winning” races that have earned Rove the rightful scorn of Tea Party activists and the venom of any limited government advocate worth his/her salt. It is the way he and his boss squandered those victories and sacrificed core conservative principles at the altar of “compassionate conservatism.”

As for the supposedly “adolescent” attitude that “inexperience is itself seen as a kind of qualification,” some of us have not forgotten Rove’s furious behind-the-scenes maneuvering to secure the Supreme Court nomination of his old, dreadfully unqualified Texas crony Harriet Miers — whom Rove and his friends supported on the grounds that her lack of judicial experience was, um, some kind of qualification.

But, hey, I’m just a petulant, teenage mutant website operator and you Tea Party people are just non-achieving ingrates who have failed to show proper deference to The Architect of two presidential victories for the Republican who crowned off his eight years by pre-socializing the economy for Barack Obama.

Now, kneel before Zod!

***

Meanwhile, the White House contemplates running Tea Party-bashing ads:

President Obama’s political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a range of ideas, including national advertisements, to cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said.

…“We need to get out the message that it’s now really dangerous to re-empower the Republican Party,” said one Democratic strategist who has spoken with White House advisers but requested anonymity to discuss private strategy talks.

And WaPo’s Gerson and the NYT’s David Brooks have handed them all the free advertising copy they need. Heckuva job, Wise Ones.

***

Dumb headline of the day: Tea Party Victory Opens Rift Between Moderate and Conservative Republicans

Heavens, no! A rift between moderate and conservative Republicans? Same as it ever was.

The times they are a-changin’ — and it’s ladies of the Right who are kicking ass and naming names.

Five items for your viewing and reading pleasure:

* Jeri Thompson smacks GOP poobahs and pooh-pooh-ers upside the head:

While they may not be intending to be sexist, the message, the attitude and whining sure make many in the GOP look eerily like the elites we are trying so hard to usurp. The sexism issues aside, it’s time for the Washington GOP establishment to man up and stop sulking over losing — no, getting walloped — by a woman they continue to insist is unqualified despite the fact that she has a pretty big win under her belt under pretty difficult circumstances.

I might point out that being trounced by an unqualified (they think) opponent is more a reason, not less, to humbly buck up, congratulate her and move forward. Frankly, it seems an emotional response. Strange, huh? This behavior does not play well with the very grassroots voters they are counting on to put them over the top in November. It’s time they understood these are different grassroots from anything the D.C. crowd has dealt with before.

The fact is, despite all of the Beltway Boys’ attempts to co-opt the Tea Party movement — which to my way of thinking is really a revitalized conservative movement under a much bigger tent — the movement has refused to play the Washington game.

When self-anointed “tea party leaders” have attempted to direct the movement, the citizens themselves have been savvy enough to sniff out many of the charlatans and keep their grassroots organizations focused on achieving their goals of throwing the bums out of office where necessary and appropriate.

Perhaps the reaction to O’Donnell is the result of the Beltway Boys’ understanding that the movement that has been taking hold across the country really is out of their control. Or perhaps they really are intimidated by a woman who has already proven that she can do it without them.

* Debra J. Saunders calls out Big Government Eco-Radical Newt Gingrich:

This year, Gingrich is playing to the tea party crowd. He and his wife are about to release a new movie, “America at Risk” on national security threats. As a tea party courtier, he rails against carbon taxes. His political action committee has raised $250,000 from an Oklahoma natural gas and oil producer, and $100,000 from Arch Coal of St. Louis, Politco.com reported.

Two years ago, however, the Newter was seated on a loveseat next to Speaker Nancy Pelosi starring in TV ads for Al Gore’s global warming campaign. Quoth Gingrich, “We do agree, our country must take action against climate change.” And: “If enough of us demand action from our leaders, we can spark the innovation we need.”

Consider Gingrich to be the right’s Jerry Brown. Like the former and would-be next California governor, Gingrich talks big, but has no loyalty to his ideas. He was for tax cuts before he was against them. He supported a $35,000 congressional pay raise and leaner government.

Like Brown, Gingrich’s real skill has been in seeing a trend early and jumping on it, unencumbered by any past positions.

Then armed with a trendy vocabulary, Gingrich blusters on. During the National Review interview, he asserted Obama is “authentically dishonest.” Authentically dishonest? If anyone should know what that means, it’s probably Gingrich…

* Sarah Palin takes on Karl Rove and the good old boys:

* Christine O’Donnell on Castle’s petulance, Reid’s “pet,” and Rove’s attacks:

* And my comments on the death throes of the Old Guard — plus my call for conservatives to refuse to cede language to the “moooooderates” in the GOP who are anything but. Just say no to progressive wolves in elephants’ clothing:

***

Related: Coming Sept. 22 via Citizens United…Fire From the Heartland: The Reawakening of the Conservative Woman

Fire From The Heartland from Citizens United on Vimeo.

More info here.

There’s ample room to criticize McCain (see, for example, here). Going far enough in challenging Barack Obama is not one of them, Mr. Rove.

From: David Plouffe, BarackObama.com
Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 3:16 PM
Subject: Karl Rove: McCain went ‘too far’
To:

Make a donation and double your impact Even Karl Rove had to admit yesterday that the McCain campaign’s lies and negative attacks have gone “too far.”

John McCain is running the most negative and dishonest campaign in modern presidential history. He has demonstrated that he’d rather lose his integrity than lose this election.

It’s right out of the Bush-Rove playbook. Unfortunately, as Karl Rove knows better than anyone, these shameful tactics have worked in the past.

This year, we can’t let that happen.

Our goal is to bring 50,000 new donors into our movement by Friday at midnight.

And if you make your first online donation today, your gift will go twice as far. A previous donor has promised to match every dollar you donate.

Double your impact right now. Your matched donation of $5 will become $10 if you donate today.

The culture of corruption and dishonesty that has hurt America so badly the last eight years is playing an even larger role in McCain’s campaign.

Just this past week, John McCain hired a Washington super-lobbyist to fill positions in a potential McCain-Palin White House. At least 177 lobbyists have been on McCain’s campaign staff, and apparently he hopes to run the White House the same way.

Also this week, the McCain campaign continued to repeat a number of outrageous lies, even after watchdogs in the media called them “shamelessly misleading,” “thoroughly dishonest,” and “a toxic mix of lies and double-speak.”

They also lied about the crowd size at one of their rallies — reporting 23,000 attendees when there were only 8,000.

McCain’s campaign — run on lobbyists and lies — is no match for this unprecedented grassroots movement. More than 2,500,000 people have stepped up to own a piece of this campaign.

But if we want change, we must continue to grow this movement and put an end to these dishonorable political tactics. And we have just 50 days left to do it.

Right now, a previous donor — an ordinary person just like you — has promised to match your donation if you step up today.

Double your impact to combat McCain’s dishonest campaign tactics — make a matched donation of $5 or more today:

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Thanks for all you do,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Dear Democrats.com Member,

When you pay your mobile phone bill each month, you probably don’t give a lot of thought to where your money goes. But given what’s going on in Washington these days, maybe you should.

Congress has finally started the process of holding Karl Rove — a.k.a. “Bush’s Brain” — accountable for his blatant (and possibly illegal) politicization of the Justice Department. All we can say to that is, it’s about time. (1)

But you probably weren’t aware that your mobile phone company may be among those that helped fund Rove’s rise to power, or advance his dream of a “permanent Republican majority.” Are you comfortable supporting that kind of company?

Consider the facts on record:

* AT&T’s® Political Action Committee contributed the maximum amount allowable by law to the Bush/Cheney campaign — twice. (2) In 2000, these funds helped pay Karl Rove’s expenses.(3)
* So far in this 2008 election cycle, contributions from the joint Political Action Committee of Verizon Wireless® and Verizon Communications Inc.® lean decidedly Republican (4), including five-figure donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee.
* AT&T’s current CEO, Randall Stephenson, has donated tens of thousands to conservative politicians and PACs. (5) AT&T’s former CEO, Ed Whitacre, was a Bush-Cheney “Ranger” in 2004, raising more than $200,000 to give us four more years of Bush. (6)

Here at CREDO, we have a profoundly different set of values than Karl Rove and the companies that have shown support for his dream of a permanent conservative majority in Congress:

* We’ve been calling for Karl Rove to be fired and prosecuted ever since 2005, when his role in ‘outing’ covert agent Valerie Plame came to light.
* Instead of right-wing politicians, CREDO has given $60 million to progressive nonprofits like Planned Parenthood, Earthjustice, the ACLU and Iraq Vets Against the War.
* Rather than suppress voter turnout — Karl Rove’s signature trademark for stealing elections(7) — CREDO’s voter registration programs have helped 1.1 million people register to vote since July 2007.

If you want to see progressive change for America, it’s probably time to stop supporting a company that supported Karl Rove, and make the switch to CREDO Mobile. With CREDO you’ll get the same quality coverage, phones and accessories that you enjoy from any major provider — plus fantastic customer service from our team of dedicated and knowledgeable representatives.

Best of all, if you switch now, we’ll pay your early termination fee from those other guys (up to $200). Click here to visit credomobile.com and learn more, or call 866.513.8670 to talk to someone right now about making the switch. Be sure to mention code 500177 so they’ll know I sent you. But please don’t delay — this offer ends September 15, 2008.

Thank you, as always, for your support.

Sincerely,

Michael Kieschnick
Co-founder and President
CREDO Mobile

* All with a two-year CREDO Mobile service agreement. Offer subject to credit qualification. Early Termination Fee: We’ll credit your CREDO Mobile account (up to $200) 30 days after we receive a copy of your prior carrier’s termination fee charges; details to follow by mail. Offer only available to new CREDO Mobile customers.

Sources:

1) Just a few weeks ago, CREDO teamed up with Brave New Films to help deliver more than 120,000 signatures to House Judiciary Committee members, calling on them to hold Rove in contempt and arrest him if necessary to compel his sworn testimony.

2) AT&T’s support of Bush-Cheney in 2000 here: http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?20035274581 and 2004 here: http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?24990933215 .

3) Rove expenses covered by Bush-Cheney 2000:

http://www.opensecrets.org/capital_eye/inside.php?ID=143

4) In 2008, PAC giving from Verizon’s joint Political Action Committee favors Republicans by more than $10,000: http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2008&cmte=C00363127

5) Randall Stephenson donations: http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Randall_Stephenson.php

6) Ed Whitacre “Bush Ranger” Status:

http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_table.jsp

7) Rove’s role in voter suppression efforts: http://harpers.org/archive/2007/04/horton-rove-cashiered-328483284823 and here: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/134

Via Bloomberg:

The House Judiciary Committee’s 20-14 vote along party lines escalated the dispute between the Bush administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress over lawmakers’ demand for testimony by presidential aides.

President George W. Bush has invoked executive privilege to bar his aides from testifying under oath in Congress about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. The president also barred Rove’s testimony on the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

The panel has asked a federal judge to order Bush’s chief of staff, Joshua Bolten to turn over documents about the firings and to direct former White House counsel Harriet Miers to testify about the dismissals.

A contempt citation against Rove would require approval by the full House. Rove failed to appear at a July 10 hearing.

Rove has denied influencing the decision to prosecute Siegelman. He offered to answer the committee’s questions in writing or to testify in private without a transcript. Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, told the committee in a July 9 letter that Bush had directed his client not to testify.

Rove elaborated on his defense here and here.

The Hill looks ahead:

Ranking member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the vote “disregarded” the facts of Rove’s involvement with the Department of Justice.

“There is no credible evidence to support a contempt resolution against Karl Rove. Every individual involved in the claimed incident — including Don Siegelman himself — has denied allegations by Jill Simpson,” Smith said.

It is not clear whether the contempt charge will be brought to the full House, which is scheduled to adjourn for its August recess this week.

Will Nancy Pelosi feed the nutroots and allow a full vote–or is she too busy saving the planet and hawking books to mollify her far Left, Rove-obsessed flank?

What’s a 14 percenter to do?

There’s been a little tizzy in the blogosphere over Newsweek’s hiring of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga on the left and Karl Rove on the right as campaign commentators/contributors.

I wouldn’t get too worked up about it. The fact that they both accepted the invitation shows they share a need for mainstream approbation and a common belief that writing for a circulation-losing, influence-dwindling publication is worth their time.

I predict they’ll write preemptively safe, toned-down pieces to match expectations of MSM respectability–and they’ll save any truly newsworthy, interesting insights for their own home bases (dKos for Kos, conservative talk radio/Fox/etc. for Rove).

No “exploding heads.” Just heads nodding off…

Update 4pm Eastern. Radar talks to Fred Thompson rep Mark Corallo, who seems to shoot down rumors of a Rove jump to the campaign.

Update: Video highlights and a parting shot.

Update: Press conference at 11:35am. Update: 11:25am Eastern.

The President is talking about Rove’s family “making huge sacrifices. We’re going to be friends for a long time. I would call Karl Rove a dear friend…I thank my friend for making a tremendous sacrifice. Wish you all the very best. I’ll be on the road behind you soon.”

Rove speaks: He’s “grateful to have been a witness to history. It has been a joy and honor. Praises Bush for putting America on a war footing. I’ve seen a reformer…We’ve been at this a long time.”

(Rove is choked up.)

“Right time to start thinking about the next chapter of my family’s life…now is the time. I will deeply miss my work here…looking forward to continuing our friendship of 34 years…I will ask for God’s gifts of eternal strength and..Thank you again for this extraordinary opportunity.”

Hug. Depart.

Rove was much more articulate and emotional than Bush, FWIW.

Fox News Channel’s E.D. Hill notes the curious playing of the “family” card…Rove’s son is going off to college. “I’m not sure how many kids going off to college have time for more ‘family’ time.” Now, there’s on-air banter about which campaign Rove’s headed to: Thompson or Giuliani?

***

Well, isn’t this interesting news to greet us on a Monday morning in the dog days of August:

Karl Rove, President Bush’s longtime political adviser, is resigning as White House deputy chief of staff effective Aug. 31, and returning to Texas, he said in an interview with Paul Gigot, editor of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.

Mr. Rove, who has held a senior post in the White House since President Bush took office in January 2001, told Mr. Gigot he first floated the idea of leaving a year ago. But he delayed his departure as, first, Democrats took Congress, and then as the White House tackled debates on immigration and Iraq, he said. He said he decided to leave after White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day they would be obliged to remain through the end of the president’s term in January 2009.

“I just think it’s time,” Mr. Rove said in the interview. “There’s always something that can keep you here, and as much as I’d like to be here, I’ve got to do this for the sake of my family.” Mr. Rove and his wife have a home in Ingram, Texas, and a son who attends college in nearby San Antonio.

Gigot’s interview is titled “The Mark of Rove.” Gigot lets Rove defend himself and his legacy, and what I see, alas, is the mark of self-delusion and blindness that has damaged the White House and the Beltway GOP. Rove pats President Bush (and himself) on the back for the disastrous Medicare entitlement expansion and the aborted Social Security reform effort. We get this admission: “His biggest error, Mr. Rove says, was in not working soon enough to replace Republicans tainted by scandal.” And then this:

As for what his own White House mistakes have been, Mr. Rove winces and says, “I’ll put my feet up in September and think about that.”

The Left will harp on Plameout. John Little rounds-up reaction and fresh conspiracy theories from the far Left.

But here’s what I find striking about Rove’s exit interview:

Not a word here about the Harriet Miers debacle, the botching of the Dubai ports battle, or the undeniable stumbles in post-Iraq invasion policies.

And not a word about the spectacular disaster of the illegal alien shamnesty, which will be the everlasting stain Rove leaves behind.

I repeat from the WSJ news article:

“Mr. Rove, who has held a senior post in the White House since President Bush took office in January 2001, told Mr. Gigot he first floated the idea of leaving a year ago.”

Imagine how much better off the White House and the Republican Party might be now if he had, in fact, left a year ago.

Yes, there’s the legacy Rove should ponder as he puts his feet up.

***

Flashback: What is your name? MC Rove:

***

More reax:

Pajamas Media keeps tab. The story’s already at the top of Memeorandum. The WSJ blog is monitoring blog responses.

For a hearty lunchtime chuckle: Check out my interview with Ron Ott of Coptix, one of the masterminds behind the April Fools’ joke that caused a Rove Derangement Syndrome feeding frenzy.

Now, look at all the heavy breathing from left-wing blogs about the name on the folder, “Coptix:”

Daily Kos
Guerilla Women TN
Wonkette

The lefty bloggers ran wild with assertions and speculations that Coptix, a Chattanooga Internet firm, was serving as some sort of nongovernment back-door e-mail administration for White House correspondence.

Corrente started the moonbat swarm with this fevered, tinfoil-hatted dot-connecting:

Now, who—you may ask—is Coptix? Let’s review:

Coptix administers gwb43.com’s nameservers. (Rove privatized his email at gwb43.com, in violation of the Presidential Records Act)…

Here’s the information for gwb43.com:

Domain Name: GWB43.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Republican National Committee dns@RNCHQ.ORG
310 First Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
US
999 999 9999 fax: 999 999 9999
Record expires on 16-Jan-2008.
Record created on 16-Jan-2004.
Database last updated on 21-Mar-2007 17:45:46 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.CHA.SMARTECHCORP.NET
A.NS.TRESPASSERS-W.NET

Now, as Xan showed, the nameserver (“NS” for nameserver) A.NS.TRESPASSERS-W.NET is administered by Coptix—the Chattanooga hosting service whose brochure Rove was carrying under under his fat arm in the photograph above.

So: Karl went out and hired his own, bespoke, politically wired nameserver company. Of course, Karl would never give business to any company that hadn’t sworn fealty to the authoritarian agenda, but I imagine Karl is also getting a level of, erm, personal service that he wouldn’t get from a fiddy-dollar administrator like GoDaddy or Yahoo or whatever. And it would be irresponsible not to speculate what those services were:

1. Trivially, namespace administration is one of those niggling, paperwork-type tasks that everyone puts off, but forget to renew your domain name, and your carefully crafted online identity gets hijacked by some DFH parodist or a cybersquatter who sells it to an Australian porn farm. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) When that kind of awkwardness happens, Shooter’s not pleased. So it’s nice to have an administrator that watches that kind of stuff for you.

2. As we saw above, the phone number for gwb43.com, the domain that Coptix administers for (presumably) Karl, is listed this way:

999 999 9999 fax: 999 999 9999

So, either Karl gave Coptix a false phone number (which is illegal, since it would only help terrorists), or Coptix is concealing the number for them. (I wonder how ICANN would feel about that?).

3. Nameserver administrators also provide email forwarding, which is the equivalent of call-forwarding on the Intertubes. So, if Karl wanted to store all his email safely offshore in, oh, American Samoa or Guam, then Coptix would be the company to do that for him.

4. If a new nameserver needs to be swapped in, it’s easy and quick to do with a single phone call.

5. All the administrative details—contact information, payment details, change privileges—can be placed in the hands of people Karl owns trusted individuals.

6. As a consequence, it’s much easier for Karl to instantly have records destroyed with a phone call to a minion; Godaddy and the rest just aren’t set up to do that.

“Services like storing one’s email safely offshore, or perhaps records destruction could be handled in a snap of those porcine little fingers,” anti-Rove crusader Jane Hamsher opined bitterly at Firedoglake.

Only guess what?

The photo was an April Fools’ weekend prank. And the Rove Derangement Syndrome crowd fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported today:

A Chattanooga Internet firm doctored a photo of White House aide Karl Rove to show him holding a folder with the company’s logo, fueling speculation in the blogosphere that the president’s top adviser is running White House correspondence through a nongovernment e-mail system.

“It’s easy for people to plant disinformation and misinformation out there,” said Josiah Roe, executive vice president of Coptix, based in St. Elmo.

Mr. Roe said the company altered the photo and placed it on the Internet after bloggers implied that Coptix was involved in a “vast right-wing conspiracy” because the company — along with another local firm, SmarTech — provides an Internet service for the Republican National Committee.

A domain name set up by the RNC, gwb43.com, appeared on correspondence between White House officials discussing U.S. attorney vacancies, The Associated Press reported. The subsequent firings of eight federal prosecutors have sparked a Congressional investigation.

Mr. Roe said his firm altered the photograph as a humorous way to get exposure for Coptix, which also does work for the Chattanooga Times Free Press Web site. But at least two widely read blogs accepted the doctored photo as fact.

A blogger on the Daily Kos blog wrote that “it’s unlikely to have been a Photoshop job,” while a blogger for Wonkette wrote that the photo “proves without doubt that Karl Rove is illegally running all the White House e-mail through a private company.”

Coptix president Josiah Roe explained further:

Somehow, nobody noticed that the story happened to break on the weekend of April Fool’s Day.

Yes, it’s true: it’s not true. We used Photoshop to superimpose the name of our company and a folder under Rove’s arm, and asked a local “right winger” to plant it on his blog.

The timing could not have been more perfect, especially given the atmosphere of suspicion that Rove & Co. are doing business via e-mail that is hosted at Chattanooga’s Smartech/Airnet Group, rather than federal servers. Coptix, our company, provides backup DNS hosting for Smartech/Airnet. So when any well-meaning muckraker runs a search for domain names such as “gwb43.com” or “georgewbush.com,” the nameservers listed for those domain names will include the Smartech server and a Coptix server.

DNS hosting does not involve user accounts or storage, in fact, Coptix has no contact whatsoever with the RNC or anyone in the current president’s administration. DNS is simply the basic routing of Internet traffic. In fact, it’s one of the most basic technologies that govern the Internet.

Since we have no knowledge of the content on these servers — and since Coptix has employees and customers of all political stripes — we were surprised that at the end of last week we noticed a good deal of blogger buzz going on around these domain names. Not to mention that this buzz included questions such as “Who is Smartech?,” “Who is Coptix?” and “Are they part of a vast right-wing conspiracy?”

So we decided to run an experiment…

Since it was April Fool’s weekend, in the tradition of George Plimpton and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), we decided to have some fun. We asked one of our Web designers, Ron Ott, to put our name on a photograph that had originally been posted on a local blogger’s diary (with his permission, of course). Thank you Adobe, 15 minutes later Coptix’s name was emblazoned on a folder.

…Note that we even put in a giveaway that the photo was a fake. The television in the top right corner is showing fantastical creatures from the 1974 television series “Land of the Lost.”

Remember I told you to take note of the TV monitor image? Here’s the original:

Attack of the Neocon Sleestaks!

Next, Roe wrote:

…Then we left comments on various blogs and social networking sites linking back to the original post. Bloggers immediately picked up the images, and we watched the misinformation filter upward and outward. We also modified our personal and professional blog posts to show pleasure at the photograph, so any unscrupulous researcher could jump to conclusions.

This has driven tens of thousands of visitors to our Web site. From all indications the story has not reached its peak (Wonkette even made the doctored photo into an advertisement for their site), but we consider our web marketing experiment a success. Viral marketing and social networking are modern communication tools that can be leveraged to drive exposure to a particular brand. Which, in this case, was us.

Ace has a raucous roast of Wonkette and notes:

Now, the thing is, this was a decent prank, and I, personally, wouldn’t be terribly embarrassed about being taken in by it. I’m notoriously slapdash in my own, um, “reporting,” so this sort of thing would probably get by me. And I would be embarrassed about it, a bit, but I’d fess up and say “I was punk’d, they got me. Sorry.”

The shrieking ninnies at Wonkette can’t do that, though. They can never simply admit they made an error. And thus — similar to in the case of the Malkin photoshop — they now appear to claim they never really believed any of it and and they kinda knew it was all a lark the whole time!

At least the pathetic bunch at Wonkette has mentioned the ruse. As of 5:00pm Eastern today, Firedoglake was still treating the photo as real.

Like Wonkette, other left-wing bloggers are bitterly attacking Coptix for their “dirty trick”–instead of owning up.

You were had. Can you all swallow and make stand-alone corrections (here is how conservative bloggers make corrections, by the way)?

Or will you find another way to lay this all at the feet of the Evil Genius Karl Rove and his co-conspirators:

Chaka, member of the VWRC

More Reich-Wing Horse Pucky

The Gathering of Eagles is supposedly a veterans’ ad hoc group who are allowing themselves to be despicably stage-managed by Rove and Move America Forward using fascist tactics to lie about an anti-war group, just like BushCo lied our country into two abominable wars that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. The actions around this are very similar to the Swift Boaters—who I believe are also involved in this current Reich-wing, Squawking-Head brouhaha.

The Rove backed tools of hatred and misguided propaganda are saying that in the March 17th march on the Pentagon that I am participating in which is sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. is planning on desecrating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, by spitting on it, or throwing paint on it. What a monumental load of Reich-wing horse pucky!

[...]

Get a clue, buy a vowel, Eagles. You are being played like a banjo by Karl Rove and Move America Forward. You are becoming all irate for absolutely no reason. We are not even going into the memorial. Even if we did we would not desecrate it. How many of your VA benefits to the crooks in the White House have to cut before you finally wake up? They don’t care about you! Don’t let them shovel any more Reich-wing horse pucky down your throats. Refuse to be used. Don’t be minions of, or in league with devils.

A few days later, David Swanson posted the following on his own website:

Let’s not hide our faces. Let’s not allow them to dictate our clothing or our actions to us. And, by the same token, let’s not back off from the plan to visit the Vietnam Memorial. This can be a free country with the right to freely assemble, if we insist on making it so. And it is our right to visit that memorial, whatever we may think of it. We should visit it with respect for the names it bears and their families and friends, and with dedication to avoid the need for additional walls of that size. And we should keep in our thoughts the further unbearable grief of a wall that could be imagined to include the names of the Vietnamese dead, a wall that might stretch the length of the walk to the Pentagon.

How did this little bit of tactical intelligence slip past the Ministry of Truth?

Quick! Where is the nearest memory hole, Comrade?

I was hired by the Edwards campaign for the skills and talents I bring to the table, and my willingness to work hard for what’s right. Unfortunately, Bill Donohue and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills, and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics (I’m anti-theocracy, for those who were keeping track). Bill Donohue—anti-Semite, right wing lackey whose entire job is to create non-controversies in order to derail liberal politics—has been running a scorched earth campaign to get me fired for my personal beliefs and my writings on this blog.

In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to “silence” me, as if he—a perfect stranger—should have a right to curtail my freedom of speech. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m pro-choice? Because I’m not religious? All of the above, it seems.

Regardless, it was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign. No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won’t do it. I resigned my position today and they accepted.

The Associated Press has a typically fair and balanced–not–headline:

Targeted Blogger Quits Edwards Campaign

Here, let me rewrite that headline for you, AP:

“Godbag“-spewing Blogger Quits Edwards Campaign

(11:15pm Eastern update) – WaPo’s Howard Kurtz has a story in Tuesday’s paper, now up on the Web.

Marcotte vows revenge, Danny Glover points out:

Unencumbered by her work for Edwards, she vowed to strike back. “The main good news,” Marcotte wrote, “is that I don’t have a conflict of interest issue anymore that was preventing me from defending myself against these baseless accusations. So it’s on.”

So much for that sincere apology. Good news for the nutroots: She’s free, free again to yell “Jeebus” all she wants!

As for this being all the fault of conservative bloggers and Catholics, here is a liberal blogger named “Faithful Progressive” at the Christian Alliance for Progress blog, responding to MyDD blogger Matt Stoller’s attack on religious lefties who criticized Edwards’ initial decision to hire and stand by Marcotte and McEwan:

…what I find most disturbing is the absolute unwillingness of people like Mr. Stoller to admit that people on the left can engage in hate speech and can needlessly offend both allies and potential ones just as easily as extremists on the right. Edwards said the quotes offended him, and the bloggers in question have apologized. They have accepted responsibility for their posts. But people like Matt Stoller can only see that the source of the quotes was a bigot himself, so whatever he says should be dismissed–even when there is no dispute that his claims this time were true. There will always be right wingers who will make charges against those on the left–if it’s not Bill Donahue, it will be Karl Rove or Michelle Malkin, or Ann Althouse, or–do I need to go on? The press will report their charges and will ignore their bias and past track record. It is naive to think otherwise. What matters is whether or not there is any substance when the mud has been thrown by the designated attack dogs. In this case, there was substance to the charges made.

To deny that is a staggering and disturbing level of moral blindness that, fortunately, appears to be very much a minority and marginal point of view even among the most strident liberal blogs.

Donahue, Rove, Althouse, and Malkin–that’s a bizarre group to be lumping together under the banner of united right wingers. But still, Faithful Progressive makes the right point about the nutroots being so blinded by their hatred of their political opponents that they can’t see the gobsmackingly obvious substance of the charges against Edwards’ unhinged bloggers.

And here was another lefty Democrat critic of Marcotte’s, quoted at Ben Smith’s blog in response to her latest diatribe attacking the Virgin Birth:

Brian O’Dwyer, a New York lawyer and Irish-American leader, who attacked Edwards the first time round, just came out with a statement:

“The blogger’s continuing hostility to Catholics and other Christians, especially in the centrality of the Virgin birth, is both morally wrong and, for Senator Edwards, politically stupid. Senator Edwards was horribly flawed in refusing to see the importance of how offensive the blogger’s earlier comments were to people of faith. This latest so-called review, published after Edwards refused to fire her for earlier anti-Catholic writings, should now wake him up and lead him to finally do the right thing as his campaign tries to move forward. Bigotry of any kind should have no role in the Democratic Party, or in any presidential campaign.”

O’Dwyer, also, is hard to cast as a GOP hitman. He’s the chairman of the National Democratic Ethnic Leadership Council, the Democratic Party’s official white-ethnic grouping; close to some labor union leaders; and a leading member of a prominent New York democratic family.

Via Ben Smith, another religious liberal who raised his voice:

“We’re completely invisible to this debate,” said Eduardo Penalver, a Cornell University law professor who writes for the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal. He said he was dissatisfied with the Edwards campaign’s response. “As a constituency, the Christian left isn’t taken all that seriously,” Penalver said.

Democrats — and Edwards in particular — have embraced the language of faith and the imperative of competing with Republicans for the support of religious voters. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, even sits on the board of the leading organization of the religious left, Call to Renewal. But in private conversations and careful public statements today, religious Democrats said they felt sidelined by Edwards’ decision to stand by his aides.

Glenn Reynolds: “She will be missed.”

Oh, she’ll be back.

Or someone like her.

At Slate, John Dickerson reports that “a top adviser to a rival campaign took a shot [at Edwards]: ‘Apparently they’re more afraid of the bloggers than they are the Catholics’” and concludes that “all campaigns are likely to face a version of his troubles this week.”

I wouldn’t say all, but I’d say all the major Democrat candidates have a major nutroots headache to deal with as 2008 draws nigh.

The Daily Kos is demanding to know which Democrat campaign dissed Edwards’ bloggers.

***

It’s not clear what the fate of Marcotte’s blog soul sister and fellow Edwards campaign staffer, Melissa McEwan, is. Nothing at her personal blog. No recent posts from her at Edwards’ blog.

There’s a live chat going on right now at Edwards’ site (10:11pm Eastern), but there’s no discussion of Marcotte’s resignation.

I did find one commenter at the Edwards’ blog ready to take her place, though:

This saddens me to no end

I’ve been kinda wondering where she was, why I was spending so much time defending JRE for keeping her, but not a peep from the blogmaster herself.

Hey Senator. Where do I send the application?

Mark Adams

Well, give him points for demonstrating the ability to write a sentence without dropping the F-bomb and trashing Christians.

***

More reax:

Jeff Goldstein:

Sadly, it seems, Marcotte hasn’t learned anything from this experience. Instead, she continues to see conspiracies rather than geniune outrage—and in so doing, she continues to lean on the crutch of her collective rather than taking a good hard look at her method of discourse.

Patterico:

Yes, I’ve said the f-word myself. Many, many times. And plenty of other profane words to boot. I’m not a Puritan and don’t pretend to be.

And if a presidential candidate ever hired me (ha!), and he was seeking the vote of the crucial long-haired-stoner-resembling-Shaggy’s-unkempt-cousin constituency, or the dishonest-self-righteous-innuendo-spreading-sock-puppet-lefty-lawyer constituency . . . well, I’d sit him down before he hired me, and warn him about a few things.

Marcotte alienated constituencies a little wider than this. Just to take one example, she bagged on every anti-abortion Christian in the country, branding them all as misogynists. If Edwards didn’t know about this, she should have been savvy enough to tell him. It’s not all about the f-word, it’s about how it’s employed.

Jim Treacher:

Marcotte didn’t mention the Catholic Democratics who are unhappy with her, presumably because they’re just dupes of the right-wing spin machine (which really tones the thighs, glutes, and calves).

Ed Morrissey:

Contrary to her assertion that we “right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills,” we Catholics drew attention to the fact that she engages in vituperative and demeaning attacks on religion and that Edwards appeared to have endorsed that by hiring her. Along the exact same lines, I would have criticized a Republican dumb enough to hire Fred Phelps* as a spokesperson, as would Marcotte herself. She simply refuses to accept the fact that she wrote incendiary and bigoted essays about Christians and embarrassed Edwards by agreeing to work for him after doing so.

(*Re. Phelps: Bryan Preston notes the thug was a Gore delegate and Democrat fund-raiser.)

Charles Johnson at LGF:

Looks like we won’t have Amanda Marcotte to f****** kick around any more. She’s bailing out of the Edwards campaign, nobly crushed under the massive, well-financed pressure of the “right-wing noise machine” who just can’t stand to see a woman be successful, g****** it.

Walter Olson was one of the first to notice Marcotte’s Duke lacrosse team diatribe. Links to his posts are here. See also Jon Ham; his reax here.

Mark Coffey:

…[T]hree things strike me as particularly hilarious about this: one, that Marcotte apparently is giving us fair warning that she intends to become even more foul-mouthed and unpleasant now that she is no longer ‘held back’ by her employment with Edwards.

Two, we can obviously see now the complete and utter insincerity of her ‘apology’.

Three, she actually thinks anyone is going to give a damn about her now! It’s over, babe…now you’re just another foul-mouthed lefty, and I can’t swing a cat without hitting three of those…

Interesting: There’s mixed reaction at The Daily Kos.

One of the MyDD bloggers has a muted, sober response to the resignation–and it suggests the obvious conclusion that it was Marcotte’s latest screed maligning religious people on her personal blog (written after she had promised Edwards it was never her intention to malign religious people) that did her in:

Amanda Marcotte resigned from the Edwards campaign. It was her decision. Amanda feels encumbered by the campaign and unable to effectively defend herself from the right-wing.

McEwan, by contrast, is apparently behaving herself post-apology. And so the woman who wrote all this (language warning):

What don’t you lousy motherfuckers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?

…The unmitigated temerity of calling themselves the “Pro-Family” Network while they try to undermine gay families is just about enough to send me permanently around the bend. And what’s this bullshit about children deserving to be “in that relationship”? If you’re so bloody passionate about making sure kids have a mom and a dad, then surely you’re spending at least as much time and effort on deadbeat parents and trying to criminalize divorce for couples with children, right? No? Pretty much just focused on preventing gays from giving homes to unwanted children? What a fucking surprise.

Oh, and I see on your shitbag website that “Hate Crimes Bills” are one of your priorities. What does that have to do with families? Or did you get that bug up your ass, Greg, when you went through your “conversion” and got out of the “gay lifestyle” you lived for the first half of your life? Just because you were “miserable” as a gay man and were “ashamed of being gay,” doesn’t give you the right to try to ungay-by-law all the other people who don’t feel ashamed of themselves, you useless, self-loathing turd…

…Aww, what a disappointment that this year’s hate-mongering doesn’t have a catchy phrase that will play to the Bible-bashing pseudo-Christians. That’s a damn shame.

Seriously, these wankers need to fuck off.

…will remain on the John Edwards for President staff as blogger and Internet liaison. For how long? Until the hinges come off again or nutroots peer pressure pushes her over the edge. In other words: not long.

Betsy Newmark slams the woman card-playing.

Cassandra at Villanous Company offer her withering takedown of the fem-victim whining:

The truth is simple. No one cares what Marcotte or any of her ilk have to say: in America they are perfectly free to spout their ill-considered opinions day and night, and she had – and has – a large and admiring audience for her opinions. The only “penalty” for speaking freely in America is the same one we all face: that others may disagree, disapprove, counter your ideas with opposing speech, or God forbid, exercise their right to feel offended by what you say.

To clarify, no one is trying to “silence” Ms. Marcotte. Her site has not been shut down. Stop patronizing her and treating her like a little girl.

She made a choice.

She chose to self-edit her own speech to quiet the furor her own intolerant and intemperate speech generated. Moreover, she did so to try and save her position within the Edwards campaign rather than freely choosing to state that she stood by her expressed sentiments. That, also, would have been a choice.

But the logic of those who wish to turn Ms. Marcotte into a hapless victym is compelling. After all, as so many of our left-wing brethren have hastened to inform us, it is possible to find intolerant remarks on the reich side of the blogosphere as well. Everyone has made an intolerant remark at some point in their lifetime after all, and the presence of even one insensitive joke or off-color remark justifies literally reams of similar “satire” from Ms. Marcotte.

And the fact that none of the bloggers making these intolerant remarks have been hired by Republican candidates to represent their campaigns is hardly a persuasive argument either. It is a considerable relief to know that John Edwards’ staff, apparently, did NOT choose Ms. Marcotte because of the quality of her writing or her ideas, nor because he thought his reputation would be enhanced by association with her politics. After all, what she wrote on a personal site should never have been taken… well, seriously. Let that be a lesson to those narrow-minded ‘wingers on the reich: Womyn Power is not a thing to be trifled with.

And if any of this makes sense to you, we highly recommend a few sessions in our decompression chamber…

***

Previous:

The Pandagonization of John Edwards is complete
When Angry German Boy met Angry Edwards’ Blogger (Updated)
Read-along with John Edwards’ blogger
How to become a leading Democrat’s blogmaster Updated/Correction
–and more wit and wisdom of Amanda Marcotte
Exposed: The Pandagon Papers

White House official says no, that didn’t happen. Now Congressman Kagen has climbed down a bit.

Now that Kagen’s longer story about his White House visit is getting publicity on talk radio and among political bloggers, he won’t comment on whether he referred to Laura Bush as Barbara.

“I’m going to leave that one alone,” Kagen said Wednesday. Asked why, he said, “I’ll make no comment.” As for his exchange with Rove, Kagen said he can verify that they met in the men’s room and that Rove congratulated him. But he wouldn’t comment on his reported comments to Rove.

“You are talking how many weeks ago?” Kagen asked. “I couldn’t verify the accuracy of that.”

The exchange with Rove he’s talking about? Glad you asked:

Kagen reportedly told the activists he held the door to a White House men’s room closed when he was alone with Rove.

“You’re in the White House and think you’re safe, huh?” Kagen was said to have told Rove. “You recognize me? My name’s Dr. Multimillionaire and I kicked your ass.”

Rove responded by offering Kagen his congratulations, according to a story published last week in The Scene, a monthly alternative publication that circulates in the Fox Valley.

Classy guy, that Rep. Kagen. Nothing says “seasoned statesman” like frontin’ Karl Rove in a bathroom and doing an end-zone dance. And then bragging about it to a bunch of peace activists. And did you see how Rove totally lost his cool and said “congratulations”? Boy, Kagen really zinged him there!

Or at least, he wishes he had.

H/T to Penraker.

UPDATE: Much more at Dan Riehl, including trouble with the FDA.

Tinfoil-hat syndrome can affect earnest, sincere lefties anywhere, at any time. Wherever progressives gather, whether in a hotel lobby in Vegas, or now at a protest on a beach near San Francisco, you never know when the spontaneous, irresistible urge to swaddle one’s noggin in tinfoil will strike.

Won’t you give to help fight tinfoil-hat syndrome? Because a mind is a terrible thing to encase in Reynolds Wrap in a futile effort to wall your thoughts off from KKKarl Rove’s insidious space-based gamma-ray brain-probes!!!

Thank you.

For much of the past five years, dark suspicions have been voiced about the Bush White House undermining its critics, and Karl Rove has been fingered as the chief culprit in this supposed plot to suppress the opposition.

Now at least one count in that indictment has been substantially weakened — the charge that Rove masterminded a conspiracy to discredit Iraq intelligence critic Joseph Wilson by “outing” his CIA-operative wife, Valerie Plame.

I have written almost nothing about the Wilson-Plame case, because it seemed overblown to me from the start. Wilson’s claim in a New York Times op-ed about his memo on the supposed Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger; the Robert D. Novak column naming Plame as the person who had recommended Wilson to check up on the reported sale; the call for a special prosecutor and the lengthy interrogation that led to the jailing of Judith Miller of the New York Times and the deposition of several other reporters; and, finally, the indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff — all of this struck me as being a tempest in a teapot.

No one behaved well in the whole mess — not Wilson, not Libby, not special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and not the reporters involved.

The only time I commented on the case was to caution reporters who offered bold First Amendment defenses for keeping their sources’ names secret that they had better examine the motivations of the people leaking the information to be sure they deserve protection.

But caution has been notably lacking in some of the press treatment of this subject — especially when it comes to Karl Rove. And it behooves us in the media to examine that behavior, not just sweep it under the rug.

Broder specifically name-checks Sidney Blumenthal, Newsweek (for this Howard Fineman piece), and Joe Conason and The American Prospect, which ran this cover last August:

Writes Broder:

These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.

Mirabile dictu! Good for Broder. Still waiting for the New York Times…

Andrew Cline at TAS is, too.

***

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Plameout: An Emily Litella moment
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