Posted on 07/13/2005 6:08:10 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Loyalty has long been the most hallowed virtue in the Bush White House, but rarely has it been tested the way it has this week.
No one has been closer to the president longer, or bailed him out of more tight spots, than Karl Rove, his chief political adviser. Now the question is whether President Bush can protect Mr. Rove from a gathering political storm, no matter how furious it becomes.
Current and former White House officials who know both men say they have no doubt that as long as Mr. Rove faces no serious legal charges - and so far he has yet to be charged with anything, and may never be - Mr. Bush will defend him. They point to the words Mr. Bush used to silence conservative critics of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales last week, warning them curtly, "I'm loyal to my friends."
Mr. Bush, who once said he would fire anyone on his staff who had knowingly leaked the name of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson, also known by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, ignored a question about Mr. Rove posed to him on Tuesday by a reporter on the edges of an Oval Office meeting with the prime minister of Singapore.
But hours later, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, who on Monday declined to answer any questions about the matter, broke briefly out of no-comment mode to come to Mr. Rove's defense. He noted that reporters had asked whether the president still had "confidence in particular individuals, specifically Karl Rove." He answered his own question, saying, "Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn't be working here at the White House if they didn't."
Mr. Bush's loyalty has limits....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Remember the following stories when the liberals declared early fake victories and had fake orgasms at the prospect that it will destroy the Bush presidency, and remember the knee jerk reaction from people like you who declared all type of doom and gloom regarding these stories. Here are some of them:
The war in Iraq, Iraq WMD, the Bush national Guard service, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Richard Clark, Paul O’Neil, the 9-11 commission, the August 2001 national security briefing, the 2003 and 2004 versions of Valerie Plame non story, the Iraq/Niger Uranium story, the missing explosives in Al Kaaka Iraq etc….
This 2005 version of the Valerie Plame non story will be crushed by facts and reality and for the millionth time, liberals, their media whores, and the knee jerk conservatives, will be utterly defeated again by President Bush and “yes” Karl Rove.
I agree that the indictment is very unlikely. The only way I can see it happening is if the prosecutor finds that Rove made misstatements to the grand jury. The evidence to date seems to rebut the argument that Rove outted a spy, but lying to a grand jury is a separate matter.
Now she just works for the CIA. The assumption is that at some point in time, she was covert, though. Supposedly, she was at one time based overseas, operating out of US Embassys.
A year from now, I bet half the American people believe that Rove leaked the CIA agent's name. The media is getting a free run on this one.
I am sitting here enjoying every minute of the media's eventual imploding and it is coming! That limb is being sawed off bit by bit even as I type.
Glad you posted this because it is hilarious to read and watch!
You are correct! Stories are all over the map and can tell that Novak even today is sitting there waiting for the first second he can put out the "real" story. I love it!
There's no statement the President could make--and nothing to be gained if he made it--that would not be twisted by the press into something else.
The best course of action is for Bush to let the US and the world see him as a Pressident focused on the war on terrorism, homeland security, improving the US economy, fixing Social Security, nominating the next SC justice(s)....and making a recess apointment of Bolton to the UN post.
The problem is that if Bush DOES defend Rove, the Bushbots will flop over and claim it is a stroke of genius. He's a genius for remaining slient. He's a genius for speaking out.
But I'm an idiot. Oh well....
Good morning.
If W cans Rove, the leftists will seize upon the firing as proof that they were right. They will them jump on W with both feet for being disloyal to his friends.
Michael Frazier
The media isn't getting any free ride on this one.
The last thing Bush should do is speak out on this. Let them hang themselves. It's all going to blow up in their faces, and there will be plenty of other media to rub their noses in it.
The cone of silence may come down at the NYT's, but it sure won't anywhere else.
The Democrats and their newspaper are going to look like complete fools, as always. August, typically a slow news month, these other papers will have nothing much else to do but rub it in.
Of course all MSM moderators are agenda driven and care not one wit about getting to the bottom of these foolish questions about Rove. If they read FR they would know where malfeasance is and what to ask, but they have not the love of he truth.
McClellan said, "if anyone in this administration was involved in [the leak], they would no longer be in this administration."
Does anyone remember how quickly Kerry dumped Wilson based on the rumor that Wislson lied about several things in his book and his NYT op ed piece? Didn't Kerry dump several others on rumors during the campaign?
While flipping channels last night, I came across Newt's dismantling of O'Blowhard. It was a joy to behold.
O'Full-of-Himself was speechless. Haven't been able to watch the pompous one in longer than I can remember, so I was delighted to witness the spectacle.
And in fact she was not a covert agent.
A lot of people got thrown over the side during the Kerry campaign. Jim Rassman (the guy who the great "war hero" rescued) as well as Max Cleland, all but vanished after the Swiftees torpedoed Lurch and the campaign decided that running on a 30-year-old fraudulent war record wasn't such a hot idea after all.
There was also the de-listing of the Daily Kos from the Kerry website after they celebrated the murder of the four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, the wild scramble away from Bill Burkett and Mary Mapes after the Dan Rather TANG documents blew up, etc. I'm sure others can add to this list.
LOL. David Sanger and the New York Times must have been out of the loop for the past couple of years.
It was Joseph C. Wilson IV that was "discredited", not the "16 words".
Willful misinformation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.