Free Republic

It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign. The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public –...

SAN FRANCISCO - An anti-war protester confronted former Bush administration aide Karl Rove while he spoke at a San Francisco mortgage bankers' meeting. A statement by the group Code Pink identified the woman as 58-year-old Janine Boneparth, who tried to handcuff Rove in what she called a citizen's arrest for "treason."

Dems worry Bush could pardon Rove, Miers By Susan Crabtree Posted: 10/03/08 12:55 PM [ET] Democrats are worried that President Bush may pardon Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and other key administration officials alleged to have played a role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), who chairs a Judiciary Committee subcommittee, expressed concern Friday that Bush pardons on the final day of his tenure in the Oval Office could cut off any chance of former White House officials being forced to testify before Congress about their role in the U.S. attorneys' removal in 2006. The Department...

Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers tell two other people: “We’re closing in on Rove. Someone’s got to kick his ass.” Asked a few minutes later for a more official explanation, Conyers told us that Rove has a week to appear before his committee. If he doesn’t, said Conyers, “We’ll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We’d hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested.” Conyers said the committee wants Rove to testify about his role in the imprisonment of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, among...

Finally, after nearly a year we get to the bottom of the story. Last spring, you were held up as a parody of environmental correctness when you proposed restricting the use of toilet paper to one square per bathroom visit. What was that about? I think it’s a fantastic and eye-opening example of how the media is operated by political figures, of how Karl Rove was humiliated in the media and how, within 24 hours, he was able to humiliate me and take any sort of credibility away from me. What are you saying? You think Karl Rove leaked the...

Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's car, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007, after someone wrapped the car in plastic wrap and put eagles and stickers, including one with I love Obama on it. The car was parked on White House grounds and the prank is a goodbye gift of sorts for Rove, who is retiring in two days. . (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds

You have many things for which you can be deeply grateful. Here is one of the biggest: Yep, you've done some horrible things in your life. Embarrassing things. Stupid. Mean. Violent, even. Eaten dirt. Smacked a baby. Kicked a kitten. Stomped some flowers. Stole. Lied. Cheated. Beat up a tree. Spit instead of swallowed. Drank bad wine. Voted Republican. Shared a needle. Promised to call and then didn't. You know, the usual. But maybe some of these things now make you cringe and recoil and slump down a little lower in your chair when you think about them, because, well,...

If Karl Rove was responsible for dividing America and shredding the Constitution – heady achievements for a political consultant – inquiring minds want to know: Who is the liberal Karl Rove? And since the answer is obviously, “There isn’t one,” perhaps we can glean something from asking why.

10 Lessons From Karl Rove By RICK KLEIN Aug. 13, 2007 — With Karl Rove leaving the White House, The Note's Rick Klein offers 10 lessons learned from Rove's tenure as President Bush's top strategist. 1. There's no such thing as perma-anything in politics. Rove spoke longingly about building a "permanent" Republican majority. But President Bush's two terms in office -- particularly last year's midterm congressional elections -- prove that American politics is too narrowly divided, and too cyclical, for anything to last forever. (Even the Bush-Clinton-Bush cycle can't last forever -- can it?) 2. The Bush model works. Rove...

When I went to my office Monday, July 7, 2003, Joe Wilson was not in the forefront of my mind. Frances Fragos Townsend was. She had just been named deputy national security adviser at the White House though her background was in liberal Democratic politics, including Attorney General Janet Reno's inner circle during the Clinton administration. Her appointment was a political mystery of the kind I had been exploring for forty years in my column. I wrote the Townsend column Tuesday morning because I had a busy schedule the rest of the day, including a 3 p.m. appointment with Richard...

Rove Saw Coaching of Prosecutor Witness WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senior Justice Department official who testified about performance shortcomings of several fired U.S. attorneys has told congressional investigators he was coached the day before at a White House meeting attended by political adviser Karl Rove. The witness, Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella, said he was urged during the dinner hour meeting on March 5 to publicly specify reasons for the dismissals, according to a transcript of the investigators' April 24 interview with him. Until the March 6 hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee, Justice Department officials had said publicly...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a subpoena Wednesday for all e-mails from White House adviser Karl Rove that relate to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. “Attached please find a subpoena compelling the Department by May 15 to produce any and all emails and attachments to emails to, from, or copied to Karl Rove related to the Committee’s investigation into the preservation of prosecutorial independence and the Department of Justice’s politicization of the hiring and firing and decision-making of United States Attorneys, from any (1) White House account, (2) Republican National Committee account, or (3) other account,...

By the time he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice on March 6 of this year, it had long been clear to opponents of the Bush administration that the trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby marked a defining moment. As Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Libby had been a central figure in developing the President’s case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The lies he was accused of telling were wrapped up in the justification for that war, and with the administration’s attempt to discredit one of its critics. Thus, an acquittal of Libby would...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the two-thirds majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote. The House panel's action was part of a rapid-fire schedule Democrats have set to compel Bush administration officials, among them Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The fight over documents has gone to red alert. The White House acknowledges it cannot find four years' worth of e-mails from chief political strategist Karl Rove. The admission has thrust the Democrats' nemesis back into the center of attention and poses a fresh political challenge for President Bush. The administration has acknowledged that some e-mails missing from Rove's Republican party account may relate to the firing of eight U.S. prosecutors last year. The Democratic-run Congress is investigating whether the firings resulted from political pressure by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the White House. For Democrats, the...

WASHINGTON - White House adviser Karl Rove was confronted by more than a dozen protesters who blocked his car and threw things as he tried to leave a speaking engagement at American University, officials said. Rove was attending a guests-only discussion of electoral politics Tuesday night sponsored by the American University College Republicans. “It was their last meeting of the year, and Mr. Rove spent about an hour with the students,” said Maralee Csellar, a university spokeswoman

WASHINGTON - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took on the first witness in the CIA leak case Thursday, dissecting an expert witness until she acknowledged errors and misstatements in her research. Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, hoped the hearing would persuade a judge to let him call a memory expert at his obstruction and perjury trial in January. At the outset of the procedural hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton indicated that he was not inclined to allow a memory expert to testify at the trial. Still, he allowed Libby's lawyers to present a...

...Has Times editor gotten away with murder?Posted: September 22, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern If you blinked you would have missed it. I'm speaking of the news coverage about who really leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a non-covert CIA agent. The leaker, former Colin Powell aide Richard Armitage, was a vocal critic of the war in Iraq. Perhaps the media "overlooked" Armitage and his role in this scandal precisely because he shared their disdain for the war in Iraq. Did you happen to notice that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby didn't receive that same consideration – even though they...

WASHINGTON - The judge in the CIA leak case ruled Thursday that if Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald feels that admitting certain classified documents at the upcoming trial of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby can jeopardize national security, Fitzgerald can then move to dismiss the perjury charges against Libby. Judge Reggie Walton cannot automatically allow classified materials to be admitted at trial. He first must go through a series of closed hearings under CIPA regulations. CIPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act, protects and restricts the discovery of classified information in a way that does not impair the defendant's right to a fair...

The Fitzpatrick Plame investigation has spurred the New York Times into examining how their reporters conduct themselves. Apparently, the Gray Lady wants her staff to act more like terrorists and drug dealers. Reporters are being told to delete emails, destroy notes, and use disposable cell phones in order to stymie future investigations.