IT'S NOT ABOUT ROVE.

It's Not About Rove

As encouraging as it is to see the corporate media press the White House on the Rove scandal, their pressure will only mean anything if they, and the American people, come to the realization that this isn't about Rove. In fact, despite what many on the left have argued, it's not even about WMDs or Iraq. It's about one thing only...

It's about the president.

Consider Watergate. Watergate didn't bring down Richard Nixon from the outside. Nixon didn't succumb to the external weight of Watergate. Watergate brought Nixon down because it allowed America to see that Watergate wasn't something outside of Nixon's control, Watergate wasn't even an extreme to which Nixon had strayed; Watergate was Nixon. It was his very essence.

The same holds true with Rove-gate (if we must call it that). President Bush has not chosen Karl Rove as his architect despite Rove's excesses. President Bush has made Karl Rove his most trusted, most powerful aide precisely because of Rove's excesses. Pres. Bush knew full well that the first Pres. Bush fired Rove for leaking to Novak more than ten years ago. That didn't disqualify him for the job, that was WHY Bush likes him.

Now, Pres. Bush's inability to take the same step his father took (without a criminal investigation, by the way) must be interpreted as his endorsement of everything Rove is and does. Rove smears people because Bush wants him to. Rove lies because Bush wants him to. Rove turns everything into politics because Bush doesn't know what his father knew -- that there exists some line beyond which service to country must trump political victory (that's why Bush Sr. could renege on his "no new taxes" pledge).

The question should not be whether Bush will fire Rove. The answer is clearly that he will not unless he is absolutely forced to (as the president essentially acknowledged when he said only a criminal record would disqualify someone from working in his White House). It's time for the White House press corps to stop asking under what circumstances Bush will fire Rove. It's time for the White House press corps to start treating this incident as something that happened outside Bush's ken and without his permission. The president's administration has stonewalled both criminal inquiry (see Murray Waas's report that Rove wasn't fully forthcoming with the FBI) and public inquiry on this matter. The president has sent his functionaries out to switch the storyline from "leak" to "whistleblower." And the president himself has said that he will keep Rove in the White House unless Rove is removed by force of law.

The president has now taken ownership of Rove's actions. It's time for the White House press corps to start asking him to explain Rove's actions as if they were his own. Because now they are.

by Jonathan Larsen on July 19, 2005 - 11:27pm.