Over the last few years, the White House has weathered its share of scandals ... No WMD, Texas Air National Guard, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Jeff Gannon, The Downing Street Memo ... and every time we all breathless proclaimed that This Could Be The One. The One that brings out the impeachment dogs, The One that will finally show the administration's true colors, The One that will forever taint Bush's legacy.
Well, turns out, Rove's outing of Plame might really be The One, because it is remarkably different than all the others for one reason ...
... It was motivated by political revenge.
Every other stupid, underhanded, mean, dirty trick this administration has pulled was done with a political intent in mind, and in one way or another furthered the NeoCon agenda.
But outing Plame did nothing but exact revenge on Joe Wilson for speaking the truth. There was no upside, even for the White House. And that's why it could very well be the end of Karl Rove, if not Bush Jr.
The Bushes and most of the Bush cabal, for all their insidious faults, aren't into revenge. They understand that politics is a forward-looking game. There's no time for revenge when you have an aggressive war to sell, an AWOL to cover up, a Social Security system to destroy.
Rove did this on his own, in my opinion. And while Bush has so far not said much, it's telling that he hasn't said much. Hasn't exactly said anything supporting his old buddy Karl, has he?
I think Karl finally jumped the shark by engaging in stupid, meaningless, and ultimately useless political revenge, and I think he'll pay the price. And the longer the administration lets him hang around, the more of them he'll take down with him.