Even though Fitzgerald hasn't yet found sufficient evidence for a criminal indictment of Rove we have surpassed the threshold of ethical and moral failures that should lead Rove to either resign or be fired. Both
Joe Wilson and
Howard Dean made these points in CNN interviews yesterday with Blitzer. Matt Cooper's sworn testomony and Fitzgerald's indictment alone should be sufficient evidence for Rove to lose his security clearence.
So whether Fitzgerald indicts Rove or not, Rove will have to resign. His sordid connections to Micheal Leeden, a true real life facist are starting to break into the MSM. Twisting in the wind, he is becoming too much of a liability. And many others are not far behind. McClellan has become ineffective due to violating his "deep trusting relationship" with the WH press corp and American people. And too much of the Cheney WHIG Cabal Iraq war fabrication is out to save them at this point. For example, see Jason Leopold's Vice President Lied as White House Sought To Defuse Leak Inquiry" at RawStory.
Yesterday, Howard Dean made the additional point that 'either Rove lied to McClellan or McClellan is lying to us.' If McClellan wasn't involved with this coverup he should resign to protect his own integrity. Paul Krugman has a scathing indictment called "Ending the Fraudulence" in yesterdays NYT. The money quote is "Apologists can shout all they like that no laws were broken, that hard-ball politics is nothing new, or whatever, The fact remains that officials close to both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush leaked the identity of an undercover operative for political reason. Whether or not that act was illegal, it was clearly unpatriotic."
And every day the White House does not respond and allows these scounderals to remain in the Whitehouse they tacitly endorse this treasonous behavior and stain on the presidency. The Bush-Rove Traditional Strategy, Strategy 1, of Throwing Up Sand and Changing the Subject is not going to work this time.
As the intitial fog-of-war shock gradually lifts and the magnitude of this criminal behavior and crisis for our country sinks in, an increasing number of Republicans have will conclude that it is too damaging to the US National Security Interests and to the basic integrity of our country in the eyes of the world to allow this to drag on for three more years. The foriegn press is well ahead of us on this international credibility angle. It is not possible to extensively google the international press on these topics without becoming ill and depressed.
For whatever might be said about the culture of corruption rife within the Republican Party, there has always been a deep and noble tradition of true patriotism and service to our country and their perception of our best interest. As soon as they have a chance to catch up with these rapidly developing events and their deeply tragic implications some will act decisively and couragiously. Remember, it was actually a senior team of Republicans that went over to see Nixon in the White House to force his final departure in a way less damaging to our country. I predict similar development are already in the works. And will happen much more quickly than last time. Our nation simple can not afford three more years of descent.
Even Trent Lott, already finds this current situation unbearable and has been calling for "fresh blood" (he means new team) for over a week. I predict the demands for Rove's resignation, and at least an explanation and investigation if not resignation from Cheney will rapidly escalate from all directions. Sometimes, the national interests are so overwhelming they trump partison politics.
I predicted for a while that the order of future WH resignations would be Rove, then McClellan, a pause, then Card, Hadley, Hannah, and then eventually Cheney. But this sequence is so disasterous for Team Bush, the GOP, and the country that I realized last night that Trent Lott and other senior GOP senators have already figured this out and were starting to put up the "time for a change of player and new team" cover last week, so the entire lot could resign in mass. This would purportly be just because they were tired and Bush needs a restart, not at all related to the indictments.
But when Rove wasn't indicted last week they paused thinking that maybe Rove et. al. could be saved. Bush has been surrounded and insulated by Rove and Cheney and a bunch of folks who have a conflict of interest so Bush didn't follow through. (YET)
But Stratagy One: Stonewall, Throw Up Sand, and Change the Subject isn't working and it's going to continue to get vastly worse every day. The MSM is almost in a feeding frenzy. The WH press is in open rebellion virtually calling McClellan a liar.
Strategy Two: Trent Lott's Fresh Blood-New Team Restart is so much easier for Bush. As soon as he realizes this forget about the deep loyalty stuff. Bush (and Rove) have a long history of ruthlessly pursueing whatever option he perceives to be in his best interest.
Strategy Three: Come Clean (for everyone but Bush) and Throw the Bums Out would require an uncharactoristic amount of courage, honesty, and risk Bush being implicated by a resentful departee.
See if he goes with option Two he could give them all the Presidential Medal of Freedom and other perks for their silence. But Rove is conflicted and personally prefers Strategy One.
What I predict will happen is that soon a group of six or so Republican Senators, Representatives. and old time GOP'ers including Trent Lott, McCaine, Hatch, Spector, Dole, and with piognant irony, Frist, will come to meet Bush for the traditional "come to Jesus meeting." They will point out that sad fact that even though a lot of current team members are innocent and Bush is so loyal to the team, once again Bush will have to heroically put this aside for the good of the nation and the GOP in 2008 and call for resignations of everyone in the WHIG group.
Bush will then announce that he is shocked, truly shocked to discover from his own internal investigation that some of his senior White House staff may have become so carried away with their patriotic service to our country that they may have allowed an inappropriate political element to enter into their activities. And even though they are probably innocent, due to the overzealous nature of left wing haters of America, the distraction factor is holding Team Bush back from pursueing his positive second term agenda for America. So after conferring with his staff, he will be sad to announce that they have heroically decided to put their own self iterest, and innocence aside and resign to let a new team give Team Bush a Fresh Start For America's Future.
Either before or after the Team Refresh Cheney will announce another health problem and realize that he really needs to spend more times with his wife and family and probably write up memiors.
But my sources, (highly placed former Washington college students LOL) tell me Lott and some of the senior Republicans senators, RNC, and other GOP have already figured this out and are repositioning the cover stories. They just need to break through the Rove-Cheney insulation and get the message to Bush that the rest of this gang of scounderals are now too much of a liability and too much of the story is out to hope that it will blow over or that Cheney can be saved. It's last call to circle the wagons and protect Bush.
Then we will be ready for Act 2. We will discover how deeply implicated Bush will be by the rapidly surfacing evidence. I may be going a little out on a limb with this part, but I think it is possible by a similar logic to predict Bush will finally have to resign under the same logic of Strategy 2. Even though he will insist he is innocent, his true deep patriatism and deep passionate committment will lead him to put aside his personal interests and resign for the good of our country and the world. Then we can all move on and get started with a Fresh Start for a Positive Next Term Agenda For America with a totally new team in the White House. Depending on the timing this will either be led by Dennis Hastert (check order of succession) or the VP Bush chooses to replace Cheney.