Always A Bridesmaid...Never The Bride

It seems like Karl Rove is always under investigation, but no one ever quite catches him doing anything! It's a wonder the poor guy doesn't develop some kind of persecution complex. The most recent dust up is connected to Karl's role in attorneygate related e-mails. It seems some of them are missing...lost. Many of them Karl Rove's.

Apparently, some White House staffers, in order to bypass regular channels, set up alternative e-mail accounts at non-governmental sites...like the Republican National Committee...so they could discuss stuff that's not suitable or proper to discuss at work. Or stuff they didn't want to show up in the White House's computer system. If you have a job that requires you to use your computer, you probably have a separate e-mail account with Yahoo, so your boss doesn't catch you using the company's system to e-mail friends about last night's date from hell, from your work computer.

In this particular case, Karl and some others used their RNC e-mail accounts to talk about things they didn't want as part of the public record. There are still some among us, a few misguided fools, who like to think that the business of government is infused with high purpose. That important mattters of state are always being discussed, and that our survival, our security as a nation, depends on the confidentiality of Karl Rove's e-mails. Those people don't want to know that the guys in the White House were pulling together a "hit list" of U.S. Attorneys they wanted to fire, and the lawyers they were proposing to replace them, weeks before anyone ever thought anything was going on in the first place.

They certainly wouldn't want to believe that a man as brilliant as Karl Rove would ever be part of an effort, say, to "go after" Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney from Illinois, who was investigating the CIA leak case...while he was investigating it. In fact, Fitzgerald investigated Rove's role in the CIA leak case, and went through all his e-mail accounts at that time...at least people assumed he did. If you recall, rumors were flying for a while that Karl had come within a hair (no pun intended) of being indicted for his role in orchestrating the outing of Valerie Plame, an undercover agent of the CIA.

Then there was the Jack Abramoff scandal. You remember the Republican lobbyist who was indicted and convicted of crimes, influence peddling, bribery, etc.? The one who Bush said he never met? The one who has pictures (probably photoshopped!) of himself at the White House with the President? The guy who's former staffer worked for Rove? Or was it Rove's former staffer who worked for Jack Abramoff? It does get confusing! Rumors were flying fast and furious during that time as well, that Rove would be indicted any second! Except of course he wasn't. Close, but no cigar! (Sorry about the cigar pun!) Karl has come so close so often, and yet he always lands on his feet.

In any event, Senator Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the committee investigating the firing of the U.S. attorneys, compared the "lost" e-mails to the 18 minute gap in Rose Mary Woods' dictation tapes when she worked for Nixon. Those 18 minutes, 'accidentally' erased by Miss Woods, then personal secretary to President Nixon, contained crucial evidence, the proverbial smoking gun, of the Watergate investigation.


But unlike the 18 minute tape gap, circa 1974, these e-mails are recoverable and Leahy seems determined to find them. It's not yet clear whether any laws were broken in attorneygate, except for lying. When you lie under oath, it's called perjury. Even if it's only Congress you're lying to. And hiding evidence or making things difficult is called obstruction of justice. That's a crime, too. Who knows. We may finally see Karl Rove walking down the aisle...the perp walk.


Copyright, 2007