Roving around

These are some of the better quotes I've come across relevant to Rove's troubles:

Ed Kilgore of the DLC (So Many Chickens Coming Home to Roost New Donkey blog 07/11/05):

But ah, could it be possible that the man who has raised dirty tricks, poltical intimidation, and character assassination to the highest levels of geopolitical strategy could be laid low by a cheap act of personal spite aimed at an obscure former diplomat who threw a minor monkey wrench into the run-up to the war in Iraq? Could the top operative in a leak-proof White House be brought down by a leak? Is the Boy Genius capable of such stupidity?

If so, and Rove falls from power, it will be another sign that the legendary discipline and self-confidence of the Bush administration during W.'s first term represented little more than an unusual ability to ignore the consequences of their irresponsible acts. You can't do that perpetually, of course, and that's why the air now seems filled with the squawking of so many chickens coming home to roost.

Juan Cole (Rove Unfit for Public Office Informed Comment blog 07/12/05):

The real question is whether we want a person to occupy a high office in the White House when that person has cynically endangered US national security to take a petty sort of revenge on a whistleblower. ...

In revenge, Rove tried to discredit [Joe] Wilson and perhaps also punish him and his family. The purpose of such punishment is always to bully and terrorize other employees, as well as to shut up the whistleblower. Since the Bush administration has done so many illegal things, if Washington insiders started blowing the whistle, there could be a hundred Watergates. Rove let everyone in Washington know that he would destroy anyone who dared step forward.

But Rove's revenge on Wilson was the ultimate. Plame was undercover as an employee of a phony energy company. She was actually investigating illegal proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. When Rove blew her cover to the US press, everyone who had ever been seen with her in Africa or Asia was put in extremedanger. It is said that some of her contacts may have been killed. Imagine the setback to the US struggle against weapons of mass destruction proliferation that this represents. Rove marched us off to Iraq, where there weren't any. But he disrupted a major effort by the CIA to fight WMD that really did exist. ...

The actions are those of a traitor. What is the difference between Robert Hansen revealing key secret information for money to the Soviets and Karl Rove revealing it to the proliferators for political gain for the Republican Party and the Bush White House? Both are traitors who traded secrets for gain.

John Dean Worse Than Watergate (2004):

... Planting (or leaking) this story about Valerie Plame Wilson is one of the dirtiest tricks I've seen in lowball/hardball politics.  When the American Prospect wrote that "we are very much into Nixon territory here," it was an understatement.  I thought they played dirty at the Nixon White House, but this is worse for two reasons.  Nixon never went after his enemies' wives, and he never employed a dirty trick that was literally life-threatening.  Anyone in the White House with sufficient access to this information had to be sophisticated enought to realize that revealing the identity of a covert agent placed not only her life in danger but also the lives of those with whom she had worked in foreign countries.

Josh Marshall (The Short and Sweet of It, TPM Cafe 07/11/05:

The essence of this is that Karl Rove and his boss put scoring political points over protecting the nation from nuclear weapons.  That's the nugget. 

Bush/Rove = (Politics > Protecting us from Nukes).

That they broke the law to do it only drives home the essential recklessness.  And rather than hold Rove accountable, President Bush promoted him. (my emphasis)

San Francisco Chronicle editorial The Karl Rove connection 07/12/05

The "outing" of Plame effectively destroyed her career as a covert agent and may have undermined past and future U.S. intelligence operations. It sure smells like retribution against a public servant who dared contradict the White House party line. It also may have been a crime.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller sits in jail today for refusing to reveal the source of the information she received about Plame.

Meanwhile, Karl Rove continues to roam the White House, wielding great power as well as a security clearance.

There is something terribly wrong with this picture.

Marshall Whitman's prediction that Bush will hang on to Rove until the bitter end is also worth noting: (Bergen and McCarthy TPM Cafe 07/12/05)

Bush was, and is well aware of how Rove operates.  He peddles in gossip, innuendo and rumor to destroy his enemies.  Ironically, in this instance he was divulging the truth.

Rove also understands internal GOP politics.  It is likely he gave the speech a couple of weeks ago attacking liberals to cement his relationship with the right as he enters this difficult time with the Plame prosecutor.  Also, he may be influential in promoting conservative replacements on the Supreme Court to further bolster his standing with the right.

Rove is the nerve center of today's Republican Party.