January 18, 2008
Can This Brand Be Saved?
It's been one year since the unofficial kickoff of the 2008 presidential campaigns, and the state of play for the Republican nomination contest is remarkable both for what has changed and what hasn't.
Most obviously different are the front-runners. Mike Huckabee, nationally unknown this time in 2007, now rides comfortably in the top tier. He's always had the goods to do well in this campaign but faced long odds against better-funded celebrity candidates.
Both he and John McCain have smashed pundits' expectations and are now enjoying the attention and funding that front-runner status guarantees. But in many ways, the game for the Republicans hasn't changed one bit. This field still lacks a candidate who is all things to all GOP voters. The party isn't coalescing around one or two choices, as is happening in the Democratic race. Rather, the party is being divvied up like a pie, with each candidate representing just a slice of the big-picture GOP platform.
The primary vote is so fractured, in fact, that a brokered convention actually seems a distinct possibility. Yeah, yeah, we hear that every other cycle. Only, the longer you examine the differences among Huckabee, McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, the more completely, utterly irreconcilable those differences seem. MSNBC's Chris Matthews is taking even more heat this week for a comparison he made between the GOP and Iraq's warring factions. Matthews may have stumbled through that analogy rather inelegantly, but he is on to something.
Continue reading "Can This Brand Be Saved?"
Posted at 3:25 PM
Posted to:
Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Democrats, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, Karl Rove, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, President Bush, Republicans, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Tancredo, WH 2008
Share via
December 13, 2007
Senate Panel Holds Rove, Bolten In Contempt
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-7 today to hold former White House political adviser Karl Rove and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten in contempt of Congress for non-compliance with subpoenas in the investigation of the U.S. attorney firings scandal.
"This is not a step I have wanted to take," Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. But, he went on: "White House stonewalling is unilateralism at its worst, and it thwarts accountability. Executive privilege should not be invoked to prevent investigations into wrongdoing, and abusing it should have remedies and consequences."
Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., crossed party lines to vote with the committee's 10 Democrats in favor of the citations, though Specter acknowledged that the vote was "highly likely to be a meaningless act."
Continue reading "Senate Panel Holds Rove, Bolten In Contempt"
Posted at 7:10 PM
Posted to:
Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Congress, Karl Rove, Patrick Leahy, Senate
Share via
November 15, 2007
Rove Joins The Fourth Estate
President Bush's "Boy Genius" has crossed over to the dark side -- the mainstream media, that is.
The Poynter Institute's Jim Romenesko posted a press release from Newsweek earlier today announcing that former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove would join the magazine as an op-ed contributor. Pointing to former Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos as a model, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham explained the magazine's decision: "Whether one agrees or disagrees with Karl, there is no arguing that he has been a critical player in the political world with insights and experiences that we think will give our readers something unique."
Continue reading "Rove Joins The Fourth Estate"
Posted at 5:15 PM
Posted to:
Karl Rove, Media
Share via
August 29, 2007
Rove's Ride Pimped
Karl Rove will have a nicely wrapped present waiting for him when he gets back to Washington tonight: his Jaguar.
While Rove was away visiting with President Bush in Texas this week, White House wisecrackers wrapped his car in plastic wrap, covered the windows with stickers and topped it all off with a few stuffed toys and some stickers bearing messages such as "King Karl" and "I love Barack Obama." Rove left his car in the heavily patrolled parking lot adjacent to the White House, so the prank is more likely the work of some administration interns than rogue Obama staffers.
For the full story, you'll really want to take a look at the AP photos.
Posted at 11:54 AM
Posted to:
Karl Rove
Share via
August 17, 2007
Tony Snow Hints At WH Departure
Say it ain't so, Snowbird.
In an interview on Hugh Hewitt's radio talk show on Wednesday, White House press secretary Tony Snow suggested he would be announcing his departure from the Bush administration by Labor Day.
"I've already made it clear I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons. I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go," said Snow, a former conservative radio talk show host himself.
According to top White House aide Karl Rove, who announced on Sunday he would be stepping down, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten asked all senior staff to leave by Labor Day if they weren't planning to see President Bush's second term through.
Continue reading "Tony Snow Hints At WH Departure"
Posted at 4:27 PM
Posted to:
Bush Administration, Karl Rove, President Bush, Tony Snow
Share via
August 14, 2007
Final Verdict On Rove May Never Come
The passage of time has a way of bringing legends back down to earth. But when you're as inscrutable, provocative and, yes, mythic a figure as Karl Rove, the process by which history judges will probably meet no end.
Since Sunday's surprise announcement that he would resign, the man who essentially got George W. Bush to the White House has been besieged by postmortems that seek to take him down a peg. The purported evidence most frequently on offer is that Rove was unable to secure for Republicans control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections.
Opines the Washington Post: Rove "should be judged on his own terms: as the would-be architect of a long-lasting Republican majority.... The GOP's wipeout in 2006 would suggest that Mr. Rove did not achieve this goal, notwithstanding his brave parting words about Republican victory in 2008."
Fair enough. But there's one very important point here that isn't lost on longtime Rove observers: He's always worked for Bush, not the other way around. The confluence of events that led to the midterm defeat -- deafness on the Iraq war, a base discontented after scandal and betrayal -- originated from the Oval Office and Capitol Hill, not the mind of one political consultant, as well-placed and influential as he was.
Continue reading "Final Verdict On Rove May Never Come"
Posted at 1:01 PM
Posted to:
Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Congress, Iraq, Karl Rove, Middle East, President Bush, WH 2008
Share via
August 13, 2007
Rove Heads For The Exit
UPDATED.
Karl Rove took the microphone before reporters on the White House lawn this morning, an unusual position for a man who is well known as the man literally and figuratively behind President Bush. Today, the two stood side by side.
Bush praised his deputy chief of staff and called him a "dear friend," noting that Rove was "moving on down the road" and that Bush himself would "be on the road behind him in a little bit."
Rove had some kind words in return. Choking back tears as he looked over his right shoulder at the president, he told Bush, "Through it all, you've remained the same man. Your integrity, character and decency have remained unchanged and inspiring." The two men hugged and left the podium together.
The emotional goodbye comes at a difficult time for Rove -- and not only because he will be leaving after 14 years as a power player with Bush.
Continue reading "Rove Heads For The Exit"
Posted at 11:52 AM
Posted to:
Bush Administration, Karl Rove
Share via
August 01, 2007
Rove Will Not Testify In Attorney Firings Probe
UPDATED.
On the eve of Karl Rove's deadline to answer a congressional subpoena to testify in the attorney firings probe, White House counsel Fred Fielding informed the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that, "as an immediate adviser to the president," Bush's top political adviser would not be appearing before the panel.
The executive privilege claim has also been applied to J. Scott Jennings, deputy director of political affairs for the White House, who had been asked to provide documents and testimony to the committee investigating the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has made a copy of Fielding's letter [PDF] and the chairman's response available on his Web site.
Posted at 5:51 PM
Posted to:
Attorney Scandal, Karl Rove
Share via
June 18, 2007
'Extensive Destruction' Of White House E-Mails Found
A preliminary report from the House Oversight Committee finds "extensive destruction" of e-mails sent from the White House on RNC accounts.
The panel, led by Chairman Henry Waxman, also found that "at least 88" White House officials past and present used RNC e-mail accounts. The administration originally said only "a handful" of such accounts existed, and later said the number was "50 over the course of the administration."
In his noon briefing, press secretary Tony Snow dismissed the idea that the e-mails were intentionally destroyed, but did concede that the 140,000 e-mails in Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's RNC account was "a lot of e-mails."
Using campaign accounts for official White House business and destroying administration records are violations of the Hatch Act and Presidential Records Act, respectively. The committee's report can be found here [PDF].
Posted at 1:54 PM
Posted to:
Bush Administration, Congress, Karl Rove
Share via
June 13, 2007
Subpoenas Sent To Harriet Miers, Sara Taylor
UPDATED.
The Senate and House Judiciary committees stepped up their dual investigations of the U.S. attorney firings today by issuing subpoenas to former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former White House political director Sara Taylor. It was the first time the committees have ordered former White House officials to testify on an episode that continues to cast doubt on the political independence of the Department of Justice.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers issued a subpoena for Miers to testify on July 12. Miers stepped down early this year, and is now back with Locke Liddell & Sapp, the Houston-based law firm she co-managed before joining the Bush administration in 2001. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy ordered Taylor before the committee on July 11.
(To read Miers' subpoena, click here [PDF]. To read Taylor's subpoena, as well as one ordering White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to produce related documents, click here.)
Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate committee, painted the subpoenas as a last resort. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Specter said previous requests to speak with Taylor and Miers were met with silence.
But White House spokesman Tony Snow accused the lawmakers of seeking a "media circus" rather than the truth, citing the loads of internal documents already handed over to the committees. At the daily briefing, Snow reminded reporters that it is legal for President Bush to hire and fire federal prosecutors at whim, but said he was "not going to get into" why the White House didn't want officials testifying in public or under oath.
Continue reading "Subpoenas Sent To Harriet Miers, Sara Taylor"
Posted at 5:23 PM
Posted to:
Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Karl Rove, President Bush, Tony Snow
Share via
May 17, 2007
DOJ Offers Up E-Mail Tied To Rove
The Justice Department provided the Senate Judiciary Committee with a single e-mail Wednesday in response to a subpoena for the e-mails of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove related to the firing last year of eight U.S. attorneys.
The e-mail was sent Feb. 28, 2007, by J. Scott Jennings, an aide in Rove's White House shop, to what appears to be a Rove e-mail account linked to the Republican National Committee. It describes a telephone call Jennings received that day from Steve Bell, chief of staff to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., in which Jennings says Bell flagged a news conference to be given the same day by former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.
NationalJournal.com has the full story for free; see today's CongressDaily (subscription) for more.
Posted at 10:33 AM
Posted to:
Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Karl Rove
Share via
May 10, 2007
Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove's Role In Firings
The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin.
In one of the letters that Sampson drafted, dated February 23, 2007, the Justice Department told four Senate Democrats it was not aware of any role played by senior White House adviser Rove in attempting to name Griffin to the U.S. attorney post. A month later, the Justice Department apologized in writing to the Senate Democrats for the earlier letter, saying it had been inaccurate in denying that Rove had played a role.
Click here for Murray Waas' full report.
(Photo credit: Paul Morse)
Posted at 12:55 PM
Posted to:
Attorney Scandal, Karl Rove
Share via
March 21, 2007
House Panel OKs Subpoenas For Top Bush Aides
The House Judiciary subcommittee today swatted away an olive branch offered yesterday by President Bush in the U.S. attorney firings probe. By a voice vote, panel members voted to issue subpoenas to chief White House aide Karl Rove, former counsel Harriet Miers, and other administration officials who may have had a hand in the firings.
Continue reading "House Panel OKs Subpoenas For Top Bush Aides"
Posted at 11:44 AM
Posted to:
Attorney Scandal, Karl Rove
Share via
Karl Rove's recently announced departure has touched off a flood of analysis about the legacy President Bush's most trusted adviser will leave behind, but how much of it is real and how much is hype? In an online exclusive, National Journal White House correspondent Carl Cannon 
