Rove book worth $1.5 million-plus

GOP strategist Karl Rove has agreed to write about his years as an adviser to President Bush in a deal worth more than $1. (sic)

I believe that's a typo, but $1 seems a little high to me.

Via National News.

Head of Karl Rove Inquiry in Hot Seat Himself

So what do you think? Does the White House use some sort of points system to decide levels of loyalty? To protect Karl Rove they'll throw Scott Block under the bus?

Block doesn't serve at Dim Son's pleasure, so they needed to find another way to oust him? Just speculating here.

The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.

Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch's agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.

Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.

...

Mr. Bloch was a loyal member of the Bush administration, serving in the Justice Department's office of faith-based programs, when the president named him to head the Office of Special Counsel in 2003. Unlike many administration appointees, Mr. Bloch doesn't serve at the pleasure of the president. He has a fixed five-year term and may be removed only for malfeasance. That is supposed to ensure his agency has the independence to pursue any probe.

via Mathaba.

Bush to commemorate Katrina anniversary

File this under "returning to the scene of the crime".

First there were the references to Vietnam in a speech. Now the idiot in chief is going to NOLA. Karl Rove would never have allowed either to happen. Perhaps he really was "the brain". Obviously those advising Bush now have none.

President Bush will return to the Gulf Coast next week, where hard times and resentment linger two years after Hurricane Katrina's massive strike.

Bush will fly into New Orleans on Tuesday after giving a speech about the Iraq war to the American Legion convention in Reno, Nev. On Wednesday, the anniversary of the storm, he is expected to examine recovery efforts in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The guy has no clue. He's done little to help NOLA. Its been a complete debacle, but he's going there anyway. What a maroon.

BTW, that image is from the FEMA.gov sight.

Via Yahoo News.

KARL ROVE, CHAMPION OF THE LITTLE GUY

Need a good laugh? Sure ya do. We all do. Well I've got just the thing for you here from Kevin Drum.

A couple of days ago James Fallows dispensed some advice to Michael Gerson regarding his new op-ed perch at the Washington Post. Boiled down, he suggested that Gerson needed to reduce his output of vague, feel-good columns and instead write sharper, more pointed pieces that acknowledged his six years as George Bush's chief speechwriter and made that experience a core part of his narrative, warts and all.

Today Gerson did just that, writing a column about Karl Rove. Here's his pitch:

Rove's main influence on the Republican Party has not been a series of tactical innovations but a series of strategic arguments. In this way, Rove is the opposite of a cynical political operator.

....Rove argues that Republicans win as activist reformers, in the tradition of Lincoln, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. "We were founded as a reformist party," he said in our conversation this week, "not to be against something, but to help the little guy get ahead." The models he cites are 401(k)s and the mortgage interest deduction — government policies that encouraged individual wealth and ownership.

Ya gotta read the article because it gets funnier as Kevin eviscerates Gerson.

Last post about Rove until...

"Chaos, Panic & Disorder. My Work Here Is Done."

-- Karl Rove
Bush's brain

Just joking, but he could have said it.

Karl Rove will resign at the end of August

To spend time with the family. Wink, wink, nod, nod.

Its true if you believe the 480+ blogs I've read, AP, AFP, Reuters, NYT, etc...

Perhaps I'll investigate to verify its true, but probably not because I'm too damn lazy. Guess I could just call Karl.

Personally, I would have preferred to see him frog marched out of the WH to jail.

Shit!!!1!! Now I've posted about it. I'm such a follower.

You can run, but you can't hide

Ya gotta know this shit. Deleting emails doesn't mean what it seems.

But under normal circumstances, nothing you delete on a computer vanishes immediately. The computer clears its own record of where it put the file, but the file itself won't disappear until enough other data gets written to that same spot. Given the vast size of most new computers' hard drives, that can take years.

Run Rove, but we'll find your ugly emails. Or we will unless Bush fucks us...again.

via Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast.

Bush aides ordered to testify

I'm no expert on such things, but just how does Bush oppose subpoenas? He can't just veto them, right?

A US congressional panel has authorised legal orders for several White House aides to testify under oath about the firing of eight prosecutors.

A House of Representatives judiciary sub-committee agreed to authorise subpoenas if Karl Rove, a senior political adviser to the US president, and others refuse to testify voluntarily under oath.

The action came a day after George Bush vowed to oppose any subpoenas. He offered instead to allow aides to answer questions from investigators, but only behind closed doors, not under oath and with no transcript taken of their exchanges.

Democrats called the offer unacceptable. [duh!]

(read more)

This just gets bigger and bigger

I'm talking about the judicial firings for "apparent" political reasons. And guess who's right in the middle.

Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.

In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

"I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,'" said Weh.

(read more)