Can Bush survive politically without Rove?

[bluestateguy]

If Karl Rove is forced out of the White House (and because of the criminal inquiry, he also is forced to sever all communication with the White House), there could be political consequences for George W. Bush. I don't mean the embarassment of having an aide resign who is under heat. That happens to every president. The problem for Bush could be how he can sustain himself politically without Karl Rove by his side. Has Bush ever done anything, either as an executive or in a campaign setting, without the advice and consent of Karl Rove? Can Bush go through the rigors of a presidential reelection campaign without Karl Rove right by his side to strategize, make the important decisions and generally wipe his nose and comb his hair for him?

[CMT]

1. even if he were forced to leave

Rove would still somehow give political advice to Bush. Still I wonder just why we think this guy is such a mastermind? he took a candidate who was 15-points ahead of his opponent in 2000 and went to losing the election by nearly 1% only to have his ass saved by a politically motivated Supreme Court.

[Girlfriday]

2. Rove is shrub's brain

If Rove goes, shrub is toast!

[sleipnir]

16. Who's Rove's Brain??

I believe there's still a man behind the man behind the curtain pulling all the strings. Rove's being manipulated by forces unknown...at present...we'll see where this scandal goes...

[Sliverofhope]

3. I'm still feeling

kind of shaky about if this will be the one. I've been enthusiastic about all the last ones, but this one I'm worried about. Which may be a good sign, knowing how I work.

But I say he would be hurt without Rove.

[WilliamPitt]

4. Can you survive without that thing above your shoulders?

[Kool Kitty]

5. Hope springs eternal. n/t

[madmax]

6. The Political History of Karl Rove

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
By James C. Moore
Co-Author of “Bush’s Brain”
The Political History of Karl Rove

“A lie can travel around the world
while the truth is just putting on its shoes.”
Mark Twain

"I am very tired of writing about Karl Rove. Lately, though, I have felt a kind of moral obligation, and almost a patriotic duty to remind people of the man who really runs the White House. Politically, and strategically, nothing has happened in the Bush Administration without Rove’s imprimatur. Reporters have discovered Rove’s steely control in the form of what they call a “leak proof” White House. Nothing comes out of the Bush White House without Rove’s approval. Generally, that means nothing comes out of the White House.

Until Karl Rove wants something to leak.

Rove’s temper has always been his weak spot. He cannot seem to control his anger. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote in the New York Times that there was no truth to the allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger, Rove is said to have gone “ballistic.” No one who has known Rove for any period of time doubts that Rove was the one who orchestrated the leak, which “outed” Ambassador Wilson’s wife as a CIA agent. Rove has always made sure that his enemies knew he will strike back, and swing with deadly power.

Rove wasn’t just trying to intimidate Ambassador Wilson. If, as many believe, he is responsible for the leak, Rove wanted to send a message to everyone in the intelligence community that they all needed to keep their mouths shut. As the war was being sold, intelligence cooked, and the media spun, Rove and the White House had informed intelligence operatives and scientists that they were not to publicly repudiate the phony claims about aluminum tubes, which the White House falsely argued were part of an Iraqi gas centrifuge to make enriched uranium. One national reporter told me that calls to scientists and intelligence operatives to ask about the aluminum tubes, which turned out to be rocket bodies, yielded the confession the scientists and intelligence agents had been ordered to say nothing.

“We are not having this conversation,” the reporter was told.

But if he leaked Ambassador Wilson’s wife’s name, Rove was clearly trying to tell everyone in the intelligence community that they needed to toe the line, or they might also end up living at risk. This, of course, is a scurrilous, cowardly, and unpatriotic act. To believe that Karl Rove had no knowledge of this leak, or that he was not involved, it is necessary to ignore his absolute control of all things political in the White House, his Machiavellian nature, and attention to every sparrow flying under the Bush sun.

But how did it happen?"

More:
http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/sub

[frank frankly]

7. NO!

Little georgie needs lots of warm hugs and help and golf to do his job. Take out his circle one-by-one and leave him alone and terrified.

Hell, I think he might just quit. Call off sick. Call in his dad to replace him.

[Bozita]

8. Nope, Rove puts the "compassionate" into "compassionate conservatism."

May his stomach rot in hell.*



*I learned that from Baghdad Bob.

[Gman]

9. You cut the head off the snake if you get rid of Rove

Bush is already a lame duck.

[goforit]

10. Rove are the blueprints to the PNAC!......Nah, he and they all will not

survive.

[punpirate]

11. Wipe his nose for him?

<laughing> Bush has his sleeve for that....

But, no, I think Rove sets the message, and Bush sets the public tone.

As for Rove still being available to help (ala Karen Hughes), there is one way to minimize the communication--put the weasel in jail. If he so much as mentioned to an aide that it would be good idea to strike back at Wilson, he ought to spend some time in the pokey.

What's curious about this to me, though, is that someone had to have compiled an in-depth dossier on Wilson that included sensitive information on his wife, for Rove to have known. That information had to have come from the CIA. It's not as if everyone in DC knew of her activities for the CIA and just didn't say anything about it. The CIA may have requested the investigation, but do they know who in their own midst provided the info to the White House?

Cheers.

[Unknown Known]

12. Karl always let me pull the legs off frogs

And now I have nothin to do!

[sangha]

13. Of course he can

Bush* may not know very much, but one thing he does know is politics.

[grasswire]

14. the trouble is....

....that Rove could bring Bush down in an eyeblink. Rove could ruin each person in the administration and perhaps in Congress. I'm sure he has secret dossiers.

Cornered, he's dangerous to Bush and to the world.

He could turn on Bush. Disaster.

[einsteins stein]

15. The Way To Trip A Lame Man...

Is to hobble his crutch.

I have always thought that somewhere, in some heavily shadowed office, thick with cigar smoke, a cabal of the real underground dems make plots, and plan strategy against Bush, neocons, and their tools.

In that room, I divine that the recurring debate is on how to best nail Rove and Cheney.

Take these two out of the Bush equation and you get a zero sum.

Would Bush survive? Possible. But their are things worse than the death of a political career. :evilgrin:

[Nottingham]

17. Karl Rove is trying to take over this country!

and he is very close to doing it!

:bounce:

and the Republican Party are responsible for this!