The incredibly credible...Karl Rove. Sunday morning talker extraordinaire.

[madfloridian]

What a guy that Bush Architect is. He just keeps keeping on. None of the legal shadows stick, nothing. He just gets more and more attention. He gets to write for Newsweek as well

He gets to appear on Fox News as an incredibly credible spokesperson. They love his chubby little face there. He gets to be on the Sunday morning shows, and they bow to his superior political knowledge.

And while he is doing that, one of his supposed political victims is sitting in prison. That person has not even been able to file an appeal because the state is stalling on the transcript from his trial. His name is Don Siegelman, former governor of Alabama. It truly is a stain on Lady Justice.

Meanwhile, he is avoiding subpoenas from our Democrats.

Last month Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy subpoenaed Rove to testify about his role in the politicization of the Justice Department and the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. So far Rove has ignored the subpoena and has refused to testify, citing executive privilege. In addition, two weeks ago Rove skipped a Congressional hearing on the allegedly improper use by White House aides of Republican National Committee email accounts. Leahy has vowed to continue the investigation. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Rove said "I'm Moby Dick and they're after me."

Does that bother the corporate media heads who happily invite him to spread his political wisdom and blather? Not at all. He is very welcomed by them.

Moderate Republicans are becoming wary of Rove. They fear he will attack those in his own party who do not support Bush policies.

From Andrew Sullivan via the Moderate Voice:

"Next week, I'm informed via troubled White House sources, will see the full unveiling of Karl Rove's fall election strategy. He's intending to line up 9/11 families to accuse McCain, Warner and Graham of delaying justice for the perpetrators of that atrocity, because they want to uphold the ancient judicial traditions of the U.S. military and abide by the Constitution. He will use the families as an argument for legalizing torture, setting up kangaroo courts for military prisoners, and giving war crime impunity for his own aides and cronies."

From the Guardian in 2004, we see what awesome power this man has. He was able to marginalize Paul O'Neil and keep Bush in line.

Earlier this year, for instance, Paul O'Neill, Bush's former treasury secretary, gave an account of a pivotal cabinet meeting in late 2002 to discuss a second round of deep tax cuts, at which the president apparently had second thoughts about focusing so much of the benefits on the wealthy. "Didn't we already give them a break at the top?" Bush asks, according to O'Neill's account. Rove brings the president back in line, urging him to "stick to principle". Rove won the day, and O'Neill was forced out of the cabinet.

Who is Karl Rove

This paragraph from that article shows more of his power.

The incident marked the genesis of the Rove-Bush axis and it was in Washington that Rove met the younger Bush. He fell, politically speaking, in love. "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma - you know, wow," Rove recalled years later. In 1977, Rove was sent to Texas, in theory to run a political action committee, but according to one Texan political consultant who knew him at the time, "It was really to baby-sit Bush back when Bush was drinking".

He is an expert at avoiding subpoenas, then going on the air and getting attention...just as though he were a model citizen. It is amazing.

As the subject of a contempt resolution for hiding documents, Rove is hardly one to talk. Just last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-7 to approve a contempt citation against Rove for withholding information relating to the firing of U.S. attorneys:

The committee subpoenaed Rove and Bolten over the summer as part of its probe into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Bush, citing executive privilege, refused to allow Rove and Bolten to testify or turn over documents to the panel. Bolten was subpoenaed in his role as custodian of White House records, while Rove called to testify over his knowledge on the role politics played in the firings.

The Senate Judiciary Committee requested Rove’s public testimony on the firings of the prosecutors and issued subpoenas for internal White House e-mails, memos, and other related documents. White House counsel Fred Fielding said Rove “had been directed” by President Bush “not to produce any documents or to produce any testimony.”

Moreover, last April, an RNC lawyer revealed that at least four years’ worth of Rove e-mails are “missing.” Congress has sought — unsuccessfully — to recover the “lost” emails from Rove.

Think Progress

He gets much airtime, while many of our best Democrats are ignored. And when they do go on, they are insulted by the talking heads.

But hey, now that the really bad reporter, David Shuster, is out of the way, suspended indefinitely....there will likely be more room for Karl Rove and his types.