The Karl Rove/Clinton Gambit

My apologies for not posting anything in recent days. A brutal combination of illness and my day job intervened.

I did want to at least post my theory about Karl Rove's recent commentary regarding Hillary Clinton's "high negatives." Obviously, Senator Clinton being on the receiving end of Rove's attention is beneficial to her campaign and Rove knows this. Naturally, this leads to speculation that Rove wants Senator Clinton to prevail in next year's primaries because he perceives her as the Democrats weakest candidate. Senator Clinton's defenders will no doubt claim Rove's attention illustrates she is the strongest candidate and Rove wants her softened up.

This is my take. Rove knows that among the three Democrats perceived among the establishment as most likely to be nominated, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Senator Clinton, she is the most likely to maintain a long term American presence in Iraq. Although Clinton has adjusted her rhetoric about the war and her vote in 2002 to become more palatable to core Democratic voters, she once again was cautious about implementing a withdrawal during yesterday's debate in Iowa.

Rove meanwhile may be thinking that if the next President pulls out of Iraq, Bush's legacy will lose any remaining chance to be salvaged. He also knows the GOP is headed toward its worst defeat since 1964. Hence, the highest probability for staying in Iraq after the election and vindicating the Bush/Cheney immoral war of choice is Hillary Clinton. At least that's probably how Karl Rove sees it.

Henry Waxman Delivers A Stiff Dose of the Truth

In my opinion, the finest Democrat in Washington today is Congressman Henry Waxman. Waxman represents California’s 30th congressional district and is the Chairman for the committee of Oversight and Government Reform. His committee issued a statement today about the Republican National Committee’s use of White House email accounts.

Waxman is a dogged investigator and it appears there may be enough evidence to initiate impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who knowingly allowed the law to be violated while serving as White House Counsel.

Click here to read the statement at the committee’s website directly or refer to my copy and paste job below.
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The Oversight Committee has been investigating whether White House officials violated the Presidential Records Act by using e-mail accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee and the Bush Cheney ‘04 campaign for official White House communications. This interim staff report provides a summary of the evidence the Committee has received to date, along with recommendations for next steps in the investigation.

The information the Committee has received in the investigation reveals:

• The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed. In March 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that only a “handful of officials” had RNC e-mail accounts. In later statements, her estimate rose to “50 over the course of the administration.” In fact, the Committee has learned from the RNC that at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts. The officials with RNC e-mail accounts include Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.
• White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.
• There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC. Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. Rove’s former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts. Although the RNC has preserved no e-mail records for Ken Mehlman, the former Director of Political Affairs, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Mehlman used his account “frequently, daily.” In addition, there are major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails. The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush’s first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006.
• There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records. In her deposition, Ms. Ralston testified that she searched Mr. Rove’s RNC e-mail account in response to an Enron-related investigation in 2001 and the investigation of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later in the Administration. According to Ms. Ralston, the White House Counsel’s office knew about these e-mails because “all of the documents we collected were then turned over to the White House Counsel’s office.” There is no evidence, however, that White House Counsel Gonzales initiated any action to ensure the preservation of the e-mail records that were destroyed by the RNC.

The Presidential Records Act requires the President to “take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented … and maintained as Presidential records.” To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account.

The evidence obtained by the Committee indicates that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements. At this point in the investigation, it is not possible to determine precisely how many presidential records may have been destroyed by the RNC. Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.

There are several next steps that should be pursued in the investigation into the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials. First, the records of federal agencies should be examined to assess whether they may contain some of the White House e-mails that have been destroyed by the RNC. The Committee has already written to 25 federal agencies to inquire about the e-mail records they may have retained from White House officials who used RNC and Bush Cheney ’04 e-mail accounts. Preliminary responses from the agencies indicate that they may have preserved official communications that were destroyed by the RNC.

Second, the Committee should investigate what former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales knew about the use of political e-mail accounts by White House officials. If Susan Ralston’s testimony to the Committee is accurate, there is evidence that Mr. Gonzales or counsels working in his office knew in 2001 that Karl Rove was using his RNC e-mail account to communicate about official business, but took no action to preserve Mr. Rove’s official communications.

Third, the Committee may need to issue compulsory process to obtain the cooperation of the Bush Cheney ’04 campaign. The campaign has informed the Committee that it provided e-mail accounts to 11 White House officials, but the campaign has unjustifiably refused to provide the Committee with basic information about these accounts, such as the identity of the White House officials and the number of e-mails that have been preserved.

A Stiff Dose of the Truth From Paul Krugman

With today’s post, I’ll simply defer to the wisdom of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. As usual, Krugman incisively captured the truth in his column today entitled, “Wrong Is Right.”

On the importance of admitting error:

“The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards — “I was wrong” — matter so much to the Democratic base. The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White House who doesn’t sound like another George Bush. That is, they want someone who doesn’t suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit mistakes and learn from them.

And there’s another reason the admission by Mr. Edwards that he was wrong is important. If we want to avoid future quagmires, we need a president who is willing to fight the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom on foreign policy, which still — in spite of all that has happened — equates hawkishness with seriousness about national security, and treats those who got Iraq right as somehow unsound. By admitting his own error, Mr. Edwards makes it more credible that he would listen to a wider range of views.”

I would add that Edwards was shrewd to apologize for his support of the Iraq War in 2005. Senator Clinton however would appear to be insincere and pandering if she apologized at this point. That’s not necessarily fair because I believe Edwards’ initial support of the war and his later apology were both acts of political expediency over principle. Nonetheless, that’s the way it is.

Krugman had this gem about John McCain:

“Senator John McCain, whose reputation for straight talk is quickly getting bent out of shape, appears to share the Bush administration’s habit of rewriting history to preserve an appearance of infallibility.

Last month Senator McCain asserted that he knew full well what we were getting into by invading Iraq: 'When I voted to support this war,' Mr. McCain said on MSNBC, 'I knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I’m sorry they were mistaken.'

But back in September 2002, he told Larry King, ‘I believe that the operation will be relatively short,” and “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.””

Although Krugman’s primary focus was Senator Clinton’s current political position, I thought this anecdote about Rudy Guiliani was the best part of his column:

“Here’s an incident from 1997. When New York magazine placed ads on city buses declaring that the publication was ‘possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn’t taken credit for,’ the then-mayor ordered the ads removed — and when a judge ordered the ads placed back on, he appealed the decision all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.

Now imagine how Mr. Giuliani would react on being told, say, that his choice to head Homeland Security is actually a crook. Oh, wait.”

When I contemplate the leadership qualities of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Rudy Guiliani I want to cry for my country.