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2 total messages Started by "Alistair_Sim" Mon, 14 Nov 2005 01:51
'Stepping on his dick: Why Karl Rove should go, and why he
#99954
Author: "Alistair_Sim"
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 01:51
287 lines
10685 bytes
'Stepping on his dick: Why Karl Rove should go, and why he
won't'
Lou Dubose, LA Weekly

Karl Rove is a brilliant (and brutal) political tactician. Whether or
not
you accept that Bush won the 2000 election, it was Rove who made a
mediocre
governor with a second-rate policy mind president of the United
States. Rove
is also a self-taught American-history scholar (he never finished
college).
He is a self-made multimillionaire, earning every cent he ever made
gaming
the American political system. And he is a master of the complex
public-policy issues that bore and bewilder Bush.

None of these qualities makes Rove a good defendant or prudently
self-interested subject of a criminal investigation. In Washington,
until he
was caught up in Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of
the
leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name, Rove avoided being put under
oath --
until his four appearances before the federal grand jury handling the
Plame
case. Grand-jury proceedings are secret, so little is known about how
Rove
fared in the questioning that resulted in the indictment of Dick
Cheney
chief of staff Scooter Libby. Yet Rove's performance under oath in
Texas is
revealing, and suggests that while testifying before Fitzgerald and
the
grand jury, Rove might have stepped on his dick (to use a legal term
of art
from the state of Texas).



In August 1997, Rove responded to a subpoena by attorneys representing
five
private trial lawyers the state hired to force tobacco companies to
pay
tobacco-related medical costs incurred by the state. Rove was
subpoenaed
because while he was working for Governor Bush, he was also receiving
a
monthly paycheck for consulting work for tobacco giant Philip Morris.
The
trial attorneys were all Democrats and took on the hugely expensive
case on
a contingency agreement by which they would be paid only if they
prevailed.
They suspected Rove was secretly trying to queer the lawsuit, which
had been
undertaken by a Democratic attorney general.

It was a valid theory. By bringing in more than $17 billion for the
state,
the five law firms earned more than $3 billion in payments structured
over
several decades. Rove was Big Tobacco's guy in Austin -- mostly
because of
his Bush connection. And some of the billions the trial lawyers were
paid
would undoubtedly be used to rebuild a state Democratic Party that was
and
remains deader than the political future of Scooter Libby.

Rove was a dreadful deponent, at times arrogant, at times hostile, and
ultimately dishonest. With his lawyer at his side, he allowed himself
to be
caught in a lie that pertained to a critical fact regarding Rove, Bush
and
the tobacco companies. (In the end, the billions paid by the tobacco
companies caused Democratic Attorney General Dan Morales to lose his
sometimes slippery grip on reality, as he worked to get a cut of the
money,
married a topless dancer from Abilene, and was ultimately sent to the
Big
Rodeo by a federal judge who said he wished "there was an additional
sentence for stupidity.")

In the course of questioning, Rove told the attorney representing the
trial
lawyers that he had a firm agreement with the governor to recuse
himself
from anything having to do with tobacco. A "Chinese wall" separated
his
tobacco consulting from his work for Bush. The lawyers knew the
answers to
some of the questions before they asked them. They knew that Rove had
been
involved in polling funded by the tobacco lobby. One of the polls was
a
piece of political trash, a push poll asking respondents how they
would vote
if they knew the Democratic attorney general had provided financial
support
to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan -- which he never had. The
day the
results were released, Rove attended a tobacco-lobby meeting and
immediately
took the poll to Bush chief of staff Joe Allbaugh.

Caught in a lie about keeping Bush and Big Tobacco separate, Rove
retreated.
Rather than give it to Bush, he delivered the poll to Allbaugh, he
said,
knowing Allbaugh would throw it away without looking at it. The answer
didn't wash. Rove was not a party to the lawsuit, so he faced little
immediate risk. But the trial lawyers had what they wanted. When Bush,
acting in his capacity as governor, set out to take their fees away
from
them, they could stand before federal Judge David Folsom in Texarkana
and
point to the intellectual author of a lawsuit that would ultimately
embarrass Bush.

The tobacco suit was Rove's second failure under oath. In 1990,
Republican
Governor Bill Clements appointed Rove to a state university-board of
regents. Appearing before the Senate Nominations Committee, Rove again
was
both unprepared and dishonest. Since 1986, Rove had been providing
tips and
information to an FBI agent named Greg Rampton, who was conducting
serial
investigations of the finances of statewide Democratic officeholders.
On one
occasion Rove even announced in Washington the coming indictments of
two
lieutenants of Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower in
Austin -- more than a week before the Department of Justice unsealed
the
indictments.

Rove had met Rampton under unusual circumstances. In 1986, as a
Democratic
opponent was closing in on Rove's candidate, the incumbent governor,
Rove
held a press conference to announce that a bug had been planted in his
office. It was a brilliant tactic, pointing to the Democratic
challenger's
desperation. Special Agent Greg Rampton investigated the bugging and
no
charges were filed. A source close to the Travis County district
attorney
told me they investigated before the FBI and concluded it was a
political
stunt. Rove or someone working for him had had his own office bugged.
Five
years later, stumbling under questioning from a Democratic senator,
Rove
said he didn't exactly know Rampton. When pressed, he resorted to a
Clintonesque parsing of terms: "Ah, senator, it depends. Would you
define
'know' for me?" He then qualified his response, saying he wouldn't
recognize
Rampton "if he walked in the door." His dishonest response provided
Senate
Democrats a sufficient pretext to deny Rove his university board
position.

Over the past two years, Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for Chicago,
has
interviewed almost 50 people, including the president and vice
president. He
has reams of documents and phone logs subpoenaed from government
offices and
news outlets. He knows the truthful answer to many questions before he
asks
them. Rove has faced the grand jury four times, without the aid of
legal
counsel, as lawyers do not accompany clients into the grand-jury room.
Prosecutors in possession of a great deal of information can lay
perjury
traps that can turn a subject into a target. With four times at bat,
it's
likely that Rove committed a few errors. He's still in the deal, as is
evident in a Washington Post story that had Fitzgerald interviewing
the
lawyer for Time reporter Matthew Cooper a week before indicting Libby.
The
topic of the interview was Rove.

There's more. As Republican Party corruption metastasizes, Rove's
personal
secretary, Susan Ralston, who patched through the call from Cooper to
Rove,
has been called before two grand juries in two separate
investigations. Both
might involve her boss. Besides the Valerie Plame investigation,
Ralston was
called before a grand jury investigating lobbyist Jack Abramoff,
suspected
of bilking American Indian clients out of $82 million. Time reports
that
Abramoff twice had Christian Right politico Ralph Reed ask Rove for
specific
favors for his clients. Abramoff is a known quantity in the White
House. He
served on the Bush transition team in 2000 and has raised at least
$200,000
for the Bush campaign. Before his lobbying operation went south, he
was an
occasional guest at the White House. And he recommended his personal
secretary, Susan Ralston, to Rove. A source close to one of the Indian
tribes stiffed by Abramoff says he told tribal leaders that he
sometimes met
with Rove -- outside the White House so Abramoff's name wouldn't
appear in
visitor logs. That source has been interviewed by the FBI regarding
the
Abramoff investigation, so it is assumed that information was passed
on and
will be run by Rove or Ralston.

It's hard for Bush to pull the plug on Rove. Rove is the last of the
three
political advisers Bush brought from Texas who remains on the White
House
staff. Not only is he responsible for Bush's two victories, he does
much of
the policy and political thinking for Bush. Disaster relief in New
Orleans
went as it did in part because of Rove's kidney stones and legal
problems.
Bush finds it hard to function without him. Until Rove had to sit out
a few
presidential trips because of his legal problems, he advised Bush on a
daily
basis since the first presidential campaign began in 1998. Rove is as
correctly described in Wayne Slater and Jim Moore's book Bush's Brain.
And
now there's quiet talk among White House aides that it's time to cut
losses
and send him on his way.

Don't count on it. If things get really bad, maybe Bush will bring
Special
Agent Greg Rampton out of retirement to work the case. And maybe this
time,
Rove will recognize him if he walks in the door.

Lou Dubose is the co-author of Boy Genius, a political biography of
Karl
Rove; and The Hammer, a Public Affairs book about Majority Leader Tom
DeLay.
He is currently working on a Random House book on the Bill of Rights.

Source: LA Weekly
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/51/news-dubose.php


--
Alistair Sim

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none
more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more
repugnant
to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called
Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and
too
inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid, or produces
only
atheists and fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of
despotism; and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests; but so
far
as respects the good of man in general, it leads to nothing here or
hereafter. Β–Thomas Paine



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Re: 'Stepping on his dick: Why Karl Rove should go, and why he isn't grik
#99957
Author: "Costas Spyronik
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 02:13
10 lines
212 bytes
Alistair_Sim wrote:
> 'Stepping on his dick: Why Karl Rove should go, and why he
> won't'
> Lou Dubose, LA Weekly
>
> Karl Rove is a brilliant (and brutal) political tactician.

AND he isn't a grik so feck off

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