Revealed: The real reason behind the Dem push on Attorneygate

For the last couple of weeks, the news outlets have been saturated with stories on the eight fired US attorneys, stories which included wild speculation and accusations from (mostly) Democrats that the President has ‘abused his power’ and ‘we want to get to the bottom of this’ yada yada.

We already know that one of the big goals of the Democrats in Congress is to undermine this President to the point where he has no political capital whatsoever, but another goal of this Congress that has been forgotten since the pLamegate trials didn’t end up with numerous administration officials being paraded in front of the cameras for their perp walks is their desire to see Karl Rove fired/force to resign/arrested. At the heart of pLamegate was that desire – honesty on their side was a casualty of their almost obsessive nature towards ‘getting Rove’ at any costs, truth be damned. Democrats have had a hard time nailing Bush directly on anything, so their aim has been to target everyone around him in hopes of destroying the administration.

With that in mind, it’s worth noting that in many of the Attorneygate stories has been an exploration of just what role Rove had in the firings, as if him commenting or making suggestions on US attorneys would be out of bounds (it isn’t). Well, today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed the underlying motivation for the Dems push on the fired 8 attorneys scandal. It’s to get Rove – because he wasn’t indicted in pLamegate (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON (CNN) — White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove should testify to Congress under oath regarding the U.S. attorney firings because he was “this close to be indicted” in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Thursday.

“When you’re dealing with the cast of characters we have, you might consider putting people under oath,” Reid said. “Karl Rove is an example — who came within this close to being indicted for involvement in the Valerie Plame case. So I certainly think people should be under oath. At least Karl Rove”

Translation: We don’t care whether or not Meirs will testify under oath. It’s about Rove. We couldn’t get him on the pLamegate allegations, so we’re going to give it another try with these latest allegations. We’re hoping something will finally stick.

I’m trying to figure out how Karl Rove came ‘this close’ to an indictment, according to Reid. You are either indicted, or you are not. I think Reid has spent too much time at lefty blogs and really does think that Rove was ‘almost indicted’ – after all, it was reported by Truthout.org (with other lefty blogs picking up on the story) that he was going to be indicted back in May 2006. I guess Reid didn’t get the followup news that there would not be any charges filed against Karl Rove.

In any event, this story just goes to prove once again how Democrats will fly the banner of “concern” over what the administration is up to when what they are really ‘concerned’ with is settling political vendettas, even if it comes at the expense of confusing the American people over what is legal for the President to do versus what isn’t.

Update: Watch Senator Pat Leahy flip out in response to a suggestion by Senator Arlen Specter re: Attorneygate:

HadaAbeche says:

March 22, 2007 at 10:07 pm

According to the Barrett report, Hillary also came ‘this close to indictment’……. What should we do with her..?

Sister Toldjah says:

March 22, 2007 at 10:15 pm

LOL! Good point.

G-Monster says:

March 23, 2007 at 2:48 am

What heck is wrong with the dems? Don’t they understand they look like morons? Even specter wants to take what the president has offered in the attorney ordeal.

Ennis says:

March 23, 2007 at 11:11 am

What heck is wrong with the dems? Don’t they understand they look like morons?

Take a look at what passes for the democratic party’s base right now and your questions will answer themselves. The dems are no longer the party of the “big tent”, they are the party of the insane asylum.

Baklava says:

March 23, 2007 at 12:15 pm

Charles Krauthammer nails it as usual:

Excerpt:

The Bush administration apparently was dismayed that some of these fired attorneys were not vigorous enough in pursuing voter fraud.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Pursuing voter fraud is not, as The New York Times pretends, a euphemism for suppressing the vote of minorities and poor people. It is a mechanism for suppressing the vote of (among other phantoms) dead people. Conservatives have a healthy respect for the opinion of dead people — conservatives revere tradition, which Chesterton once defined as “the democracy of the dead” — but they draw the line at posthumous voting.

If the White House decides that a U.S. attorney is showing insufficient zeal in pursuing voter fraud — or the death penalty or illegal immigration or drug dealing — it has the perfect right to fire him. There is only one impermissible reason for presidential intervention: to sabotage an active investigation. That is obstruction of justice. Until the Democrats come up with any real evidence of that — and they have not — this affair remains a pseudo-scandal.

forest hunter says:

March 23, 2007 at 7:58 pm

“…Until the Democrats come up with any real evidence of that — and they have not — this affair remains a…”[nother]…”pseudo-scandal.”

Prose Before Hos » Valerie Plame: Hot or not? Depends on your news source says:

March 24, 2007 at 12:22 am

[…] Last week we had the pleasure of seeing Valerie Plame testify in front of a congressional hearing to discuss the situation and aftermath of being exposed in retaliation of her husband’s critical piece about enriched uranium. Of course, coverage varies — from CNN putting the story on the front page of their website, to Fox News merily having a video on the side of the site — but the most interesting variations were seen in the pictures used on the various media outlets: […]

Walter E. Wallis says:

March 24, 2007 at 1:30 pm

I fault the republicans big time for this. they have made a habit of letting the enemy pick their generals buy failing to support their leaders under attack. Democrats never let go. Republicans never fight.