What a way to start out a week.

Of course Bush will pardon Rove. That is fine. Let that be another bullet point on his legacy of corruption and incompetence.

Oh frabjous day, callooh callay! Long time the manxome foe we sought!

It sure is brillig all right.

How about Fitz's vorpal blade!!

the thing that gives this a little extra oomph was david shuster's comments that he expected rove to be indicted. firstly, no network reporter would speculate like that unless he had some solid info; but more importantly g.e. would never allow him to say something like that unless he had some solid info. jeffrey immelt wants to stay in good with fredo; those indian nuclear power plant contracts ain't signed yet.

i think it's a good thing that the bloggers have been relatively muted on this story. if it turns out to be not credible, it would have been exhibit a in the building attempts to neuter the internet.

Huge news and great news. He should've been indicted 30 years ago. That's how long he's been up to no good. Hopefully, it finally caught up with him.

Fitz met with Luskin for about 15 hours on Friday? Aaw, c'mon. Fifteen hours . . !

And why on earth would a prosecutor like Fitzgerald want to "go over" the charges with Robert "Gold Bars" Luskin, for heaven's sake? There's nothing, zip, nada, in it for Fitz, who appears to be holding almost ALL the winning cards at this point.

Yes, sure, it looks like Rove is probably going to indicted this week. But Jason Leopold's story -- sorry, guys. It's just pixie dust.

15 hours makes perfect sense, if:

you go along with what Jeralyn said at Talk Left.

That essentially, Fitz got a sealed indictment from the grand jury on Wednesday. Then he met with Luskin on Friday morn., they argued, eventually Fitz left with no deal and told them that they have 24 "business" hours before he makes it public.

After "lunch" (which they probably had after Fitz left - I would imagine he had a 10am meeting with Luskin), Luskin et al. came back and "talked/debated" about what to do with Rove and that meeting went until the "wee hours" of Sat. morning (i.e., they ordered in dinner, etc.) and they didn't "break" until 12midnight. Hence, Luskin got to the office at 9am and he was dealing with this issue until 12am - viola 15hrs.

To me the reason why I wouldn't be surprised about this is that if Rove is NOT going to cop a plea, then they would have had to start preparing their defense strategy. They would have talked about media strategy, legal strategy, timing of various requests from the court.

In essence, if Rove were going to plea, the meeting would likely have been shorter, not longer.

Doesn't anyone on this site from WDC know someone who works at Patton Boggs? And could at least confirm whether or not Fitz was in Luskin's office on Friday?

lol -- keep your fingers crossed:

http://billmon.org/archives/002443.html

We just got much closer to Bush's next Trifecta. Lets just hope they keep the fatalities low.

Glad someone is working on this--even tho it's the weekend.

There's been a near total blackout on this in the Blosophere...

The weirdest silence I've seen in quite a long time.

From the "Democratic Underground";

WilliamPitt (1000+ posts) Sun May-14-06

02:42 PM

Original message

I just got off the phone with Jason Leopold
who clarified something for me that is pretty damned important. In his article, he said:

"During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning."

In point of fact, those 24 hours are "business hours," i.e. starting on Monday.

"Jeez, Jason," I said, "we might want to put that into the essay. Half the planet thought 24 hours was 24 hours. They thought the deal would go down today."

To be fair, a dozen eyes looked at that article yesterday before we published it, mine included, and none of us caught that. The word "business" has been inserted into the story after "hours" where it belongs:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051306W.shtml

So. Monday at the very earliest, but more like Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'm going to go take a nap and then go get drunk with some friends tonight. Dan's brother Ken, the airline pilot and all-around wild-man, is in town for the weekend. Gonna be the Linwood Cafe, and their Mojo from the nitrogen tap, and then around again to our usual gathering spot.

I'd repeat everything I've said about Jason's multiple independent sources, about how the MSMs failure to pick this up sounds more like more of the same old shit than anything ominous, about how no hard paper or announcements or anything will come until, at a minimum, the government re-opens for business on Monday...but I've written it all already.

The truth will out. It always does.

Later, gators.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1186820

great news!!! if true. the bushwhacker will be defenseless and with little recourse left, oh what a wonderful disintegration it will be of the hub of evi, spokes flying left and right..l

I posted this on Dkos, but I'm curious about this, what do you think? Is this plausible, see below:

While I know everyone is both excited and uncertain about the Leopold report on Truthout about Rove's indictment, I think there are a number of clues out there that Truthout is on the money.

1) Bush's speech on immigration. This has been discussed a lot, but it is an important clue because it was announced yesterday, when (Leopold says) Fitzgerald was meeting with Luskin. Hence, if we believe Leopold, then we can assume that Rove knew that he was being indicted shortly and the WH wanted a diversion.

2) If we assume (just run with the logic for a moment) that Fitzgerald will issue a press release (and post the pdf of the indictment on his website) on Monday and do a press conference in the afternoon (like he did for Libby) and the White House knew about his timing, then it would explain why Tony Snow's first televised press briefing is Tuesday AND not Monday. Why?

3) Because the WH would not want Snow to give his first press briefing on the day that Fitzgerald releases his news. They would want to wait to hear his press conference and to read the full indictment before they send their "new guy" into that kind of a "feeding frenzy" (thanks to Larry Sabato for the phrase).

What makes me believe that this is the case?

Because when a president does a major, prime time speech - as Bush is doing on Monday night - the WH typically reveals most of the important details of the speech to the WH press corps in their morning briefing, so that the media can have their ledes all written BEFORE the speech because if they don't then the speech will not make the next morning's papers.

So, what is the WH's press strategy for the speech?

Don't you find it odd that Snow is not kicking off his job with news of the speech on Monday?

Why Tuesday, unless you know that bad news is coming Monday and you don't want Snow to be in the crossfire without sufficient preparation?

MORE NEWS from the Q AND O Blog

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=3870

The Rove Indictment
Posted by: Dale Franks on Sunday, May 14, 2006

Byron York, who reports for Captitol Hill and National Review has spent the day trying to run down the Karl Rove indictment story.

According to Jason Leopold's original story at truthout.org-a lefty, indymedia-style web site:
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.
No other news service—or perhaps I should drop the "other" from the preceding phrase—has run with the story over the weekend. That's odd, since it would be a major political story.

According to York, however:
I talked with Rove defense spokesman Mark Corallo, who told me the story was completely baseless. Part of our conversation:
Did Patrick Fitzgerald come to Patton Boggs for 15 hours Friday?
No.
Did he come to Patton Boggs for any period of time Friday?
No.
Did he meet anywhere else with Karl Rove's representatives?
No.
Did he communicate in any way with Karl Rove's representatives?
No.
Did he inform Rove or Rove's representatives that Rove had been indicted?
No.
So there seems to be nothing to the story, certainly nothing which any other reporter has seen fit to report. Which raises a question: What is going on here?
That's a very good question. Is Mr. Leopold actually in touch with anyone important enough to know what is going on? Is he being snowed? Is he making it up? And why would he run with such a declarative, ostensibly fact-jammed story, when even the basic facts appear to be incorrect?

Very odd.

Boy, am I ready for some champagne!

I'll add that if Leopold was wrong Luskin would have denied it, wouldn't he?

jerry -

Leopold only says that Luskin didn't return a call for comment. It's the same thing he said in his last article, when he reported that Rove had received a target letter.

Luskin emphatically denied it the next day.

Leopold's credibility is such that I imagine Luskin doesn't bother taking his calls whatever the case.

Oink, oink. It makes me want to yack just seeing that overfed, plump porcine face.

You guys all need to stop drinking the Leopold kool aid. Especially you Steve. His last prediction, errr I mean "sourced" story, was that Fitzgerald was going to hold a press conference to announce the Rove indictments and that was supposed to happen three fridays ago.

Did anyone else notice that Karl Rove and "Steve Clemons" are gesturing with their hand in exactly the same way?

Have those two ever been photographed together?

Universal Gesture of the Puppeteer. Unmistakable.

Lara,

You're trying to get clarity on Leopold's reporting by checking it against that of Byron York?

Whatever the merits of either man, whatever anyone thinks of York, the man's an ideologue. His first concern has never been a balanced view of the news. For all I know, many have found facts within his writings. But he's never let the overarching coherence of the available facts get in the way of forcing that ideology into the discussion at the expense of the larger good.

He's in no position to be a benchmark, or an arbiter, of accuracy in reporting.

Rich,
Thank you! You made my night (early morning!).
Lara

PS) My mom said to me tonight:

"Sweetie, just trust Fitzgerald. This guy goes after mobsters for a living and if you don't MAKE sure to get them - have your ducks in a row when you go to indict and prosecute - you end up with cement shoes."

Got to love moms! Patience is a virtue.

You'd think I had better things to do at 4:30 AM but I quit smoking yesterday and now it's either posting comments on blogs or mass homicide. It took a few minutes for me to weigh the pros and cons. Sigh. It's gonna be a loooong day.

The real goodie in this basket is will Rove roll over on Cheney. (For some reason I have this weird notion that Rove fancies himself as this sort of Michael Milken character.) The name Spiro Agnew is still uttered with shame and contempt in the public at large and specifically in the Repuplican party (although he gets props for uttering Pat Buchanan's classic "nattering nabobs of negativity").

While Cheney doesn't give a damn about what anyone, least of all the press, thinks about him, does he really want to historically become the new Agnew punch line? Would his family? More importantly, would Bush, who's playing for Trumanesque historical redemption, risk his legacy to pardon him?

But will we get to see him frogmarched out of the White House, as Wilson called for all those years ago?

He certainly had no doubts where this orchestrated leak came from, logistically if not strategically (we can thank Deadeye Dick for that one).

To my mind it also shows Dick's total lack of intellectual interest that his first thought was that Wilson't trip was a junket - Niger isn't exactly Atlantic City. I wish more people would point that out when they bring up the junket angle.

Before Rove totally clams up, I'd like to hear him tell once again, like he did in South Carolina in 2000, about that unexplained negro child John McCain has in his brood. Rove also told, at that time, that McCain's wife was a drug addict and McCain was insane from his POW experience. Now, we all know that McCain ain't no negro, and putting that together with his wife being a drug addict, I guess McCain would likely become insane if a negro child showed up in his family. Rove's pretty crafty in putting out those three points and letting the public connect the dots, but Rove still needs to confirm to inferences we were all lead to formulate, and he had better get that done before his indictment since he will necessarily become incommunicado.

And then we move on to the really big one-the pursuit of Dick Cheney by Fitzgerald.

Lara,

He's also directly quoting Mark Corallo, who is Karl Rove's spokesman. Not his lawyer, his spokesman.

Not that -- when it comes to veracity -- the distinction between Rove, his attorney, and Corallo is anything more than meaningless.

Rove's consistent and unending MO is to put out false stories using "anonymous White House sources" or "senior Administration sources" to lie about virtually everything that passes into the glare of public attention. He did it for Katrina, and Spencer Hsu quoted the administrationo full on that delays in initiating aid to La & NO were the fault of the Blanco & the state. Blatantly false by all news accounts. Yet it was reprinted in WaPo.

So -- I don't know whether Leopold's got the goods on this story. But no one really has the information to disprove him (as yet).

Too much speculation w/o any data; most of the analyses hasn't had the grit & data to tell us much of anything, and contains too much speculation to indicate anything one way or the other...

Nature of the beast: some people are embarrassed by Leopold, assuming or worried that he's Dan Rather, or some loony. It's fear of marginalization by the second-last bunch of 'loonies' onto the Good Ship Establishment Credibility.

Like Jim Brady & John Harris are going to look at everyone else as insiders & kewl kids just because they set on one guy like a pack of snarling dogs -- to maintain Group Order -- just like Brady & Harris did to Dan Froomkin. Gotta keep the littlest pups in line, ya know.

But the point: York's source is Corallo -- why would I put any stock in that at all? That's just intended to distract.

When Fitzgerald speaks, I'll listen.

perp,

Rove has much too much to brood over to give us any more insight into his revelations about McCain way back in 2000. I predict he will not address the issue in the near future.

What we do need though is an explanation from McCain about this. He has never addressed the issue, he's let it ride, and even became very chummy with Bush who was the beneficiary of Rove's remarks. If it was untrue what Rove said, then the slander would have been of such great magnitude that McCain would have never been ever seen with Bush or ever have anything to do with him again. Heck, he would have beat the crap out of Bush the first chance he had for having Rove attack his family in such a vile manner being the true man's man that McCain surely is.

Rove is not going to explain himself in this matter before indictment. It is McCain who should clear this matter up about the negro child so that he can get on with his life and political aspirartions, and so that the voting public can be properly informed when going into the voting booth during the 2008 campaign. Does anyone think this unresolved question will not be brought up again in the coming campaign season?

Ya gotta love it!!! We go from the possible indictment of this irrefutably slimey piece of shit Rove to the possible existence of a McCain illegitimate negroe child.

This is politics in America. No wonder we are in such deep shit as a nation.

adz: McCain does not owe ANY explanation. He has an adopted Bangladeshi daughter. Check out this link:
Anatomy of a Smear Campaign

Here's an excerpt:

"It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.

"Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator."

"McCain does not owe ANY explanation."

Actually, McCain owes us A LOT of explanations. But none iof them have anything to do with his private life.

Wow! With such a nasty tactic used to torpedo McCain's campaign, something that Bob Jones folks might cotton to, and McCain goes to their kinfolk at Liberty U. to kowtow to them, not to mention his loving support of Bush after such a abominable campaign tactic that killed him, and anybody still has any respect for McCain the Craven? He's a complete sickening fraud.

It is 10:00 a.m. East Coast. Isn't there anyone out there who can give further details on the Rove indictment? Not denials, from the puppets, but something. Is the speech cancelled at AEI? Why? Somebody in the Rove lawfirm must have an idea about what is happening. Get on it and get the Turd not McCain's children.

15 hours? I can't imagine him spending that much time with Luskin. He wants as little contact with Luskin as he can muster, unless he wants someone else. 15 hours would only be for negotiations and only for the WH bringing him the head of Dick Cheney on a platter. Since I don't see that happening, the story is likely bunk. Leopold has a bad track record too.

C-span is carrying Karl Rove's speech at 11 a.m. ET

Another poster from another site has just said that the Rove speech at the AEI has been cancelled. I smell an indictment, and it's smelling like roses.

The speech isn't cancelled, as Karl is up there on the dais yapping...

He's speaking right now so that one's debunked

Rove is on C-span right now making his speech to AEI.

Explaining how the economy is so good. Be aware the definition of the "Economy" is how friends of Bush are doing. Not how you are doing.

And...er.. how Bush's tax cuts make the wealthy pay more in tax and releive the middle and lower classes.

Well...er... naturally the wealthy are paying more, since all the money has run directly upstream.

The taxes on the 400 million retirement pay of the Exxon CEO alone has added God knows how much to the Federal Revenue.

And oh yeah..SS is a threat to our fiscal well being. And..quote,..." behind entitlements lie compelling personal stories, but we must remember that work is necessary to our system"..so there you have it, work till you hit the grave..entitlements are unAmerican.

The terriers should have bombed the AEI instead of the WTC.

The Big Question: Will Dubya oust Rove from the WH or will some tortured logic be deployed to justify him remaining on the job pending the final outcome of a trial? I say firing Rove would be like locking the liquor cabinet, a panic inducing act, delirium tremors and blackouts to follow. Cheney's right hand man may have been dispensable but Bush won't part with his balls. If Fitz drops the hammer my money's on Bush saying "F*#k you!". Takers?

Good luck Vachon. We need healthy progressives.

ABC is saying that they're being told their phone records are of interest to those pursuing leaks at the CIA.

Likelihood that Bush has been involved in much more egregious monitoring of political opponents than Nixon could have ever thought conceivable?

Likelihood that anyone will care?

Steve,
I think that when Rove is indicted (Wed.? Fri? next week? who knows?) and Fitzgerald does his press conference (so, we know it happened for real!), he'll resign from the WH.

But, he will likely be put on the payroll at the RNC or the NRCC to try to help the GOP maintain their majorities during this election cycle. In essence, the only difference between his job now and his job later will be who is paying is salary - the taxpayers or the GOP donors.

My panties are twisting; if Rove is not officially indicted in the next couple of hours my panties will be in severe twist, Ow, Wow, Wow!

In keeping with the literary illusions. Here's my favorite:

After the fearsome struggle in which Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm and shoulder, the monster flees, ''hasped and hooped and hirpling with pain.''

Let's hope that Rove represents Bush's arm, and once ripped off, Bush is forced to flee deep into the fen. (Where, I imagine, Cheney, currently resides.)

Turn on your speakers and enjoy the song!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-hipp/im-so-loathsome-i-could-_b_21033.html

The best part is at the end.

Not to seem like I'm defending Rive, Cindy McCain was a drug addict. I saw her being interviewed on A&E when they were interviewing the wives of presidential candidates. She admitted to abusing meds for 'back pain". Unlike Patrick Kennedy however, she stole hers from the Federal government. As head of a quasi public agency, she was in charge of medical aid to third world countries and stole her meds from them. She was caught and required to pay a $29,000 fine and her back pain miraculously disappeared. Frankly, I find it utterly incredible that a wealthy wasp would not be able to obtain adequate meds from her private physician for starters and secondly, if she was just taking a couple of extras a day, would the Feds have noticed? I doubt it. I think you have to steal a shitload for them to notice. She had sufficienbt quantites to be qualified as a dealer, if she were poor and black.

As for her hero hubby, I've had first hand experience with him shoving traditional Hopi and Navajo off their land to help his top contributor, Peabody Coal Company to expand their mining operations on the two reservations. To be fair, he was not the only elected culprit in that story.

Reportedly the Rove negotiations took 15 hours because he refused to accept Fitz's best offer, 5 years in the can for Bush's brain.

Go Fitz!!! Now on to Snake #3 because there were 3 senior administration leakers.

Incidentally, Presidential pardons of crimes related to Impeachment cases can be voided, so even if Busholini pardons the creeps, he can be impeached and the pardons can be voided. There may be some justiuce afterall, folks.

P.S. Related to the "motive" aspect of the Plame outing, New America Media has an interesting piece about the contract for presidential helicopters going to an Italian company, rather than Sikorski, in CT. who has always built them, as payback for Italy's role in procuring the Niger forgeries. I'm on the phone to Dodd and Lieberman on that one.

Thank you, TG. Whoever said War Is Hell never met Mr. Camel.

I think the fact that Raw Story has not picked either of Leopold's last two stories is very telling, considering he used to work there.

Just an FYI: Newsweek has a story up on Rove's AEI speech (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12804254/site/newsweek/) and the tone of it is that despite appearances, Rove is not doing well.

EXCERPT:

Behind the scenes, White House aides—as well as other prominent Republicans in Washington—are nervous that their most valuable political player could be taken out of the game on the eve of a crucial midterm election this fall. “To see him back before that grand jury has people very worried,” said a House GOP lawmaker and close ally of the White House, who declined to be named talking about the case.

Kathleen, I was particularly struck by this in your comment above:

" . . . Presidential pardons of crimes related to Impeachment cases can be voided, so even if Busholini pardons the creeps, he can be impeached and the pardons can be voided."

Do you happen to have a citation for this that you could post here? Thanks!

"The terriers should have bombed the AEI instead of the WTC."

Posted by Carroll

Carrol, will you marry me???

LeeB,
Go to citizenspook.com, Treasongate; A New Constitutional Discovery, Presidential pardons can voided in criminal prosecutions flowing from cases of impeachment.

Thank you, Kathleen!

U.S. Constitution,
Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1:

"The President...shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

PissedOff..

Hah!...might be a good idea...that way we could never be forced to testify against each other.

"The terriers should have bombed the AEI instead of the WTC."

Posted by Carroll

Carrol, will you marry me???

Lara,

You are exactly right, Rove will just get his pay check from the RNC, out of the WH limelight, free to be as scuzzy as he is wont to be.

Help out a fellow American here ! I hail from truthout (reader and poster) and we there are involved in a national movement to shine our car headlights from Memorial Day until BUSH goes home to TX for good. We will do this to support the states that have called for Impeachment and to support Congress as they investigate and decide to impeach. Most importantly we are sending a message to BUSH that THIS MANY AMERICANS want him OUT of our White House. Please join us in this movement and tell everyone you know !!

HEADLIGHTS ON TO IMPEACH !!! Please help keep this movement growing and SHINING THE LIGHT on this man so he will KNOW we want him to go HOME!!

sign the petition if you will

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=302
It goes directly to Congress and Senators !
I sent mine and I'll be sending others !

This petition supports Headlights to Impeach but also notifies your reps and sends a letter to your local newspaper (you choose one) about the subject of the intent.

Thanks anyone who signs this and helps us make this movement an even huger reality.

HEADLIGHTS TO IMPEACH !!

We HAVE to get him out of there and keep his baby brudder out of there.

Karl Rove represents the worst of what modern educated society has to offer: the soulless, corrupt, but brilliant sociopath that sits atop the political heap and makes policy that is little more than an extension of his own twisted world view.

But then again, that's just what 9/11 oredered. Time to send it back to the kitchen.

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