Gotta keep the lid on

Josh Marshall thinks E.J. Dionne is on to something... the real reason that Karl Rove is going to devote his attention full time to Campaign 2006:

Dionne: "Here's the real meaning of the White House shake-up and the redefinition of Karl Rove's role in the Bush presidency: The administration's one and only domestic priority in 2006 is hanging on to control of Congress."

Another choice graf from E.J.'s Friday column ...

As one outside adviser to the administration said, the danger of a Democratic takeover of at least one house of Congress looms large and would carry huge penalties for Bush. The administration fears "investigations of everything" by congressional committees, this adviser said, and the "possibility of a forced withdrawal from Iraq" through legislative action.

This is the issue. Talk of impeachment, real or play-acted, is beside the point. Even having their hand pushed on Iraq is to them, I believe, a matter of far secondary importance. The key is subpoena power.

Little of what's happened in the last five years would have been possible were it not for the fact that there was no political institution with subpoena power in Washington not under the control of the White House. Obviously, that doesn't apply to pure policy objectives as much as what used to be known as congressional oversight and, particularly, investigations of wrongdoing. Yes, the Democrats briefly controlled the Senate. But that was always a marginal control, and as far as tough oversight it was almost immediately engulfed by 9/11.

The White House and the entire DC GOP for that matter is just sitting on too many secrets and bad acts. The bogus investigations of the pre-war intel is just one example, if one of the most resonant and glaring. Keeping control of the House and the Senate is less a matter of conventional ideological and partisan politics as it is a simple matter of survival.

They have too much to cover up. They could not survive sunlight.

This reminds me of one of those posts that I didn't post because Blogger ate it. It was Billmon's Happy Jack

Washington Post: "Karl Rove quits policy position to focus on midterm elections"

This is like reading that Jack the Ripper has given up his medical practice to concentrate on his night job.