Something rotten in Washington

Former (?) conservative Republican Andrew Sullivan isn't happy...

Something is rotten in the heart of Washington; and it lies in the vice-president's office. The salience of this case is obvious. What it is really about - what it has always been about - is whether this administration deliberately misled the American people about WMD intelligence before the war. The risks Cheney took to attack Wilson, the insane over-reaction that otherwise very smart men in this administration engaged in to rebut a relatively trivial issue: all this strongly implies the fact they were terrified that the full details of their pre-war WMD knowledge would come out. Fitzgerald could smell this. He was right to pursue it, and to prove that a brilliant, intelligent, sane man like Libby would risk jail to protect his bosses. What was he really trying to hide? We now need a Congressional investigation to find out more, to subpoena Cheney and, if he won't cooperate, consider impeaching him.

Digby, responding to the plaintive "Where's Rove?" question, has this to say:

I thought it was rather poignant today when the juror said "where's Rove, where are these other guys?" I can understand it. Bush promised to fire anyone who leaked, but Rove's still being paid by the taxpayers to do dirty political work for Bush and the Republicans even as we speak. Cheney is running all over the world babbling and shaking his fist like some sort of Hunter S. Thompson hallucination. It is kind of frustrating.

[...]

Libby did this thing out of loyalty. Rove did it out of sheer partisan hatred.

It's a shame that Rove isn't going to bed tonight a convicted felon like Scooter Libby is. The fateful loss of the mid-term elections and the complete collapse of the Bush administration will have to be his legacy. After all, Karl Rove is "Bush's Brain," the king of the Mayberry Machiavellis who thought he could run a nation like a dirty tricks campaign in South Carolina. He was in way over his head and now he reeks of the fetid stench of Bush/Cheney failure, for which he, probably more than any other single person, is responsible. I would be very surprised if any politician in the country will ever hire him again.

It's not what he deserves. But it's better than nothing.