Master of Dirty Tricks

Editorial

14 August 2007

SO White House aide Karl Rove — the man they called “the president’s brain” — has quit. It is a significant departure which probably represents the beginning of the political end of this flawed and failed administration. Rove ran both George Bush’s successful election campaigns and also fulfilled a role as fixer and eminence grise at the White House. As deputy chief of staff, he played a major role in many decisions, including the one to invade Iraq. But last November he failed in the probably impossible task of saving the Republican hold on both houses of Congress. Bush, who has been consistently loyal to his staff, would probably have been happy for Rove to stay through the last 15 months of his presidency. But Rove decided that a decision that White House staff in post after this month should see out the presidential term was unacceptable.

He was probably glad of the chance to quit. This master of dirty tricks who is roundly disliked by Democrats — he once sent a crowd of Chicago down-and-outs to a swish Democrat reception, falsely promising they would be given free alcohol — was widely suspected of “outing” Valerie Plame, the CIA secret agent, in revenge for her ambassador husband Joe Wilson’s accurate debunking of administration claims that Saddam Hussein had been buying uranium yellow cake from Niger. Rove was called before a grand jury investigating the leak — which is an extremely serious federal offense — no fewer than four times.

In the end, Rove escaped prosecution as indeed did everyone else in the White House for this specific crime, despite evidence from journalists that the information came from there. In the end, the can, such as it was, was carried by another official, Lewis “Scooter” Libby who was found guilty of the lesser but no less reprehensible charges of perjury and obstructing the course of justice. There are many observers who believe that Rove should have been the man in the dock.

Rove’s key presence in the administration demonstrates the second fault line in this presidency. The bloody ruins and chaos of Iraq are testimony to the first — Bush’s ignorance and inability to take good advice from friends and allies, preferring the simplistic and bullheaded avenue of main force which in the end created more problems than it solved. It has, however, been little focused on the extent to which this presidential team has been prepared to resort to skullduggery and falsehood in order to achieve its ends.

Democrats, almost all of whom were complicit in the triumphalist crowing at the Iraq invasion and ouster of Saddam, seem unprepared to dwell on the lies and subterfuge that preceded it. They have not loudly claimed that they were misled. Why? Does the US political establishment accept that dishonesty is part of the political process? The electorate, it seem, does not. Only a quarter of Americans believe the Bush presidency will be considered a success. That number will be even smaller by Jan. 1, 2009.