Did Rove Just Activate the Getaway Plan? (Part 1)

When Karl Rove gave his recent speech blasting Democrats and seeming to spell out the Republican strategy for the 2006 mid-term elections, I thought (in my best imaginary Reagan voice) “well, there he goes again!” After being forced out of the public eye for weeks, Rove immediately seemed to go right back to the “9/11 well” that has been so reliable for Bush in the past - make the Dems seem weak on national security and try to ride a wave of fear to election victory.

My initial reaction was to hit back by fiercely arguing the national security failures under Bush’s leadership. I would use the recently discovered MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base to pull statistics and plainly show with charts and graphs how nothing Bush has done since taking office has made the US, the World, and certainly the Middle East, even the slightest bit safer.

Then I saw an article from Insight Magazine in which “an administration source” was quoted as saying that Bush expects to be impeached over the issue of domestic spying. Expects to be impeached! Now why would anyone in the administration “embolden” Bush’s enemies by revealing there is even the slightest possibility that he would be impeached for something he vehemently insists was within his powers?

And then I remembered Scooter Libby’s odd and very suspicious letters to Judy Miller, described here as seeming intended to make him into a “lightning rod” to distract attention from other, less obvious but more exposed, conspirators. All with the intention of running out the clock, probably getting a pardon, and ending up an ambiguous character in history – a hero to some and a villain to others – but a free man who most people would forget (and probably a wealthy one at that!)

Finally, it hit me that perhaps Rove’s speech wasn’t simply a return to old habits developed when his long-term goal was to completely and permanently eliminate the Democrats as an opposition party. At this point, he may be setting the stage for the getaway plan - a battle over national security that is shaping up because Bush WANTS to be impeached over domestic surveillance while the Republicans still control the Congress!

In Part 2, I’ll try to flesh out the reasons Bush might want to do this.