The Endgame of Plamegate

I’m not jumping to any conclusions, but it’s Karl freaking Rove.

Karl Rove has become synonymous with the most amoral and ruthless political agenda since Joe McCarthy. Part of the reason that we all hate him is because he’s effective; Rove is remarkably good at stirring up “the base,” the hardcore, red-state, evangelical conservatives that put the gas in the neocon tank. Karl Rove’s strategy is appealing to “the base,” and assuming that the rest will take care of itself. So far, it’s worked- until the war in Iraq really started to go south, the Republican Party didn’t have to worry about being a “big tent” party in the first place. “The base” was enough.

(Today’s Arabic lesson: the word for “the base” in Arabic is…anybody? Oh yes, that’s right. It’s “al-Qaeda.”)

Even Rupert Murdoch, the poorly-regulated loudspeaker of the neocon movement, indirectly acknowledged Rove’s universally-poor reception among Americans in the animated show American Dad. The protagonist, a family man/CIA agent, hires Karl Rove to help him win his campaign for church deacon. Great moment: Karl Rove, face concealed beneath a red-and-black cloak, speaking in sepulchral tones, and accompanied by Satanic sound effects, is unable to pass through the doors of a church. Everybody knows the guy is evil.

Real-life Karl Rove story, which some people know and most don’t. The guy broke into Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon’s offices, stole a whole bunch of letterhead, and printed up an ad for a nonexistent campaign rally, which was to provide “free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing.” He called it a “political prank” and laughs it off, which I would be okay with, if he didn’t falsely accuse his opponents of doing the same thing about 15 years later. (Just before a major debate, Rove went to the press with a claim that Democrats had bugged his consulting firm’s office. Turns out he did it himself.)

However, he did manage to pull off a number of impressive successes. His trademark is attacking an opponent on their strongest issue. In fact, a few of his business associates consulted for a couple of guys you may have heard of- Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The perception of irony is clearly not present in Rove’s skill set, but winning elections is. He recently decided to attack MoveOn.org by claiming that liberals wanted to offer “therapy” to the 9/11 hijackers, while the conservatives were “prepar[ing] for war.” The group Families of September 11th asked him to please shut his mouth or apologize, and he promptly did neither.

I’m not saying Karl Rove doesn’t have a good reason for being a psychopath. During his parent’s divorce, he found out that his dad actually wasn’t his dad. Then his mom killed herself. I hate him, but I think I can guess why he snapped.

The fact is, Karl Rove has gotten so good at being evil that I assumed the goon who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity would be an underling whose orders from above were carefully obscured. Up until now, I had assumed that the guilty part was Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I.L. “Scooter” Libby. Presumably he was acting out of shame and rage that the world was going to either forget him, or remember him as “Scooter.” Also, he sounded a little like G. Gordon Liddy.

But as of Tuesday, July 12, this thing has been blown wide open and there isn’t even much of a media frenzy. The White House is clamming up, understandably, and Scott McClellan is backpedaling faster than a Lance Armstrong tape on rewind from his earlier comment that whoever leaked the information would be fired, and that it categorically was not Karl Rove.

Except there’s an e-mail in which Karl Rove told Matt Cooper that Joe Wilson’s trip to Iraq was authorized by his wife, who worked at the CIA on WMD issues.

(Rove’s lawyer is only contesting that Rove did not reveal Plame’s name, and that he did not identify her as an undercover agent. It’d be like telling a gang of drug dealers that the new recruit “worked for the FBI” but without saying whether he was an undercover agent or not. What the hell else would they be doing, mopping the floors?)

Matt Cooper is not brain-damaged. He would be able to figure out that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson’s wife about as easily as you or I could. And he would also be able to figure out that since nobody knew Plame worked at the CIA, it was probably some kind of, um, you know, well, secret.

Karl Rove told Matt Cooper that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA on WMD. Nobody is contesting that. Karl Rove is the leak, and as Bush stated nearly two years ago, he needs to be fired. He also needs to go to jail.

Anybody on the left or the right who wants to argue that is welcome to try.