'Eight-Gate' and Karl Rove

When it comes to Republican political shenanigans, Karl Rove is often the most likely suspect.

The political mastermind of the Bush presidency, Rove has exercised a singular amount of control from his West Wing office through his network of loyal operatives inside government and out.

One of his trademarks in the White House has been boldly crossing lines that previous administrations had only dared to blur. For instance, it was Rove who publicly advocated using national security as a wedge campaign issue. And critics charge that it is largely thanks to him that the Bush White House has subordinated domestic policy to politics, focusing less on the common good than on partisan goals such as providing tax cuts for the rich.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the more we learn about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys for allegedly political reasons, the more Karl Rove's name seems to come up.

In particular, it looks like some of the prosecutors -- who serve at the pleasure of the president but are nevertheless expected to put the law above politics -- were considered by top administration officials to be have acted with insufficient partisanship before the 2006 election. And one of those officials just might be Rove.

Ron Hutcheson, Marisa Taylor and Margaret Talev write for McClatchy Newspapers: "The White House acknowledged on Sunday that presidential adviser Karl Rove served as a conduit for complaints to the Justice Department about federal prosecutors who were later fired for what critics charge were partisan political reasons.

"House investigators on Sunday declared their intention to question Rove about any role he may have played in the firings.

"White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Rove had relayed complaints from Republican officials and others to the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. She said Rove, the chief White House political operative, specifically recalled passing along complaints about former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and may have mentioned the grumblings about Iglesias to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. . . .

"The White House's explanation of Rove's role is the latest attempt to explain the firings of Republican appointees in the middle of an administration and in the absence of allegations of misconduct. After initially citing 'performance-related' reasons, the Justice Department later acknowledged that policy differences played a role but denied acting at the request of the White House. Rove's statement Sunday indicates a bigger White House role than was previously known."

That was a follow-up to Saturday's story by Talev and Taylor, in which they wrote: "Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.

"In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"'Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?' Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.