Blame It on the Democrats

Here's Newsweek's Jonathan Alter talking to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Friday: "Clearly, what Rove was trying to do is in jurisdiction by jurisdiction, protect Republicans, go after Democrats, and essentially turn our criminal justice system into what they have in a banana republic. . . .

"So you're going to see a lot more testimony in the weeks to come. And I think Rove, over the course of this year, is going to be in deep doo-doo on a variety of issues. We don't know which one will do him in, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's not working in the White House by the end of the year."

The New York Times editorial board writes: "Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you'll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere. . . .

"The investigation of the firings of the United States attorneys seems to be closing in on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who should have been fired weeks ago. But Congress should bring equal scrutiny to the more powerful Mr. Rove. If it does, especially by forcing him to testify in public, it will find that he has been at the vortex of many of the biggest issues they are now investigating."

Rove Aide Watch

John D. McKinnon blogs for the Wall Street Journal about the departure of some key Rove aides.

Meanwhile, Rep. Henry Waxman has invited former Rove aide Susan Ralston to appear before his House oversight committee on Thursday to answer questions about convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's access to the White House. Waxman also plans to ask Ralston about White House employees' use of outside e-mail accounts provided by the Republican National Committee.

Monica Goodling Watch

Richard A. Serrano writes in the Los Angeles Times: "A key Justice Department official who helped orchestrate the ouster of eight U.S. attorneys last year has again rebuffed requests to talk to congressional investigators about her role in the dismissals, with her lawyer saying Tuesday that she would not even agree to an informal interview with Capitol Hill Democrats.

"Monica M. Goodling, who is on leave from her job as special counsel to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, rejected the House Judiciary Committee's request that she appear before panel investigators for a closed-door session about her involvement in the decisions to remove the federal prosecutors."

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "In a letter to Goodling yesterday, Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the House committee's chairman, and Linda T. Sanchez (D-Calif.) wrote that 'several of the asserted grounds for refusing to testify do not satisfy the well-established' legal reasons for doing so and that submitting to an interview 'could obviate the need to subpoena' her."

David Johnston writes in the New York Times: "In another letter on Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, asked Mr. Gonzales how the Justice Department would respond to issues stemming from Ms. Goodling's refusal to testify."

T.R. Goldman and Emma Schwartz profile Goodling for Legal Times: "As White House liaison, Goodling was part of a small cadre of senior Justice officials responsible for vetting U.S. Attorneys, a position that became far more significant after the 2006 reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, which gave Justice authority to install interim U.S. Attorneys without congressional approval."

Goodling's "tenure at Justice, which began in 2002 in its press operations under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, tracked what some have seen as a growing politicization of the department, from the purge of career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division to the appointment of young party loyalists, often with little or no prosecutorial experience, to Justice's top levels."

Gonzales Watch

Benjamin Wittes writes in the New Republic: "Alberto Gonzales is toast. He apparently doesn't realize this. President Bush doesn't either. But Gonzales' tenure as attorney general--or, at least, as an effective attorney general--is already over. Every day he fails to resign he disserves Bush, the Justice Department, and the public at large. Every day Bush lets loyalty to his old friend prevent him from demanding Gonzales's resignation, he mires himself deeper in an altogether unnecessary scandal."

Blogger Josh Marshall writes: "For some, it is a matter of outrage that President Bush has renewed his support for Alberto Gonzales even after new evidence has emerged that the Attorney General has repeatedly lied about the US Attorney Purge. Myself, I see it more as a matter of confirmation and almost a welcome one in that it confirms the nature of the debate we're having.

"This isn't a case where Alberto Gonzales has fallen short of the president's standards or bungled some process. This is the standard. The Attorney General has done and is doing precisely what is expected of him."

Matthew Dowd Speaks

Jim Rutenberg wrote in Sunday's New York Times about the remarkable about-face by Matthew Dowd, a longtime Bush acolyte who in 2004 was the president's chief campaign strategist.

"Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

"In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush's leadership.

"He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a 'my way or the highway' mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

"'I really like him, which is probably why I'm so disappointed in things,' he said. He added, 'I think he's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.'"

Bush shrugged off Dowd's comments yesterday, telling reporters: "I understand that this is an emotional issue for Matthew, as it is a lot of other people in our country. Matthew's case, as I understand it, is obviously intensified because his son is deployable. In other words, he's got a son in the U.S. Armed Forces, and I can understand Matthew's concerns."

The New York Times editorial board responds: "President Bush and his advisers have made a lot of ridiculous charges about critics of the war in Iraq: they're unpatriotic, they want the terrorists to win, they don't support the troops, to cite just a few. But none of these seem quite as absurd as President Bush's latest suggestion, that critics of the war whose children are at risk are too 'emotional' to see things clearly. . . .

"Mr. Bush's comments about Mr. Dowd are a reflection of the otherworldliness that permeates his public appearances these days. Mr. Bush seems increasingly isolated, clinging to a fantasy version of Iraq that is more and more disconnected from reality. He gives a frightening impression that he has never heard any voice from any quarter that gave him pause, much less led him to rethink a position."

Vic Gold Writes

Michael Abramowitz wrote in Sunday's Washington Post about veteran journalist and GOP campaign operative Vic Gold's new book: "Under Bush and Cheney, he argues, the GOP has moved away from principles of small government, prudent foreign policy and leaving people alone to live their private lives -- all views Gold associates with his hero, Goldwater. 'Invasion of the Party Snatchers' makes plain Gold's contempt for the direction of his party and the guidance of its leaders.

"'For all the Rove-built facade of his being a 'strong' chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times,' Gold writes. 'Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots.'

"Gold is even more withering in his observations of Cheney. 'A vice president in control is bad enough. Worse yet is a vice president out of control.'

"For Gold, Cheney brings to mind the adage of Swiss writer Madame de Stael, who wrote, 'Men do not change, they unmask themselves.' Cheney has a deep streak of paranoia and megalomania, Gold suggests -- but he says he did not see it at first.

"'He was hiding who he really was,' Gold says. 'He was waiting for an opportunity.'"

Patrick Fitzgerald Watch

The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes: "For a prosecutor who claims to be a truth-seeker, Patrick Fitzgerald sure can be secretive. Even now that the Scooter Libby trial is over and his 'leak' investigation is all but closed, the unaccountable special counsel wants to keep his arguments for creating a Constitutional showdown over reporters and their sources under lock and key. . . .

"Mr. Fitzgerald tries to hide behind rule 6(e) of grand jury secrecy. He claims the integrity of grand juries will be compromised by the release. But much of the material was already disclosed during the Libby trial, if not leaked earlier. And the far larger risk to grand jury integrity would be if Mr. Fitzgerald misled the courts about what he knew and when he knew it in order to coerce the two reporters to testify."

The ultimate irony here would be if the Wall Street Journal gets its way. The 6(e)-protected grand jury material Fitzgerald refuses to release would almost certainly reflect badly on the very people the Journal's editorial board has been defending all along.

Fitzgerald is sitting on lots and lots of secret grand jury information that administration critics would love to have. Just one example: The transcripts showing how it apparently took Karl Rove five visits to the grand jury to tell the truth about his involvement in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity.

House of Straw?

Ruth Marcus writes in her Washington Post opinion column: "The Bush administration's House of Straw seems to be blowing apart, buffeted by alternating gusts of scandal and incompetence.

"The tornado of disastrous headlines -- a Pentagon that can't take proper care of its wounded, a Justice Department that can't be trusted to follow the law or tell the truth to Congress, a top White House aide who lied to a grand jury-- has been so overpowering that the day-to-day outrages of life in the Bush administration tend get overlooked.

"So it's worth pausing to pay attention to some recent events that similarly underscore the failings of this administration and illuminate one of their root causes: a contemptuous attitude toward government itself."

Rove Gets Pelted

Martin Weil and Peter Baker write in The Washington Post: "Heckling protesters briefly delayed the car carrying top White House aide Karl Rove last night as he left the American University campus, where he had just given a speech. No arrests or injuries were reported after Rove's invitation-only talk.

"About 20 students lay in front of the car as it prepared to leave, a witness said. . . .

"Kim Bruce, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, said that after Rove spoke, 'several individuals who had gathered outside the speech area threw unknown objects at the vehicle.' . . .

"Josh Goodman, an AU junior,... said students went to the Ward Circle building where Rove spoke to make a 'citizen's arrest' of the presidential adviser. He said the students claimed they had compiled evidence indicating that Rove had violated what they say is a presidential records act stipulating that all presidential e-mail be recorded on White House servers."

WJLA reports: "Rove went to the campus in Northwest Tuesday to speak to the American University College Republicans."

YouTube has some murky video.

Cheney in the Bushes

What was Cheney doing yesterday in the Rose Garden, standing all alone and behind the bushes?

The New York Times has a photo; Crooks and Liars has a video clip.

Not an April Fools Joke

The New York Sun editorial board wants Cheney in the 2008 presidential race.

"Were Mr. Cheney in the race, it's hard to imagine that the president's approval ratings would not be five or 10 points higher. The reason is that the administration would have a defender on the campaign trail as part of the public debate.

"Mr. Cheney has virtues as a candidate in his own right. He has foreign policy experience by virtue of having served as defense secretary, and he has economic policy experience, having served as a leading tax-cutter while a member of the House of Representatives. His wife, Lynne, would be an asset to the ticket in her own right."

Compared to the current field, "Mr. Cheney is so much more experienced and shrewd a figure, one who could help settle some of the arguments about the Bush years in favor of Mr. Bush. A White House aiming to get Mr. Cheney elected could also avoid some of the hazards that befall lame-ducks -- drift, brain drain, irrelevance."