Don Karleone

Pictured here fondling Scotty McClellan…

This is from Insight Magazine, the weekly insert/web-dealie published by the Moonie/NeoCon Washington Times, so take it with a Liberal dose of salt (pun intended), but it sure as Hell has the stink of “Eau Du Mob Kneebreaker” that always signals that Rove is in the house.

Issue Date: February 6-12, 2006, Posted On: 2/6/2006

Rove counting heads on the Senate Judiciary Committee

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

“It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said.

The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Rove has been calling in virtually every Republican on the Senate committee as well as the leadership in Congress. The sources said Mr. Rove's message has been that a vote against Mr. Bush would destroy GOP prospects in congressional elections.

"He's [Rove] lining them up one by one," another congressional source said.

Mr. Rove is leading the White House campaign to help the GOP in November’s congressional elections. The sources said the White House has offered to help loyalists with money and free publicity, such as appearances and photo-ops with the president.

Those deemed disloyal to Mr. Rove would appear on his blacklist. The sources said dozens of GOP members in the House and Senate are on that list.

So far, only a handful of GOP senators have questioned Mr. Rove's tactics.

Some have raised doubts about Mr. Rove's strategy of painting the Democrats, who have opposed unwarranted surveillance, as being dismissive of the threat posed by al Qaeda terrorists.
...

In case you hadn’t noticed, the Administration has now officially "gone to the mattresses."

Yesterday they sent their consigliore – America’s Top Law Enforcement Official -- to the Nation's Capitol to do nothing other than lie through his teeth. Not subtly or slickly anymore, but overtly, on camera and with a sneer.

John Mitchell must be looking up from his place frozen into a lake of ice in the lowest Circle of Hell and smiling. Well, OK, screaming in eternal agony for betraying the public trust, but also smiling.

And now Don Karleone is openly making Republicans “offers they can’t refuse.”

Because the Bush White House no longer cares whether they’re showing their ass to the world anymore. Whether their lies and crimes and treasons and lootings are all transparently visible and swinging right out it the breeze anymore.

This is no longer about whether or not the Bush White House is a criminal syndicate operating out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: clearly they are, and have now given up all pretense to the contrary except for the token parroting of “9/11” every time another still-slick skeleton comes tumbling out of another one of their carcass-packed closets.

No, this is now only about the grim, ugly business of holding onto power and staying out of jail, and to do that they will go to great and repulsive lengths. With the AG all but admitting that he and the President have both repeatedly broken the law and lied to Congress and the America people -- and intend to keep right on doing both -- Dubya now must rely on his last hole card: his thrall Republican Congress.

The last shield wall between this Administration and infamy, humiliation and federal prison is his reliance on the fact that the current Republican legislators have to-date always put Party ahead of Country. Can always be counted on to initially flap around a little when the President rubs his ass in their faces this nakedly, but will then blow away like a pup tent in a hurricane when Don Karleone “put’s a bit of the stick about.”

Because in the Age of Dubya, you can either be a Good American, or a Good Republican, but you can no longer be both.