By: Mary Lyon

Way to go, Karl. I salute you! The news has been mighty bleak lately – what with the attacks in London and a fresh new round of terrorist-related deaths, the grim future that awaits all women of child-bearing age since Dubya gets to name Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement, and the ever-deteriorating situation in Iraq. Hurricane Dennis certainly didn’t help things, either. Which leaves me amazed to say three cheers for Karl Rove, the Bushbury Dough Boy, he of the pasty skin, anemic hairline, smarmy smile, soft underbelly, and calculating mind. Karl, you’ve given me something to smile about.

I love the smell of Karl Rove sweating in the morning. Seems only fitting that the guy who made the hair stand up on the back of many a Democratic neck should find himself in such uncomfortable circumstances. All he’s had to give people on the liberal/progressive/Democratic end was grief. But now, he’s not giving – he’s getting. He may not just have a little too much heat being aimed directly at him, he may be about to go down in Plames.

It’s long been suspected that the man referred t as “Bush’s Brain” had something to do with the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. Her own husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, voiced that very suspicion early-on. Wilson speculated publicly that his wife’s career was ruined in a political “hit” against him for exposing the truth about Bush’s fraudulent claims that Iraq tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. At the time Wilson expressed the specific wish to see Rove “frog-marched” out of the White House in handcuffs.

Since that time, of course, many of us have shared that dream. Because, just as we’re onto his boss, many of us are also onto Rove. I’d half expect that as the Valerie Plame Affair proceeds, the mainstream media would be tempted to ignore it, as they tried initially to do with the Downing Street Memos, claiming it was merely “old news.” But the Plame business seems to be taking on a life of its own. Judging from the public grilling Scott McClellan got on Monday from the White House Press Corps, it would appear that some reporters smell blood in the water. Editor & Publisher carried McClellan’s version of the Texas Two-Step in the latest chapter of “See Scott Spin.”: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article

See Scott Spin. See Karl Hide. And it would seem he has good reason to try to hide.

I’m gratified to see that this story has turned into the proverbial gift that keeps on giving, making this almost like Christmas in July. When the Plame story broke in July 2003, those of us who’ve come to revile Karl Rove for his pivotal role in the hijacking of our country were hoping this would be his eventual undoing. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, as they say. Even Georgie’s dad, George H. W. Bush, once once said “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.” During wartime, which our “popular wartime president” enjoys gushing about to this day, compromising the identity of an undercover operative is a felony of the worst kind, indeed, it’s treason. So I imagine that, when this starts to get into the indictment and prosecution phase, Bush will be busily stumping the country, downplaying the concept of actual “war” in Iraq – it isn’t REALLY a “war,” you know. Just a “police action” or some other attempted spin maneuver designed to distort and pervert the reality. No, George, it’s a war. It’s YOUR war, and your pal Karl did this DURING the war. During YOUR war. So what would that make it, then? Or, perhaps, put another way, what would that make it if this were somebody in the Clinton White House? You’d certainly be hearing the loudest, most shrill, and most hysterical rantings about treason in that case.

Frustratingly enough in the beginning, the story lingered in the national consciousness and on its airwaves for the briefest moments before the dutiful White House Steno Pool scurried off to do its masters’ bidding on other matters. Chicago prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took over and hunkered down, and it just wasn’t deemed a story anymore. And we waited, watching our hopes that the bad guys would finally get theirs slip through our fingers. Until now. Unfortunately for this White House, this story appears to have nine lives. It went away alright. Only for awhile, though.

I bet Karl Rove never thought he’d make so many people on the other side of the aisle smile. Frankly, I didn’t, either. Certainly that wasn’t his intention. I suspect he and his friends all assumed that they’d just get away with this, too. They’ve had it so good for so long, well, why should it stop here? By now, they’re masters at rewriting history, rejiggering the headlines, going on the offensive and turning the tide against their accusers, twisting the truth so it turns around and bites the truth-tellers and truth-seekers. They’ve been so successful they even sucker-punched one of their biggest longtime nemeses – the dreaded Dan Rather. They blurred the definition of what a reporter is by sneaking their own fakers and fakery into the mainstream. They made a pathetic joke of the entire news profession by installing a gay male “escort” wherever he wanted to be, whenever he wanted to be there, in the White House, funneling all kinds of scoops to him when he was about as legitimate a reporter as a bowl of old beans. They figured they had the watchdogs well-disciplined, soundly tied-up in the weeds out back, muzzled, defanged, and discredited, whimpering for crumbs from the table. And what may have happened is – in their arrogance, they got sloppy. They’ve never worried about getting caught before. Why start now?

But now, things are different. The diversions, like the London bombings, the hurricanes, the Supreme Court storms, the nuclear options, the big overseas trips, Michael Jackson, and the missing blondes, don’t last as long, or distract as effectively. Especially when this story doesn’t seem to want to be held down or kicked off to obscurity. This story seems to want to keep coming back, like the termite infestations that no amount of fumigation seems to wipe out. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. Bush doesn’t have that mantle of invincibility that a fresh terrorist attack on our shores or an hours-old war once gave him. People aren’t rallying around him these days because there’s so much about him and his ideas and his plans for this country that more and more Americans are realizing, correctly, that they don’t like. His poll numbers are way down. His second-term agenda is tanking, as it should, frankly. All that vaunted “political capital” he boasted about has been squandered. His speeches do him no good and win him no new allies. His rhetoric is tiresome. His lies are showing. Things are different, and more people know too much by now.

Furthermore, I suspect that at least some people in the White House Press Corpse may be growing tired of being kicked around and manipulated and treated like dirt. Guys like David Gregory and Terry Moran, who’ve actually had the temerity to ask a few uncomfortable questions and follow-ups, I’d bet, are probably sick of being used. It may be that they’re reaching the “oh YEAH? Well, you ain’t so tuff” point with the Bush machinery. Maybe they’re fed up with being disrespected, played, intimidated, and manipulated. Maybe they’re feeling a bit wistful for the “good old days” when the hounding of presidents was a popular sport. Even Michael Isikoff seems to have found his sea legs again, and this time, there isn’t even a stained blue dress around. This time, by contrast, he has some real substance to sink his teeth into. And I’d guess that since the White House tried to hang America’s bad reputation in the Islamic world on a Newsweek report about Korans flushed down toilets at Gitmo, some folks at that magazine may understandably feel like they’re owed one.

There’s still a lot of spin left to this story, so the White House will be partly to blame in that regard for helping to keep the story alive. There are still plenty of lapdogs in the media, eager to suck up. But the Bushies have a problem. Karl’s on the hook. Karl said one thing one day, and – by the way and most significantly, to a grand jury, and is saying different things lately. So is his lawyer, who’s been furiously back-peddling, splitting hairs, and making adjustments like some circus chiropractor. They’ll come up with their own version of what “is” is. But Karl Rove may be on the ropes. What may wind up bringing him down is his own hubris, and his own mouth. What downed a lot of Watergate felons, back in the day, was not so much the crimes themselves but rather the perjury charges, in much the same way as Al Capone was finally nailed for income tax evasion. Which I think will be sweet. Because, whenever you remind Bush-believers that nobody died when Clinton lied, they’ll immediately parrot the talking point about how it WASN’T the SEX. It was the LYING UNDER OATH. What will they say when they can’t hide from the fact that THEIR guys did that, too? And will they try to hide behind another blue dress?

Even more exquisite to imagine is who might Rove take down with him? We all know Scott McClellan is popping the Rolaids now, because of this. Who else will be implicated? Who else won’t be able to parse their way out this time? How far up will it go? Do I hear the distant rumblings of multiple indictments? Who’s the designated fall guy, and how damaged will he or she leave those who benefited from the cover-ups? And if “Bush’s Brain” knew what was up, how can Bush be completely out of the loop, since, after all, he and Karl are virtually inseparable? Karl – thanks for this! You’re on your way to digging out lumps of coal from the bottom of your stocking while the rest of us celebrate Christmas in July.

Visualize IMPEACHMENT. Pass it on…

Mary Lyon spent the first 25 years of her adult life as a broadcast journalist, at Los Angeles radio stations KRTH-FM, KFWB-AM, KHJ-AM and KLOS-FM, the NBC, ABC, and RKO Radio Networks, plus KTLA-TV. She retired from day-to-day broadcasting in 1996, after covering Hollywood for nine years in radio, TV, and print, for the Associated Press. She wrote and illustrated "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood," and is presently at work on a new craft book for kids and friends. A lifelong Democrat who began her political involvement in the Student Coalition for Humphrey-Muskie, and Tom Bradley's first L.A. Mayoral campaign, Mary currently is a weekly columnist for www.democrats.us - from the Left.