Classic Rove By Harold Meyerson

Rove did not become George W. Bush’s indispensable op only because of his strategic smarts. He’s also the kind of ethically unconstrained guy Bush has wanted around when the going gets tough — when the case Bush is making is unconvincing on its own merits, when he needs to divert attention from himself with a stunning attack on somebody else.

That’s been the hallmark of Rove’s career — and Bush’s. … Get in Bush’s way and Rove turns you or your loved ones into the scum of the earth.

You can go pretty far with this kind of modus operandi, particularly if the press is complaisant. Sometimes, you can go too far, as Joe McCarthy discovered when he leveled his woozy allegations against the Army. …

Rove was, and has always been, Bush’s one indispensable aide precisely, though not only, because he would do whatever it took to advance his boss’s interests, no matter the consequences to his intended targets or innocent bystanders. Though we can’t be certain it was Rove who disclosed Plame’s identity, we can be damned sure that if he did, it was all in a day’s work on behalf of George W. Bush.
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GOP on Offense in Defense of Rove By Jim VandeHei, Washington Post Staff Writer

Republicans mounted an aggressive and coordinated defense of Karl Rove yesterday ….

“The angry left is trying to smear” Rove, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, a Rove protege, said in an interview. …

The emerging GOP strategy — devised by Mehlman and other Rove loyalists outside of the White House — is to try to undermine those Democrats calling for Rove’s ouster, play down Rove’s role and wait for President Bush’s forthcoming Supreme Court selection to drown out the controversy, according to several high-level Republicans. …

Mehlman, who said he talked with Rove several times in recent days, instructed GOP legislators, lobbyists and state officials to accuse Democrats of dirty politics and argue Rove was guilty of nothing more than discouraging a reporter from writing an inaccurate story, according to RNC talking points circulated yesterday.

“Republicans should stop holding back and go on the offense: fire enough bullets the other way until the Supreme Court overtakes” events, said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). …

Wilson was a chief target of the new GOP offensive designed to take some pressure off Rove. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said the White House did not have to discredit Wilson. “Nobody had to do that,” he said, adding that “he discredited his own report” by including unfounded allegations. The RNC talking point memo included a list of anti-Wilson lines.

“In all honesty, the facts thus far — and the e-mail involved — indicate to me that there is not a problem here,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). “I have always thought this is a tempest in a teapot.”

Bush Adviser Helped Law Firm Land Job Lobbying for CNOOC By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush’s top independent intelligence adviser met last winter with investment bankers in China to help secure his law firm’s role in lobbying for a state-run Chinese energy firm and its bid for the U.S. oil company Unocal Corp., according to his law firm, Akin Gump.

The involvement of James C. Langdon Jr., chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a major Bush fundraiser, underscores the tangled Washington connections beneath CNOOC Ltd.’s bid. Both CNOOC and its rival for Unocal, Chevron Corp., have enlisted lobbyists and public relations professionals with deep ties to the Bush White House and Republican leaders in Congress. Wayne L. Berman, a principal lobbyist for Chevron, is a Bush “Ranger,” having raised at least $200,000 for the president’s campaign. His wife, Lea, is the White House social secretary. [mjh: note that Berman and Langdon are TWO different White House insiders.]

Langdon’s involvement, given his dual role as Bush intelligence adviser and energy lawyer at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, may prove politically problematic, some security experts said. Members of the intelligence board, known as PFIAB, are granted the highest security clearance and develop top-secret advisories and reports for the president, most of which are not even available to members of Congress.

“China is among the biggest intelligence challenges of the coming decades,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “Along with the war on terrorism, it’s not far behind, and one has to wonder whether Mr. Langdon’s involvement in Chinese affairs will be tolerated by intelligence agencies that have different interests than those of Mr. Langdon’s firm.” …

CNOOC has already requested a review of its unsolicited $18.5 billion bid for Unocal by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a secretive 12-member review board that includes Cabinet members and White House officials. The PFIAB chairman does not sit on CFIUS, but a review of national security implications could stray into matters relevant to foreign intelligence, security experts said. …

The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on the national security implications of the CNOOC bid. One of the committee’s senior members and a prominent China hawk, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vowed to raise questions of Langdon’s involvement, saying, “Unfortunately, corporate dollars often transcend national security.” …

The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was established in 1956 to provide the president independent advice on the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence agencies. …

“They have the ear of the president,” said [Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy], who called the board “disproportionately influential.”

Syntax, Disassembled By Eugene Robinson

President Bush’s misadventures with the dictionary are legendary, and they’re the gift that keeps on giving. Perhaps my favorite classic came while Bush was trying to sell his Social Security program in Upstate New York, and he uttered this timeless sentence: “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

The frightening thing is that we all understood what he meant. We even understood him when he made his recent assertion about the imprisoned evildoers at Guantanamo Bay, that they are “people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble.” Before you could wonder where they were getting their hands on the screwdrivers and wrenches, he added, “That means not tell the truth.”

No, it doesn’t, Mr. President. But never mind.