And so the dance begins for Karl Rove and the Bush White House. This is big time stuff. When it comes to a Grand Jury investigating the White House leak of a CIA agent -- whether you be right or left -- the word "treason" has to come up. And that's not rhetorical Zell Miller treason, that's real honest-to-God, exposed a U.S. secret agent in a time of war kind of treason. So you know Rove and friends are going to dance like it's the third act of Electric Boogaloo 2.
Now as a white man of Irish descent my dance skills are decent at best. I can do the "sway" and the "please-don't-dwell-on-me head bop." But I think I know the dance Rove is about to do as the Time Mag doc dump becomes public and Matt Cooper agrees to testify. We've seen this dance many times with Watergate, the Arms for Hostages Iran Contra scandal and even in the far less treasonous Blow Job-gate with Clinton. It usually starts with a step, step, denial. That part has already happened. Scott McClellan already made the blanket denial a ways back by saying he spoke to Rove (why do I get the feeling that Rove spoke to him?) and that he said he had nothing to do with the leak.
Kick dat beat DJ!
Now we're onto the second part of the dance. Rove's lawyer made this jump the other day when he said Rove "did not knowingly divulge top secret information." We'll call this the "Oops!" move. In other words, poor ol' Karl, still in his first term, honestly didn't know that leaking the name of an undercover agent from his own country was wrong. I find this hard to believe but who knows, maybe the conversation went something like this...
ROVE: Hey Bobby N, I've got some info for you. But I honestly don't know if it's cool to tell you or not.
NOVAK: Well, what's the info?
ROVE: That dick Ambassador Wilson's wife is a spy for the U.S.A.
NOVAK: Thanks for the scoop, sucka!
(SFX: dial tone followed by pre-recorded voice urging the caller to hang up)
ROVE: Curse you Bob Novak!
I mean, one would think you'd at least lean out the door and yell to your assistant "Hey Marsha, is it okay to out undercover agents for our own country?!" Then at least you can blame it on Marsha. But maybe Karl just didn't know or maybe he's not a "knowing" type.
Break it down, y'all!
Next up will be an all time fav, the "I don't recall" move. Reagan really re-invented this series of steps during the Arms for Hostages investigation in ‘88. You've got to be cool to pull off playing the clueless figurehead -- and you've got to be double jointed -- but I know Rove, Cheney and Bush are up to it. Heck they already busted out the "Screw you if you're mad at us about being wrong about the reasons for the Iraq war" move and that's the move that threw out Jessica Alba's back during the filming of Honey a few years ago.
So probably they'll throw us some Rove subordinates who will then say they "don't recall" Rove ever telling them to leak the information. Or maybe Cheney will drop an "I don't recall" on us when asked if he ever spoke to Rove about paying back Wilson for calling into question documents proving Saddam went looking for nuke stuff in Niger, which, by the way, later were proven to be forgeries.
And if this doesn't work they may even lie.
Just throw your hands in the air...and wave ‘em like you just don't care!!
And finally there will be the ultimate dance move. The “yeah, we did it and what are you gonna do about it?” This involves letting people get bored of a story and letting the corporate media bombard us with Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson stories for a year until we don't care.
Huh...and you don't stop!!
But the group having the hardest time dancing to this story will be the rank and file Bush loyalists. It's a tough one for them. Cause it means they must support the freedom of the press, even when it means blatantly jeopardizing national security (something even Dems aren't down with). And this just months after the right wanted to burn down the Newsweek offices for reporting on a story that still may be true (U.S. officials abusing copies of the Koran during interrogations).
It also means they must support Karl Rove's outing of a U.S. undercover agent in a time of conflict. And let's face it, this is almost cartoonishly treasonous and anti-American. And I'd be hard pressed to find one person in all of France who would be cool with this -- let alone the entire Republican Party. Which means the final dance step will be kicked...
"It's a Liberal Conspiracy"...huh, huh...bring that beat back....(record scratch-record scratch) Do y'all wanna party!?