Today’s Pile of Steaming Turd Blossom

Sportscasters love to say that a good offense is the best defense. But, as we’re seeing, in politics, an offensive offense can be a lousy defense. I mean, if Karl Rove’s future -- both political and legal -- depends on the offensive that the White House and its smear machine are frantically mounting, then ol’ Karl is in even bigger trouble than we thought.

Their method seems to be a shock-and-awe operation where they bombard us with any and every defense they can, hoping that something sticks. So far, nothing has. And as Harry Shearer puts it, there is nothing like a White House press corps scorned.

And if you’re wondering why Republican mouthpieces are all saying the same thing day after day, here's a copy of the GOP Rove talking points, courtesy of The Raw Story.

Bush may be making the claim that he can’t comment until “the investigation is complete,” but he and Karl obviously have no problem with allowing the sleaze machine they control at the RNC to comment freely.

The attack on Rove’s critics and the renewed assault on Joe Wilson are also comically accompanied by calls for civility.

Josh Marshall has this from Norm Coleman:

“We have enough to do in the Senate in minding our own business than to be sticking our noses into someone else's business. Everyone needs to cool the rhetoric, focus on the business of the people, and allow the investigation to run its course."

The sentence before this notes that the Democrats are “out of ideas” and “lack vision.” Coleman the peacemaker. Yes, everybody needs to “cool” it. Just as soon we finish destroying Joe Wilson.

You know when Republicans start issuing calls for people to “cool the rhetoric” and “focus on the business of the people,” that they’re in full panic mode.

And they’re right to be. Try as they might, they just can’t come up with a plausible defense that takes the stink away from what everyone -- including all non-self deluded Republicans -- knows Turd Blossom was really doing.

For a complete list of every White House and GOP mouthpiece lie about Rove and Wilson, see this great compilation by eriposte at Left Coaster.

But let me comment on just a few that are bugging me.

First, the question of whether or not Rove actually “named” Plame, or identified her as covert agent. It doesn’t matter. Atrios provides the text of the actual law: the key phrase being “… discloses any information identifying” a covert agent.

Second, the absurd claim that Rove was just trying to discourage a reporter from writing an incorrect story -- just “doing his job,” as one surrogate put it.

If that’s the case, then why was Rove’s act of good samaritanism on “double super secret background?” For a fuller explanation of what that is, Stephen Colbert explains, via Atrios.

Was Karl hiding his “whistle blowing,” as the WSJ called it (apparently with a straight face), because he’s incredibly modest? Was he afraid he’d be fired for “just doing his job?” Does he, perhaps, believe that he’s the one that’s undercover?

Then there is the claim that Wilson is a Kerry supporter. And what difference, pray, does this make? Reading the law, I don’t see a “Kerry supporter exemption” anywhere.

This is one element of a wider line of reasoning that somehow what Karl did was okay because “Joe Wilson has been discredited.”

Leaving aside the fact that he hasn’t been, you don’t get pick which covert agents’ identities you reveal based on the relative merits of their spouses. If the Republicans in Congress want that to be the case, they are free to amend the law, but right now this point is utterly irrelevant.

In the meantime, you can go here to write poor Turd Blossom a much needed letter of support.