Investor's Business Daily, April 24th, 2007
Scandal: Washington is a different place since the Democrats took over -- a place of perpetual investigations. Maybe at some point 15ters will get fed up and ask someone to start doing his job.
We admit we're perplexed at the purple-faced rage President Bush's chief political aide, the brainy Karl Rove, seems to bring out in certain people. It's the kind of anger that creates many enemies intent on taking him down.
The latest of these efforts is the launch by something called the Office of Special Counsel of what the Los Angeles Times says is "a broad investigation into key elements of White House operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove."
Just what is being charged? That Rove and his underlings might have improperly given a Powerpoint 16resentation to the General Services Administration. This, it is alleged, violates the Hatch Act, a Depression-era law intended to keep politics apart from the civil service.
Gee, imagine that -- a political adviser to the president talking about politics! Wonder where the Office of Special Counsel was when then-Vice President Al Gore was making plainly illegal political phone calls from his office.
But for Rove this is par for the course. He has been aggressively attacked since early in Bush's first term, blamed by congressional Democrats and their allies on the far left for Bush's electoral victories in 2000 and 2004 -- and for repeatedly outsmarting them on all sorts of issues, from tax cuts to party outreach to Latino voters.
We know, we know: The investigation by the Office of Special Counsel is headed by Scott J. Bloch, a Bush appointee.
But Bloch has recently been engaged in a bitter dispute with the White House, and anyone who thinks his decision hasn't been influenced by powerful Democrats' ongoing complaints, threats and rage at Rove doesn't know how Washington works.
Remember, Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor who ended Scooter Libby's career, was a Republican, too.
In any event, Rove for the Democrats is merely a means to an end. They know they can't make law without facing Bush's veto pen. So they've opted instead to weaken Bush by investigating anything that moves in his administration. Rove is a high-profile target.
By pushing the "Culture of Corruption" charge against the GOP, Democrats hope to avoid doing anything before the 2008 presidential elections. That way, they won't have to take anything but rhetorical stands on such things as the war on terror, immigration, entitlement reform, pork-barrel spending and looming tax hikes.
If they paralyze the White House, mission accomplished.
That explains the threat this year to subpoena Rove and former White House attorney Harriet Miers as part of the probe into the Justice Department firings.
It also explains how vice presidential aide Scooter Libby could be found guilty of lying about a crime that was never committed.
And how Attorney General Alberto Gonzales now finds his career in jeopardy for doing what this nation's top legal officials have done since the start of our republic: firing those who don't fit in with the president's priorities. It's none of Congress' business.
Given their self-righteousness, we'll be anxious to see if the Democrats' attention to misconduct extends to their own.
Will Sen. Hillary Clinton's fundraising irregularities get probed? How about the mysterious $100,000 that showed up in Rep. William Jefferson's freezer during a corruption probe?
What about former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's theft of documents from the National Archives -- which may have been part of an elaborate attempt to fool the 9/11 Commission about Clinton White House efforts in the war on terror?
We won't even go into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's questionable land deals.
We might as well get used to it. The Democrats have no agenda to speak of, other than destroy the Bush White House. It's going to be a long two years.
