Probably the most consistent characteristic of the otherwise incompetent Bush Administration is it’s ability to mount political strategies for or against something at a moment’s notice. Talking Points materialize almost instantaneously and are spread far and wide. The coordination of responses to crises great and small is rapid and has been maddeningly effective. So, how does it happen? Frankly, it’s been something of a mystery – but it smells of technology. So, in the recent weeks, we’re finally getting a glimpse into how it must work.
I don’t think there’s ever been a question about where it originates – Karl Rove is the center of the network, no matter what the medium of communication. The word, Rovian, will be with us for the rest of time, and part of what Rovian means is rapid movement of information among key people. So, we’ve known where it’s centered, something about where it goes, but we haven’t known how it flows.
So the revelation that Karl Rove has operated outside the "EOP" email system on a variety of RNC Servers tells us a lot more than just something about his involvement in the U.S. Attorney firings. It’s a window into how his system for coordinating all the Rovian goings on that have heretofor been a big mystery.
Karl Rove is no fool. He’s very unlikely to have left a paper trail, or even an email trail of his communications – at least the kind of communications that must lie at the heart of his constant orchestration of the Administration Persona and its Shadows. I would expect that he’s quite proficient at deleting his emails all by himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if key people weren’t under a directive to also delete his emails at will. Recall that his ploy with the Plame Investigation was to suddenly discover emails that didn’t show up in the supoenaed emails Fitzgerald had access to. I wonder if the retrieved email to Hadley was from this alternative RNC server [Fitz seems to have known about it, and as much as I venerate Patrick Fitzgerald, Why didn’t he tell us? Supoena him too].
The only other real possibility was that he’s conducted his business by cell phone, but I suspect that the allure of the Blackberry was too great. So, has he chronically covered his tracks by deleting email from the get go? Did he think that he could operate this alternative system without being called to task for the whole of George Bush’s Reign?
I’d actually bet he did think that. For six years, he’s operated in a world almost devoid of effective oversight. Except for whistle blowers and supoenas, he’s been behind a modern digital analog of the Russian "Iron Curtain." At issue, will it work? Can he be busted for not having emails available to supoena? I think he can, but not so long as he gets to stay behind his firewall. I think he’s going to have to be brought out into the light of day, supoenaed into a Congressional Hearing, maybe even one that is an investigation with his name in the title.
Some time next week would be fine with me.
And as long as he’s there, why not ask him about voter fraud. He made a speech about that to the National Association of Republican Lawyers – the one where he evoked images of an evil empire of guys with mirrored sunglasses. Maybe he could share with us his evidence, and how he came to be such a champion of sanitized politics…
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